The marriage equality ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps are establishing their campaign narratives. If the ‘yes’ campaign is to win, it’s important that they understand what the ‘no’ camp is doing, and fight back against their strategy at every opportunity.

No political campaign can offer everything to everyone, so messaging must be targeted towards specific groups at the most relevant times. There are three groups that the ‘yes’ campaign need to be aware of. As per Essential Media’s latest poll, there are the ‘committed yes’ group, which make up 57% of the population. Then there are the ‘committed nos’ at 32%. And the ‘don’t knows’ at 11%.

The ‘yes’ camp has speedily mobilised an impressive grass roots campaign to get voters on the electoral roll. The narrative of this enrol campaign is spot on to encourage those in the ‘committed yes’ group who weren’t previously on the roll, or who needed to update their details, to make sure they can place the yes vote they are clearly committed to placing. Correctly, the narrative of this campaign is to invite the ‘committed yes’ voters to be part of something big, to stand up for equality, to do the right thing and to feel good about the part they have played in a big outcome. It is entirely appropriate that this narrative expand the question of marriage equality to the larger issue of standing up for human rights, and for valuing love above all else.

However, now that the enrolment deadline has passed, as much as it might go against the yes camp’s natural affinity with this enlarged ‘this is a big deal’ narrative, it’s time to turn attention away from the ‘committed yes’, and focus on the 11% of ‘don’t knows’. In order to target this group effectively, the yes narrative needs to reduce the issue of marriage equality to a smaller, less momentous decision, rather than make it the earth-changing story that the yes camp has been using in the enrolment period.

The yes camp should understand the game plan the ‘no’ camp are using, and why they’re using it. They are not targeting the ‘committed nos’, because they already have them in the bag. If people are voting no because of religious beliefs, or because of a range of ideological beliefs; everything from intolerance of diversity, to bigotry, homophobia, to conservative views of marriage, a fear of the ‘slippery slope’ outcome and unisex toilets, the no camp would be wasting their dollars preaching to the choir, and the yes camp would be wasting their effort trying to change their stuck-in-the-mud minds.

The no camp, instead, have latched onto the understanding that human beings fear uncertainty. They are therefore trying to scare the ‘don’t knows’ over into the ‘committed nos’ group by expanding the question of marriage equality into an ever-growing list of scary, threatening, uncertain outcomes. That way, if people aren’t sure what the outcome of a ‘yes’ vote would be, they will be sucked into the ‘no’ narrative, believing that marriage equality will somehow threaten their mixed-gender marriages, threaten Australian values, threaten their family, threaten their right to religious freedom, to free speech, will threaten the children of gay parents, and will get its scary tentacles into a range of never-properly-explained-vague-threats to every aspect of the community. The more uncertain the no camp can make the outcome of marriage equality, the more likely the ‘I don’t knows’ will tend towards ticking ‘no’, out of a fear of not understanding what a ‘yes’ vote will mean.

This is why the yes camp need to avoid expanding the outcome of marriage equality into a bigger moment for the country than simply allowing LGBTI people to get married. I understand why some campaigners in the yes camp will find this a difficult suggestion; many of them have been fighting their whole lives to have the right to marry their beloved partner, and for them it is a huge outcome to finally be allowed to do that. For them it means acceptance, normalcy, the end of out-dated discrimination and it means being able to legally join in union with their partner. It’s an outcome as big as their whole world. But even so, the ‘don’t knows’ need to be convinced back from the ‘no’ dark side with the narrative of certainty. And this certainty needs to reduce the magnitude of the decision to its literal outcome: that everyone in the community, no matter their sexuality and gender orientation, is free to get married. A situation which will have zero impact on anyone but the people able to get married, and of course their loved ones who can celebrate with them. In fact, the more every-day, common-sense the yes camp can make this outcome, the better. So, perhaps an advertisement that shows a gay couple negotiating difficult pre-wedding plans, such as where to seat crazy aunt Linda and deciding who gets to choose which cars they arrive in. The narrative here is: we are just like you, and you are allowed to get married, so why shouldn’t we have the chance too?

