Australian Politics, Mark II

Not true

There are learners and lifters all over the place

Heaps of shirt lifters anyway. And as Skyhooks said
all over my TV.

Politics from the Pulpit

Scott Morrison is Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister. He is a member of the Horizon Church in Sutherland, which is part of the Australian Christian Churches network. He attends regularly. No one, including the author of this piece, would deny him the right to choose his religious affiliation or to apply his Christian beliefs in his workplace.

What were disquieting though were the reactions and the proclamations of Pentecostal leaders about his ascension to the prime ministership. Gareth Hutchens wrote about this comprehensively in The Guardian , from which I quote extensively. Do play the video at the head of this article.

Last Sunday, pastor Adam F Thompson from the Voice of Fire Ministries and Adrian Beale from Everrest Ministries told a congregation at Hope City Church that “ Morrison’s elevation to power was divinely inspired” , and warned that “darkness” will spread across Australia and Christians will be persecuted if Morrison does not win the next election.

Thompson, who claims that supernatural signs accompany his ministry and that he can interpret dreams, proclaimed that he’d received a message from God that Morrison and the Coalition must win the election. “The Lord woke me up at 4.30 am this morning.”

Thompson continued: “Scott Morrison, he’s a born-again Christian, he’s probably one of the first ever born-again prime ministers, but it’s not time to celebrate at the moment. This is a crucial time right now 
 In the next six months, it’s time for the body of Christ to put its differences aside 
 and come together and agree that Jesus is the Messiah and start praying together for our prime minister, and for our government. I really see that the body of Christ is going to have influence in the political arena of this nation. (my emphasis).

Thompson was adamant: “
if the prime minister doesn’t get elected in this next election there’s going to be darkness coming. And I’m not being negative. The laws are going to change where darkness is going to come and there will be persecution on the church.”

He asked his congregation if they truly wanted a Pentecostal revival and reformation in Australia, and went on: “If it doesn’t happen in the next year
the laws are going to come in, where they’re going to change and darkness will come. The Lord is saying he wants us to rise up and pray, rather than come into persecution where we’ll have no choice.”

Beale from Everrest Ministries leads his congregation in prayer for Morrison, calling on God to help Australians grasp the value of his intervention in the leadership spill. “Just as Scott has come to the fore, unexpected Lord, you’ve kept him hidden for a time such as this
Lord, we pray that the whole of the body of Christ in Australia would grasp the value of what you’ve done, Lord, and get behind our new leader 
 and that the next election would be won so that godly principles would be put into place, rather than the enemy having his way.”

Another pastor, Warwick Marsh from the Australian Christian Values Institute claimed three days of prayer and fasting had been answered with two miracles. “Firstly the Senate voted down the euthanasia in the territories proposal. This was an absolute miracle. Secondly, the Liberal Party voted in a new prime minister, Scott Morrison, after a week of political turmoil
 Many people here in Australia of faith believe this was a miracle of God. It would seem that this is a direct answer to our prayers, as we prayed against the erosion of our Christian freedoms under the forthcoming Ruddock report.”

Other Pentecostal leaders too declared that Morrison’s rise to power was a “miracle of God” that answered three days of prayer and fasting, and that God had intervened to ensure he defeated Peter Dutton in the leadership contest.

Morrison’s office says he has never met Thompson, Beale or Marsh.

Is that enough to alarm you? For the first time in decades, we see pastors of a church, in this case the Pentecostal Church, telling their congregations that the election of our new prime minister by the Liberal Party room was a ‘miracle’ of God, brought about by prayer, and that if he is not re-elected, darkness will descend on our nation and the church. The clear message to their parishioners is: ‘Vote Morrison in again, or else!’

Those of you who are as old as I am will remember the political influence wielded by another cleric, Daniel Mannix, who was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1917 to 1963. He was notorious for his blatant attempts to inveigle his parishioners to vote the way he indicated. Mannix’s best-known protĂ©gĂ© in his later years was B. A. Santamaria, Tony Abbott’s idol. Mannix authorised Santamaria to form the Catholic Social Studies Movement, known as ‘The Movement’, to organise within the unions and defeat the Communists. The Movement was so successful in its efforts that by 1949 it had taken control of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party.

