12th April, 2007

DAVID ADAMS

The Australian Christian Lobby is calling for a nationwide public campaign to promote marriage in its submissions to the upcoming national 2020 Summit.

The ACL has also called for a range of policy actions to strengthen marriages including the introduction of free vouchers for marriage preparation courses and parenting courses, the remodelling of welfare and tax systems to eliminate disincentives to marriage and an increase in the support available through Family Relationship Centres.

“Families that are strongly bound together are better able to avoid the multiple disadvantages often associated with family breakdown, such as poor educational achievement, teenage pregnancy, homelessness and criminal behaviour.”   - Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby

“People should be assisted to learn how to achieve lasting love and lifelong commitment in relationship through marriage, with more government support for marriage preparation, education and counselling,” the ACL says in its submission.

Jim Wallace, managing director of the ACL, said this week that “countless studies” show marriage is fundamental to a healthy society and “far more stable and beneficial than cohabitation”.

“It creates intergenerational connections, and provides personal, financial, family and society wide benefits, as well as the most stable environment in which to nurture children,” he said.

Mr Wallace said strong marriages have a “vital role” in facilitating social justice.

“Families that are strongly bound together are better able to avoid the multiple disadvantages often associated with family breakdown, such as poor educational achievement, teenage pregnancy, homelessness and criminal behaviour.”

The ACL have also called for the introduction of “meaningful” family impact statements on proposed legislation and a reduction in the availability of pornography which destabilises marriages.

Mr Wallace said the Government should fund a large-scale study to examine the “full range” of positive and negative social influences on a child’s growth to adulthood including the family construct, pressures on parents, the sexualisation of children, education and the influence of the media, entertainment culture and violent computer games.

“As a society we need to be taking more action to safeguard children and address the increasing pressures they are facing such as unstable families, overworked parents, and a toxic culture that prematurely sexualises children in its advertising, toys, clothing and ‘tween’ magazines,” he said.

The 2020 Summit, which will be held at Parliament House in Canberra on 19th and 20th April, will involve 1,000 people led by a steering committee including World Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello, actress Cate Blanchett, former Westpac CEO David Morgan, News Limited CEO John Hartigan, and former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer.

Their discussions will centre around 10 subject areas including productivity, the economy, sustainability and climate change, health, communities and families, and indigenous and rural issues.

As well as a submission to the discussion on communities and families, the ACL have also made submissions to the discussions on indigenous issues and the issue of governance.

In its submission on indigenous issues, the ACL have said that the Federal Government “intervention” currently underway in the Northern Territory should continue with welfare payments quarantined, restrictions on alcohol maintained and restrictions on pornography further strengthened with harsh penalties imposed on anyone who smuggles banned material into Aboriginal communities.

They says that “creative suggestions” from Aboriginal leaders on how to improve the safety, education and wellbeing of their children should be “thoroughly considered” and that Aboriginal people have the opportunity to learn the skills they need to thrive in Australia.

“By 2020 we would hope that the policy tensions between preserving Aboriginal culture an ensuring Aboriginal people a place in mainstream society will have been resolved,” says the submission.

Meanwhile, the ACL have hosed down suggestions that Australia introduce a Bill of Rights in its submission on the issue of governance, saying such instruments “fundamentally undermine democracy by effectively transferring the power to make laws away from Parliament to an unaccountable judiciary”.

Instead, it says, governments should continue to use “specific, tailored legislation” to protect citizen’s rights including the right to life, religious freedom, the rights of children and the rights for women to be treated as equal human beings.

The ACL submission also says that should Australian choose to become a republic, it should be a “minimalist model” that retains the “constitutional recognition that the people of Australia are ‘humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God’” and related practices including Christian prayers in parliament and Christian services to commemorate key events in public life.

~ www.acl.org.au
~ www.australia2020.gov.au

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