This yes narrative can also be used to fight back against the tentacles-in-every-aspect-of-your-lives threat from the no camp through the simple statement of: ‘no, marriage equality is not going to change everything. It actually has a very certain outcome. All it means is that everyone can get married, just like you can’. This means not getting into debates with no campaigners about free speech, about freedom of religion, about the impact of gay marriage on the children of gay parents. It means being firm and repetitive with the promise that marriage equality impacts no one but those who currently can’t get married.

Just like the mistake climate change activists have been making for years (including me) in trying to argue with deniers, by arguing with the garbage from the no campaign, you give their position legitimacy and imbed the idea that there are uncertain outcomes from marriage equality. Instead, keep it simple. Keep it small. Rinse and repeat. Celebrate when the yes vote wins. And then the battle begins to get the yes vote through parliament.

Red Star flags and missile carriers are everywhere in this week’s best-directed mass military rally in Pyongyang Wednesday. North Korean soldiers in high-crowned hats like painted halos march frenetically across our screens, their unique, bouncing goose-step a tribute to their athleticism, indomitable spirit and edgy photogenic villainy.

‘Rogue state’ hysteria triggers fear of global nuclear war. Our local MPs heave a sigh of relief. Out of the spotlight, Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew “Mafia” Guy takes a spell from his epic struggle to shake himself free of news of his “lobster with a mobster” Liberal fundraiser.  His Laura Norder campaign is at risk.

The Victorian Liberals don’t have anything else by way of policy. News Corp backs them heavily – raving about how victims love Liberals’ promises of “toughest ever sentences”. The Herald Sun creates a rising crime wave hysteria. Victoria is the state of lawlessness. It will be safe only when the Liberals bring in a two strike approach.

Mandatory minimum sentencing policies ignore a vast body of evidence showing that this approach to sentencing is expensive, unlikely to improve public safety and of no use in deterring future offending. But it has populist appeal and – as with any good terror programme -it cynically obscures the lack of any real policy.

Things get tricky when a secret recording shows Guy is lying. He claims he didn’t know which cool Calabrian businessman dude was about to shout him a cray at Beaumaris’ The Lobster Cave. Yet Fairfax sources report Guy’s office was informed that Mr Madafferi would be one of the guests. He attacks the secret recording.

Guy lies about the gathering’s size. His claim of 20 becomes six or seven when a witness dobs him in to 3AW.

The Opposition Leader is busted when Liberal staffer, Barrie Macmillan, un tipo losco, (a shady character) himself, is taped advising how to split up donations under the $13,200 threshold to avert being traced back to their donors.

“They want to give Matthew a substantial donation towards next year. Now, I understand what they can and can’t do,” bagman Bazza helpfully explains on a recording obtained by ABC’s Four Corners and Fairfax.

“I know how that all works, so you can’t associate Matthew with money, and I would have to be the intermediary, but I’m talking about a swag of money that they’re prepared to give for them.”

Shady? Astonishingly, the five-year veteran Liberal Party fundraiser, turns out to have a criminal past. In 2006, while convicting him and ordering him to repay $25,000 to a local junior football team he defrauded , the magistrate told Macca he should never be involved in fund-raising-again.  But the Libs did not help him.

Liberal Party membership application rules do not require new members to declare prior convictions.

It has been alleged, in court, that Guy’s pal, Antonio “Tony” Madafferi, a market gardener whose business interests include the La Porchetta restaurant chain, is a don in Melbourne’s Calabrian mafia.

Madafferi denies any connections with organised crime. He has never been charged with any offences.  He sets his lawyer on to James Merlino for implying he’s a mobster.

Madafferi has, however, been banned from Crown Casino and all Victorian racetracks over his alleged links with crime. None of this, of course, would ever have come to the attention of Matthew Guy or his office.

In an affidavit filed in court in June, Detective Superintendent Peter Brigham said police hold “substantial intelligence” indicating that Madafferi had “substantial and close involvement with serious criminal conduct including drug importation, murder and extortion”.

Brigham also alleged that Madafferi is,

“a known associate of prominent criminal entities and persons who have a history of significant criminal conduct that includes money laundering and drug trafficking”.

Yet Guy insists he met with long-time Liberal supporter Frank Lamattina and his cousin, Tony Madafferi, to discuss fruit and vegetable markets. Epping. As you do. No donations were made. But how would we know?

Macmillan, a former Datsun salesman and Tattersall’s agent resigns. He’s a fallen fall guy for Guy. Anywhere else, Guy would also have to resign, but in Victoria the (market) garden state, Liberals have powerful friends.