Mannix’s involvement in politics continued for many years. Eventually, it was opposed by Cardinal Gilroy, Archbishop of Sydney, and also by the Vatican which, in 1957, ruled that the Movement should not interfere in politics.

We’ve experienced before the downside of religious figures exerting political influence. It’s been a long while since the Mannix era, but it looks as if we may be in for a reprise, this time from the Pentecostal Churches.

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I certainly remember priests telling us to vote for the DLP.

Sundry cousins said that they stopped being invited to birthday parties depending on which side of the Split their parents landed.

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Jesus farking Christ

Born before 1946, but a mystery why labelled a builder.

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[Nation-]builder.

Is that you Bob?

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Post WW2 RE Builder?

Not stated in that article, but Mannix prevented a lot of Australians from being killed in a war that had nothing to do with any threat to Australia; a war that this country has never really recovered from; a war that killed 60,000 and injured another 300,000 of our best young men from a total population of about 6 million; a war that landed us in so much debt to pay for the equipment and supplies from the Poms; a war that despite all this we were punished even further by the English bankers imposing harsh penalties to us to get the money back that we had to borrow to fight to protect their own country; a war that caused bad reverberations down the generations from the PTSD inflicted on those poor blokes that suffered so much more than anyone should ever have to bear.

I recommend anyone who hasn’t done so to read the book “The Anzacs” by Patsy Adam-Smith. She was the first to talk to many of these blokes when she interviewed them 60 years after the war. It should be an Australian classic.

People also should remember all of history instead of some glib phrases rehashed.

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But also , Mannix who kept Menzies in power, until the Vatican intervened in the behaviour of the Melbourne diocese ( as compared to Gilroy in Sydney) . Crusade or Conspiracy , by Bruce Duncan, gives an account.

Hardly! Bob died 20 years ago. It was no surprise: he was 93. His son Joe is still around, but. He’s a leading Q.C., at the age of 70.

That article you quoted is all very well, but the factual inaccuracies don’t help the writer’s case. For example: “The Movement was so successful in its efforts that by 1949 it had taken control of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party.” That’s utter nonsense.

Though Bob & co. did their damnedest, the Movement never took control of any State branch of the Labor Party, although their manoeuvrings brought down the Cain State Labor government in 1951, I think it was. Doc Evatt was gunning for them after that; when the Goupers’ machinations cost Labor the 1954 federal election, he went for them, so that at the National Conference in Hobart the next year, 1955, Bob’s Groupers were expelled from the Labor party. The Splinter Group went on to form the DLP, and by supporting the Liberals they kept Labor out of Government until Whitlam got in.

So John Howard says he wants more females to join the Liberal party


While speaking at a men’s only club.

You don’t even need to write the joke.

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I think you misunderstood my post Perce.
Either that or a whole generation of kids have been duped with some weird weekend a bernies type scam.

            RIP Bob the Builder

bob

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Scott Morrison does what Turnbull wouldn’t: Woo hard-core conservatives

Paula Matthewson

Every day over the past parliamentary fortnight, Labor asked the new PM Scott Morrison to explain why Malcolm Turnbull is no longer prime minister. The Opposition knows full well this is a question Mr Morrison cannot truthfully answer.

Imagine the political fallout if the PM did tell the truth, explaining, “Mr Turnbull’s prime ministership was brought down by Tony Abbott’s supporters, who exploited Peter Dutton’s vanity as well as the anxiety of Queensland Liberals spooked by the rout in the Longman by-election.” Such a revelation would certainly make for an interesting meeting next time the Liberal party room was convened.

However Scott Morrison is indirectly answering a related question – why he is the new PM and not Peter Dutton – by demonstrating he’s an upgrade on Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Morrison’s behaviour, language and policy decisions are all essentially a reflection on what Mr Turnbull was not able to become, explain or deliver.