In 2013, as Victoria’s Planning Minister, Guy also was just an innocent diner who attended Liberal fundraising dinners with developers who had major planning applications he would decide on. “I did nothing wrong”, he explained at the time, despite then Premier, Ted Baillieu’s ban on ministers doing dinner with donors.

Also doing nothing wrong but being caught out not reporting 53,000 deposits of $20,000 because of just one maverick line of code is the Commonwealth Bank. Such a simple, innocent mistake – and only one error.

CEO Ian “nifty” Narev’s brilliant one slip-$1060 000 000 -defence is playing well. So clever of the bank to cast a Sontaran as its top banana.  Narev will slip out quietly with a golden parachute discreetly after his show.

Yet the CBA, part of our nation’s oligopoly of usurers, extortionists and silver-tongued con-men is relieved to be out of the spotlight over its you-beaut money-laundering for terrorists and drug syndicates ATM scam while Bruce Billson’s delicious double-dipping scandal can’t compete with nukes. Oh what a lovely war-scare.

Being paid by The Franchise Council of Australia, the same outfit he was lobbying for, while still being paid to be an MP, “for months”, as former Small-Business Minister Billson admits this week, will not embarrass a Liberal Party joined at the hip to employers, bankers, developers – and fruiterers. He’s off the hook. Almost.

In politics, there ain’t no such thing as a free lobster.

Always eager to promote the small business backbone of our economy, Billson was instrumental in helping Francesco, another Madafferi family member and suspected Mafia figure, obtain a permanent visa in 2004 – a year after his supporters, who included Antonio Madafferi, donated to the Liberal Party.

Billson, along with Greg Hunt, Marise Payne, Russell Broadbent successfully lobbied or contacted then Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. Whilst the MPs protest their naiveté, their association raises serious questions and has inspired calls for reform of the nation’s political party donations racket.

Billson “conveys his apologies to the clerk of the house for this error”.  Yet you can barely hear Billson’s apology for his corrupt behaviour, so loudly bark the dogs of war. Suddenly humdrum, day-to-day dealings of our nation’s rogues, knaves and MPs are swept aside in a tsunami of  “Konghanzheng” or Koreaphobia.

2GB’s veteran guest MP, expert military fetishist, the ever-practical Tony Abbott, calls for a national missile shield to be installed immediately. Later, the junkyard dog-whistler, may insist the North Koreans pay for it.

MSM hiss “the rogue state’s” rude defiance of US threats of nuclear annihilation and eternal demonisation.  How dare North Korea reject new ‘UN sanctions’ – on its exports of coal, iron and metallic ores, and seafood, amounting to $US1 billion or a third of its earnings from exports to China, its major trading partner?

Kim calls the measures “a panicky response by a US bully”. He warns he has four missiles ready to lob into the sea off Guam unless the US stops its B-1 long-range bomber sorties from its US Pacific island territory.

Such base ingratitude. Media frame Kim as an utter psychopath; a suicidal maniac or just “The Fat Kid”. Not even the administration’s leaked decapitation strike plan can get Kim to pull his oddly tonsured head in.

Worse. Dear Leader has the US president’s number. In diplomatic slap-down of the week, Kim-Jung-un says Trump is “spouting nonsense”. No more Mr Nice Guy from the leader of the world’s top “evil regime”.

Kim hits back. The sanctions will cripple his nation’s economy. He gets personal. “Sound dialogue” is impossible with a person “bereft of reason”. He echoes other leaders’ frustration with Trump’s just “Being There” presidency.

“Only absolute force can work on him”, he adds. At least he’ll get Trump’s attention.

He’s on to Trump. Even fun-loving Kim can tell, Trump is wasting his time “on the golf links,” instead of skulking behind a desk faking being president, as he must, on non-golfing or non-Fox News-watching days.

Ouch. At least he leaves alone the Commander in cheat’s multiple mulligans or how he forges his scorecard.

Kim says Trump’s gone dotty. He’s “bereft of reason”. He does not “grasp the ongoing grave situation.” His comments “show his senility.” He is “extremely getting on the nerves” of North Korean soldiers.  Take that.

No pussy-footing around from a chap who’s fed his rellies to his dogs – a Chinese satirical newspaper’s joke which instantly became “fact” in MSM accounts of Kim’s depravity and North Korea’s weirdness.

The demonisation of Kim and his state is thoroughgoing and includes the myth of the official Kim haircut, a fabrication recently exposed by two Aussie journalists who made a film, The Haircut (2017) – A North Korean Adventure about their recent trip to Pyongyang for a hipster haircut.

There is little doubt, however, he sent his uncle Jang to his death. But what if the US pushes him to the wall?

His people have had a gutful – according to the street theatre. Thousands of white-shirted workers march through Pyongyang Square angrily brandishing flags. The other hand does a taekwondo air punch.

Back in Canberra, a macho Mal endorses The Donald’s latest madness in provoking North Korea; threatening “fire and fury”. Turnbull invokes ANZUS, for the second time in our history. It’s a distortion of a treaty which is just an agreement to consult but he’s playing hard the only card left him, the loyal US sycophant.

Turnbull pledges Australia’s unqualified support in an unknown conflict between a con-man, a fake president and a crazy dictator. Oddly, there seems to be a reluctance from any other US ally to rush headlong into another bloodbath.

By Sunday, he’s looking typically over eager – just as he did when he fawned and gushed all over Trump in his meeting last May on the USS Intrepid, in New York.

Is war with North Korea likely? Despite Trump’s bluster, there’s been no change to US troop deployment or alert status in the region. Unlike our own leader, China’s president Xi Jinping rings Trump Saturday to ask him to tone down his rhetoric. All is going to plan. Trump’s real aim is to get China to cut off North Korea’s oil.

The show must go on. All trace of last week’s electrifying travelling family mincer-jihadi terror drama is expunged by the fire and fury of this week’s national thriller. “Locked and loaded”, Donald Trump’s hairy-chested homage to John Wayne of Iwo Jima, goes viral. Malcolm Turnbull tries out a macho swagger himself.

“I am a strong leader,” Malcolm Turnbull tells Canberra’s press, Monday, despite his lame-duck government’s latest failure of nerve; a plebiscite-cum-survey to kick the can of marriage equality down the road.

“Strong leaders carry out their promises. Weak leaders break them.”  It’s a dig at Abbott and a hollow boast which backfires badly. It’s obvious to all assembled that Turnbull’s promise to be anything but Abbott in a better suit is now irretrievably broken. Only a weak leader would draw attention to his own inadequacy so publicly.  Whatever epithet he may end up wearing, he will always be the Liberals’ Great Disappointment.

On the back foot again, this time, the PM shoots himself in the other. Journalists smirk. No strong leader ever talks up his toughness. Or needs a side-kick on stage for backup. On twin lectern, to add grunt in stereo, is muscular straight-face heavyweight, Matthias Cormann, the Liberals’ fiscal Belgian schutzhund.

Can the government afford to go postal?  Does it have authority to fund the survey? The Finance Minister claims he has a $295 million line of credit to fund “anything unexpected or unforeseen”. A $122 million non-compulsory postal opinion poll to do parliament’s job for it certainly fits the bill. Other experts disagree.

The PM attempts to set the week’s tone. He certainly fails to set the agenda. Authority rules.  Briefly.  Seven’s Mark Riley cheekily asks why he is so weak on marriage equality; why yet again he is so keen to follow others rather than take the lead himself.

It’s not for want of body language. Our PM demonstrates his personal authority with his signature choppy hand movements. It’s as if he’s rinsing a lettuce at a sink. Then he’s back to Kill Bill, a game the whole party can play. And fear. Shorten will be “the most dangerous leftwing leader in generations”.

Left wing? Bill’s a member of the Victorian ALP Right?

Shorten has got to Turnbull. Cut him to the quick with an impassioned speech in the house on marriage equality. And he has threatened to hold Mr Turnbull “responsible for every hurtful bit of filth” “unleashed” during the same-sex marriage survey debate.

In an amazing performance, our government by evasion has duck-shoved its responsibility while pretending it’s honouring a fake election pledge to lumber us with a same-sex marriage plebiscite. There was no campaign promise of a postal plan B if a plebiscite failed to pass the senate, as a reporter reminds the PM.

It’s not a plebiscite of course and it the term “survey” soon replaces it. No-one knows what authority it will have. It’s being tested in the High Court in two legal challenges which will come before the full bench of the court on September 5 and 6, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel tells a hearing in Sydney on Friday.