Mr Harbourside Mansion is gone, replaced with ScoMo the Sharks fan and defender of strawberries. The new PM’s style is more relaxed than his predecessor’s (although still too shouty during Question Time), and he’s adopted more everyday language, although dumbing down dispatchable electricity to ‘fair dinkum electricity’ is taking a step too far.

Yet these are all essentially cosmetic changes. The most significant way that PM Morrison differs from (and has ‘improved on’) his predecessor is in the policy decisions he’s made over the past four weeks.

Not only did Mr Morrison reaffirm the death of the National Energy Guarantee, he also disavowed its whole reason for being (that is, the integration of energy and climate action policies) by dividing the energy and environment portfolio into two separate ministries. This is apparently to ensure that energy policy never again has to be concerned with inconvenient emissions reduction goals.

The PM wasted no time genuflecting to the dwindling and ageing demographic that is the Liberal Party ‘base’, scrapping plans to raise the retirement age to 70 and announcing a royal commission into the aged care sector. He also kowtowed to another potentially troublesome cohort of Liberal voters, throwing billions of dollars in hush money to the Catholic and independent school sectors.

There’s also been more money for drought-stricken farmers to appease supporters of the Coalition’s junior partner, the Nationals, and the announcement of a Canberra gabfest to coordinate a solution for the crisis that has been building in some parts of the nation for up to seven years. (In case you were wondering, no, that solution will not include emissions reductions).

The PM also found time to throw red meat to the conservative Australians concerned about ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools and the pervasive influence of gay marriage on our ‘rights’. ScoMo referred several times during this first month as PM to his commitment to ‘legislate religious freedom’, whatever that means, in response to the recommendations of the Ruddock review.

However the PM is less motivated to let voters see those recommendations, at least until the draft legislation is available. This is expected to conveniently be after the Wentworth by-election. We can only assume this is because Liberal election strategists are concerned that progressive Liberal voters (apparently they still exist) might be unhappy with the proposed legislation and lodge a protest vote with a non-Liberal candidate instead.

Based on these decisions, the clear message being sent by Scott Morrison is that he is the prime minister because he’s a more approachable, more understandable, more conservative version of Malcolm Turnbull. Looking at it another way, the new PM is also the more approachable, more understandable, less reactionary version of Peter Dutton.

It’s another matter altogether whether the voters who’ve deserted the Government for other parties and independents will agree and accept this explanation. If they do, they might just be prepared to return to the fold at the next federal election.

These carnts are seriously farked

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:rofl: I did indeed misunderstand your post 'Boot ! I thought you were referring to Bob Santamaria


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What’s their policy this week?

Kaye Lee

While Tony Abbott spent his short tenure undoing everything Julia Gillard had achieved, Scott Morrison seems intent on undoing everything his own government has worked on over the past five years.

In an interview on Sky News, 21/3/18, then education minister Simon Birmingham criticised Labor’s plan to boost funding to Catholic schools saying it was “based on politicking, not principle and student need.”

Birmingham said it would “punish states who fund their schools well, and give a boost to non-government sectors who lobby the loudest.”

It took Morrison less than a month to throw out Gonski 2.0 without consultation and to gift billions extra to the non-government sector.

On 2 August, Scott Morrison declared the national energy guarantee was the “only plan on the table” to reduce electricity prices, warning critics that dumping the plan would fuel uncertainty and drive up household bills.

“This is a sliding doors moment to lower electricity prices,” Mr Morrison said when asked for his message to Mr Abbott and other backbenchers.

“If we lose this opportunity because of obstructionism, because of negativity, because of whatever else the Labor Party has in mind, to lose this opportunity for lower electricity prices, that would be very disappointing and it will flow through to impact on the economy and people’s household bills.”

Josh Frydenberg described it as “an opportunity for a historic national reform.”

Yet they rushed to dump it only three weeks later.