One challenge is by Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie and Australian Marriage Equality and Victorian Greens senator. Janet Rice. Should these succeed, the government has no plan B.

Whatever the court decides about the legality of the postal survey, it’s no substitute for the conscience vote in parliament that Turnbull is forbidden by his National Party minders to embrace.

Nor is it fair, given the capacity for postal surveys to favour older voters, conservative voters and retain the status quo. Despite all the prompting the yes cause can muster, young people may well be loath to register just to take part in a junk-mail survey which is likely to be ignored by a government that has lost their trust.

Last election, there were almost a million young people missing from the electoral roll; too alienated to bother to register to vote. Voter turnout was the lowest since 1925.

Not only does it lack leadership, there is something fundamentally tacky about a government which can contrive to allow itself to be guided by a non-binding, non compulsory postal opinion survey on a basic human right.

After calculated vacillation, indecision and cowardly prevarication, the Coalition has opted to allow the mob-majority to sit in judgement on the human rights of a minority.

Shorten is right to voice his fears that in the process many Australians will be hurt. In effect, the process virtually guarantees a maximum of damaging propaganda. It’s already started. Bronwyn Bishop on Sky News claims that marriage equality will lead to bestiality and the killing of newborn children.

Worse, old jelly back Malcolm Turnbull, a leader who bizarrely tells parliament that being PM makes him too busy to lead debate, has made no effort to rebuke, rebut or reprimand her. It’s a telling abdication.

Then there’s Tony Abbott, disciple of BA Santamaria and nineteen fifties’ throwback, who leads those who would make the campaign about something else. He would turn his back on modernity while spreading his irrational fear of a nurturing, tolerant, progressive, pluralist society. He doesn’t care if he causes suffering.

He’s prepared to lie because he knows most Australians are in favour of marriage equality and he knows he can’t win if he acknowledges that a no vote is a denial of a human right. He’s cynically misrepresenting the issue.

Abbott’s got a solid track record of success in disinformation whether it be in his white-anting of Gillard, with gratuitous misogyny or his repeal of a price on carbon emissions we urgently needed but which he labelled a great big new tax on everything.

“I say to you if you don’t like same-sex marriage, vote no,” says Abbott. “If you’re worried about religious freedom and freedom of speech, vote no, and if you don’t like political correctness, vote no because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks.”

Director of an organisation which calls itself the Australian Christian Lobby, but which gets plenty of support from US fundamentalists, Lyle Shelton, writes that “the marriage plebiscite is a referendum on freedom of speech and ‘safe schools'”. He laments the “stolen generation” that are the children of Australian gays.

The week ends in uncertainty as the diversion tactic of the threat of nuclear war yields to something more prosaic and destructive, a government which lacks both leadership and moral authority.

As the case of Matthew “Mafia” Guy and lobster with the mobster suggests, the modern Liberal Party covets funds above all else. It is as recklessly indulgent of its donors as it is heedless of the needs of the ordinary voter – or as it is of any promptings of conscience; or moral compass.

Bluster all he may about being a strong leader, Australia can see ever more clearly how deeply Malcolm Turnbull is in thrall to his party’s moribund conservatives and its modern amoral money-men.

He is a Prime Minister in title only who heads a government in retreat from reality, a government which is so keen to evade its basic responsibilities that it is willing to commission a $122 million junk-mail survey to prove the point. It has no real concern over the hurt it will cause nor of the human rights it tramples.

Ironically, if the Turnbull government had hoped to consign the issue to the background for the next three months, to clear the decks to prepare itself for re-election, it will find it has, instead, done everything in its power to guarantee the reverse.

Wednesday 9 August 2017

So the best-assembled brains-trust ever in the history of Australian politics has decided to let the issue of Marriage Equality go yet again down the path of a plebiscite.

So desperate they are to have the public confirm what is already known that they are prepared to spend up to $170 million of taxpayer’s money to prove it so.

They have decided to take Tony Abbott’s delaying route that will see the (non-binding) plebiscite reintroduced in the Senate where they know it will be defeated. And they knew this before the meeting on Monday.

Knowing that, they then said they would go to a postal vote that they also knew would probably not withstand what would be a rather venomous challenge in the High Court. Or it may turn out that parliamentary approval is needed for a postal plebiscite, and that certainly wouldn’t be forthcoming.

They now plan to have the postal vote in November but scant information is available and at the press conference midday yesterday, which the Prime Minister treated like a sideshow, not one journalist thought to ask the question: “what will the question be?”

In fact, I found his attitude condescending and unworthy of an Australian Prime Minister. He was giving the impression of a man who found the whole thing beneath him. And we mustn’t forget the damage this open debate will cause. There will be accusation upon accusation. Tony Abbott will lead the Christian nutters brigade and a lot of people will get hurt and as the PM said at the pressor, he won’t have much time for it. What a pathetic bunch of people they are. “I have many other calls on my time … national security, energy, the economy,” he said.

In addition, they also knew that they could have a conscience vote in the parliament this week, cop a bit of flack for caving in, then the matter would be done and dusted and everyone could move on. All with a minimum of fuss, easily and cheaply at that, doing what they were elected to do.

They could even applaud themselves for legislating gay marriage.

It makes one wonder why we elect MPs if they are too gutless to make decisions that reflect our beliefs.

But no, these people with degrees from Oxford and many of the worlds finest learning institutions preferred to keep the matter bubbling along, further infuriating a populace that is sick and tired of their procrastination.

And all this on the principle that they had made a promise at the last election that they couldn’t break. This proposition is difficult to accept when they have in the past broken promises with gay abandon (pardon the pun). And a postal vote is not what they took to the last election.

God only knows how men and women of such esteemed learning could get themselves into such a quagmire of ineptitude.

Now we know that the conservative ilk toward change is to resist it with all the ideology one’s party can gather but this is rather like an invitation to the electorate to kick you out of office sooner rather than later.

It is indeed strange that a party that presumes the rights and freedoms of the individual as sacrosanct would be withholding equal rights and freedoms from a large portion of the population.

One has to – given the trustworthiness of this government – suspect that there is more to this non-binding, non-compulsory postal plebiscite. My feeling is that it will be largely doctored to suite the ‘no’ vote. The government won’t disclose its structure even though they say it might be initiated by as early as next week. Is there something fishy here?

There are a few conclusions we can reach here. Firstly, Marriage Equality will come about despite the conservative’s prevarication and needless fear mongering. All their homophobic slurs will be written into our country’s history and the shame of their action will be recorded for future generations to witness. Even if the ‘no’ vote were to get up because of a protest of silence then the matter will remain unresolved. And if the ‘yes’ vote wins MPs will not be bound to respect the will of the people. Now thats democracy for you.

Secondly, it beggars belief that this postal vote of dubious legal standing – this ludicrous option is the best that these people with degrees printed on the finest parchment could come up with.

Thirdly, it once again reveals just who holds the reins of power in the Liberal Party. However Turnbull chooses to parrot his support for a plebiscite, the public will be judging his weakness of leadership and the hypocrisy that floats along with it.

Fourthly, are we observing the death throes of a once proud Liberal Party with a legendary broad church of views? Maybe it’s a little early for that but it’s hard to imagine that both the hard right and the small ‘L’ remnants will be able to coexist for much longer. About all they can agree on at present is the time and date.

Fifthly, we may be witnessing the end of a political career of a man who showed so much potential as a leader but had neither the intestinal fortitude nor the courage to take on his opponents.

He has had ample opportunity to show his leadership qualities but he seems to be restricted by the contents of a certain agreement with the National Party.

He is only – hypothetically – another poll closer to losing his job.

An observation

“There are males in my life whom I can say I really love because their goodness transcends self, and manifests itself in empathy towards others. To love someone of the same-sex is as normal as loving someone of the opposite sex because love has no gender. Indeed love is when there is an irresistible urge for the need of the affection of another and the irresistibility is of its nature mutual’ Gender has nothing to do with it.”

My thought for the day.

“In the recipe of what makes a good leader there are many ingredients. Self-awareness is one. The innate ability to know whom you are and what your capabilities and limitations are. The need to have the aptitude to motivate people with your vision. Often the art of leadership is the ability to bring those otherwise opposed to your view, to accept it. It is also about delegation, empathy and understanding. It can also require from time to time the making of unpopular decisions. Decisions like going to war. However when they consistently imply the leaders own morality and spiritual beliefs they are more akin to autocracy.”