While Malcolm Turnbull is out and about claiming credit for removing discrimination from the marriage act, Scott Morrison, who couldn’t even bring himself to vote for marriage equality despite overwhelming community support, is busily cooking up new ways to protect those who refuse to accept the law of the land on religious grounds by legislating their right to discriminate based on someone’s sexuality.

In 2014, Morrison supported lifting the pension age to 70, voting for it in the House of Representatives. He then defended the policy when he was treasurer, saying it was necessary to ensure the system’s sustainability, given Australians were healthier and living longer in retirement.

Morrison chose the Today show to reveal he was scrapping that policy too, despite having said two years ago that if this, and the other measures contained in the 2014 budget weren’t passed, “gross debt will exceed $1 trillion in a decade”.

In April, Morrison said “The days of subsidies in energy are over, whether it is for coal, wind, solar, any of them,” but his new Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, said an underwriting program, where the government guaranteed finance for new generation projects, would proceed.

Taylor is also advocating the “upgrading of legacy [coal] generators” — something which is highly unlikely to happen without government paying for it or underwriting the investment. Matt Canavan is very keen to give money to anyone who wants to build a new coal-fired power station, except no-one is interested.

In May, the Coalition and Labor came to agreement about water allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin which Water Minister David Littleproud said would give the Basin’s 2 million residents clarity so they could get on with their lives.

But since Morrison took over and the government focus became all about the drought, Deputy PM Michael McCormack and Special Envoy Barnaby Joyce are calling for that deal to be scrapped.

Mr McCormack said several times last week the Federal Government “will certainly take a look at” changing legislation to allow water allocated for environmental flows under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be used by irrigators dealing with the drought.

Barnaby Joyce said “We have a huge amount of water held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. We don’t have to use it all but we can use some of it though and divert it for the growing of lucerne and show a real and decisive way to produce the fodder.”

However, both Agriculture Minister David Littleproud and the Environment Minister, Liberal MP Melissa Price, have ruled out changes to the water allocations in the basin plan.

“We don’t have any plans to change the legislation,” a spokesman for Ms Price said.

The Liberal Party have targets to boost female representation in parliament, yet they are losing them hand over fist due to the bullying and intimidation that, despite overwhelming evidence, Morrison denies exists. There are no repercussions for the bullies, many of whom have been rewarded for their role in bringing down a sitting PM. The complainants are told to toughen up and shut up.

Women are very rarely preselected for safe seats or winnable Senate spots and it appears that will continue under Mr Morrison.

When Bill Shorten said, in May, that the aged care sector was in crisis, the Minister, Ken Wyatt, responded angrily.

“I’m slow to anger but I must admit that recently the Opposition Leader commenting that the system is in crisis and a national disgrace was not becoming of what I would expect in a bilateral and bipartisan approach to aged care. This demeans every one of those dedicated aged care workers and it achieves nothing but instilling fear into the hearts and minds of older Australians, just like Labor did in the lead-up to the last election when they were peddling ‘Medi-scare’ lies designed to scare the most deserving. For the Opposition Leader to continue this fear-mongering is verging on the abuse of elder Australians and it must stop.”

Yet, when faced by a Four Corners expose, Morrison pre-emptively rushed to announce a Royal Commission the day before it aired. Just like the RC into the banks, and the RC into child sex abuse by the church before that, the government has done a huge backflip, now embracing an investigation into an industry they previously denied had any problems.

It is glaringly apparent that the Morrison iteration of government has no plan, no credibility, and no integrity. They flounder around contradicting themselves, reacting to situations rather than leading any sort of coherent policy development. Protecting reputation is more important than truth-telling. Appeasing those who shout the loudest will be the order of the day. When caught out, deny, deny, deny and then blame Labor.

The ATM government has run out of cash and is handing out counterfeit bills in the hope we won’t notice.

Bring on an election.

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As a rule it’s those who tend to do a lot of religious preaching who end up having the biggest skeleton in the closet right?

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More of a pattern, than a rule