By Brian Morris

Why politicised religion is at odds with the public mood on contemporary social policy.

There are national implications for the persistent influence that permeates our legislatures — a religious presence that now offends three-quarters of the community.  It’s a political malaise we inherited along with colonisation — largely ignored by media but recently described as a “theocracy inside our democracy”.

Rather than representing public opinion on contemporary social policy our federal and state MPs increasingly reflect an escalation of this ecumenical elitism. It’s not dissimilar to “establishment elitism” that created such public angst — a boil-over that prompted Brexit and the calamity of Donald Trump seizing the presidency.

Why is it that our politicians fail to respond to the mood of the populous? Federal parliament failed to act on popular support for same-sex marriage — an abrupt repudiation of a conscience vote coupled with malicious determination to run a costly and divisive plebiscite. Until rogue senators finally echoed public dissent.

Again, in the early hours of November 17, South Australian MPs showed equal contempt for overwhelming public support on Voluntary Euthanasia (VE). The Bill was dishonestly defeated — for the 15th time. VE is a secular initiative that consistently registers 75 per cent approval from the voting public.

So why is this continual parliamentary rejection of VE so “dishonest” — and what is the common denominator that puts these MPs so staggeringly out of step with public opinion?

One clue is the ‘category‘ of social policy that is constantly defeated. It’s abortion (still illegal in Queensland), it’s contraception (remember RU486), it’s gay marriage, it’s religious instruction in schools and prayers in parliament, and it’s Voluntary Euthanasia. All are issues opposed by our devoutly Christian politicians.

Inescapably, the Bible is a determining factor here. Now a figurehead for the VE cause, Andrew Denton describes this blatant unwanted intrusion as a “subterranean Catholic force”.

And blatant it is. An IPSOS poll earlier this year showed that 78 per cent of Australians wanted a clear separation of government and religion. The August Census will also confirm all recent polls that show the nation is now majority religion-neutral.

But with monotonous regularity a raft of social policy is dishonestly defeated by parliaments who command a Christian voting cabal that far outnumbers public support.  For VE, that ratio is an alarming 2 to 1.

At worst, only 25 per cent of South Australians oppose voluntary euthanasia — yet 51 per cent of the state’s MPs voted it down. And this was not to move the Bill into law but simply to take it to a committee stage for review and fine-tuning. It was a complete repudiation of the public’s demand for a Dying with Dignity law.

What makes this cycle of defeat so dishonest — for all manner of secular legislation — is the basis on which MPs parade a litany of flawed and fallacious arguments in an attempt to camouflage their biblical beliefs. They use arguments shown to be false — over many years — in all the countries which have legislated for VE.

It seems bizarre that religious MPs will stand, straight-faced, arguing vehemently about the “slippery slope”, the “lack of medical safeguards”, and a gradual degeneration of any VE law to permit “lonely and depressed” young people to commit “legalised suicide”.  These are deceitful fear campaigns that subvert the truth.

In August 2015 Tony Abbott — a celebrity Catholic — staged his joint Liberal-National party room meeting that voted 60 to 30 against a conscience vote on same-sex marriage, opting instead for the $160m plebiscite. Malcolm Turnbull, also as Catholic, continues to defy public and parliamentary calls for a conscience vote.

Why are we electing politicians with religious beliefs that are wholly out of step with contemporary Australia? ‘Personal faith’ is one thing, but the propensity to politically exercise extreme Christianity is quite different!

How much more honest — how much more courageous — and how much more transparent parliaments would become if politicians just had the fortitude to declare their opposition to VE — and to all social policy — was based primarily on their personal religious beliefs!

And that would greatly assist the entire democratic process. Electors would become more acutely aware of how their state and federal MPs voted on all secular legislation that is influenced — to a greater or lesser degree — by passages taken from the Old Testament. And Christianity is founded on this First Book — the very justification for Jesus’ crucifixion is rooted in “atonement of original sin”; and other biblical fables!

Indeed, it is this ‘Hebrew Bible’ that dictates the “values” held by extreme Christians. These are the MPs who influence the entire contemporary social agenda – a religio-political elite that rejects the wishes of voters. And that clearly includes the 78 per cent of voters who vainly demand the separation of religion and politics.

Image from heraldsun.com.au

Next time I hear someone say ‘Clinton and Trump are both terrible candidates’, or some variation on this theme, I will scream. Part of the reason I find this statement so annoying, so unhelpful, and so unfair to Clinton, is because I still have post-traumatic stress after seeing the same thing happen to Gillard, when she was painted as falsely-equivalent to Abbott.

As a female leader or candidate, and as a progressive, there is a double layer of expectation. That expectation is that you are P-E-R-F-E-C-T in every way. So, for instance, if you, like Gillard, roll out over 300 pieces of perfectly legitimate, progressive and good-for-society policies and legislation, but there are one, two, maybe three things that you did which many progressives don’t agree with, you’re DEAD TO THEM.

For Gillard, it was one of her decisions about asylum seekers, a change to single-parent welfare and/or opposition to gay marriage which are the only policy decisions some progressives seem to talk about, remember, hold against her, and cause them to say Gillard is just as bad as Abbott. For Clinton, it’s her email scandal. Or her ties to Wall Street. Apparently there is no leeway to say ‘oh well, Clinton’s not the perfect progressive candidate’, or ‘Gillard’s not the perfect progressive Prime Minister’, but also to accept they are still a good progressive leader. And far preferable to their loony right-wing contender. For the ‘they’re dead to me’ crowd, there is no grey in the black-white judgement about whether either is a legitimate candidate or leader. No matter what policies Clinton puts forward, her quest to continue Obama’s legacy in most policy areas, and in some to improve them, is ignored. Her haters just focus on the areas where they don’t agree with her. It’s incredible how all the good policies, ideas, hard-work, commitment and leadership ability that Clinton and Gillard bring to the table, counts for nothing for some people.

There’s also the standard that ‘the woman did ok’ as long as she didn’t stuff up, such as many appraisals of Clinton’s debate performances.  But for Trump, if he doesn’t stuff up, he’s the winner. The bar is just set lower for men.

Now, I’m not saying it’s all a female thing, but I am saying females have encountered this problem before. For example, the expectation that female news readers are immaculate, thin, covered in make-up and definitely should not have grey hair. But men? Anything goes really. And what about the fact that Australian women are increasingly working just as many hours as men, but are still, in most families, doing the vast bulk of child care and household chores? Is this just a woman’s lot? For our female politicians, is it just their lot to be judged to be perfect or terrible, with no continuum, no balanced perspective, nothing in between?

It’s impossible to ignore the gendered part of this equation. But there is also a ‘progressive versus conservative’ element. Put bluntly, most right-wing voters don’t give a crap about the policies right-wing candidates serve up, as long as they promise to reduce taxes. But for left-wingers, you’re not just expected to have a policy for every-occasion, pushing the boundaries of progress every second of the day, and also to know every detail of these thousands of policies, and how much they will cost, at a moment’s notice. When you try to explain policy details, you’re called ‘beige’ and ‘uninspiring’.

Progressive leaders are also meant to live up to the hugely unrealistic expectation that they’ll win elections without making friends with business interests, while competing against the war-chest of business interests funding the neoliberal candidate on the right. So, for instance, Clinton is evil because she’s had paid speaking gigs for Wall Street bankers. No matter that she’s vowed to close tax-loopholes which see billions lost in corporate tax-evasion. No matter that she’s made wealth inequality the centrepiece of her ‘stronger together’ narrative. Because a New York Senator low and behold has some rich Wall Street supporters backing her campaign, she’s DEAD to many progressives. Sad, isn’t it?

I adored Julia Gillard as Prime Minister, and still count her as my number one hero. I didn’t always agree with her, but I’m not naïve to think there will ever be a politician who I could possibly always agree with. It is so disappointing to now be watching Clinton, who, like Gillard, will never be perfect, but shouldn’t be expected to be, written off as ‘just as bad as Trump’. Comparing Gillard and Clinton to Abbott and Trump, for a progressive, is like comparing a slightly blemished apple with a rotten, maggot-filled orange. Those saying ‘Clinton and Trump are just as bad as each other’, apparently, would throw both pieces of fruit in the bin and go hungry in another act of counterproductive, Abbott-electing ridiculousness, rather than give Clinton, or Gillard, the credit they deserve.

I will be excited when Clinton is elected as the first female US President. I will be critical of her decisions when justified, and appreciative of her good work when justified. As it should be.