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Australian election: Christian voices highlight a spectrum of issues ahead of poll

Australia election debate

Ahead of Australia’s federal election on Saturday, 21st May, JONATHAN FOYE canvasses some of the issues Christian groups across the nation have been talking about…

Sydney, Australia

As polling day nears in Australia, Christian groups and organisations across the country have been highlighting a diverse range of policy areas they see as key to the Christian vote.

Australia election debate 

Australian incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese debate on live television ahead of the 2022 federal election, in Sydney, Australia, on 8th May. PICTURE: James Brickwood/Pool via Reuters.

Australia’s Christian service providers have released statements with policy asks revolving around their priorities.

On 25th March, the Uniting Church’s national aged care and service provider wing, UnitingCare Australia, issued a call for a number of priorities to be implemented by whoever forms government. The campaign, ‘Uniting A Caring Australia’ has a list of policy asks, including an inquiry into stagnant wages, attention to aged care wages, and highlighting the issue of gender pay equity.

 “We know that cost of living pressures will be a key factor in determining the outcome of the election. So our focus on economic inequality is more important than ever.”

– UnitingCare’s National Director Claerwen Little in a statement.

In an email to supporters, UnitingCare’s National Director Claerwen Little called for people to get involved in a campaign to ask their sitting MPs to consider the policy asks. 

“We know that cost of living pressures will be a key factor in determining the outcome of the election,” she wrote. “So our focus on economic inequality is more important than ever.”

The St Vincent de Paul Society National Council, meanwhile, has released a federal election statement, A Fairer Australia. 

The statement has policy asks in five key policy areas including, ‘Poverty and Inequity’, ‘Housing and Homelessness’, ‘People Seeking Asylum’, ‘Secure Work’, and ‘First Nations’.

The society also issued a report card that measures how each of the major parties stacked up against the priorities outlined in A Fairer Australia.

The report card ‘grades’ the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal/National Coalition, and the Greens according to whether or not their existing policies meet the key asks. The results are colour-coded, with green indicating that the priorities are being met, red indicating that they are not, and orange indicating that some more information is needed. 

The card largely has the Coalition ‘red’ in the priority areas, Labor ‘green’ in many but not all, and the Greens listed as ‘green’ throughout. However, the ‘report card’ goes on to indicate that this is not an official endorsement of any one political party

“As a registered charity, an impartial approach has been used to classify policy platforms – one that relies on, and is limited to, information that is publicly available” the report card reads. “The assessment does not second-guess policy positions or fill in the gaps.”

Australia election debate2

 Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese during the second leaders’ debate of the 2022 federal election campaign at the Nine studio in Sydney, Australia, on 8th May. PICTURE: Alex Ellinghausen/Pool via Reuters//File photo.

In a similar way, Christian aid organisations have sought to put their priorities on the election agenda. 

Rev Tim Costello, CEO of Micah Australia – a coalition of Christian organisations that calls on government to provide more and better aid, has called for Australian’s to “love your neighbour” when voting. 

“On foreign aid, or Australian aid as I prefer to call it, I have been very surprised,” Costello said in a radio interview with 103.2’s Ben Eachen in early May. “Never in an election before…has aid been highlighted.”

In the context of China looking to build a base in the Solomon Islands after building international relationships with the Pacific nation, Costello, who is also a member of Sight‘s Advisory Board, said that it was “a security question as much as an aid question”.

“I’ve been very heartened that the Labor Party has announced a Pacific package in aid of $A500 million over the next four years,” he said.“What we have to get in context is that Australian aid is at the lowest level it has ever been at [as a portion of overall spending] and getting lower.”

Costello said that Australia was currently 21st out of 28 OECD countries when it came to aid spending, and that this meant that, “we’re mean”.



With Australia located in the Indo-Pacific region where many of the world’s poor are located, Costello said that he was pleased to see the issue of aid on the agenda, but called on all political parties to commit to policies to target extreme poverty.

“I’m not going to tell anyone how to vote,” Costello said, “but I think that [‘how do I love my neighbour as myself?’] is exactly the right question.

He said he was “very disturbed” that, in his view, Australian elections had become centred on the question, “What’s in it for me?”

“I want my faith to influence my politics, not the reverse. When Christians say to me, “I vote for the same party all my life” I say, ‘Well, it’s almost a waste of democracy’.”

“The good thing about democracy is, we know if governments…become complacent…towards the vulnerable, we can vote them out.”

Costello said that he would be inclined to vote for a party that was more compassionate on issues regarding asylum seekers and aid.

Australia Parliament House

Tourists walk around the forecourt of Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on 16th October, 2017. PICTURE: Reuters/David Gray/File photo.

Conservative groups, meanwhile, have been raising proposed controversial religious discrimination legislation as an issue.

The Australian Christian Lobby has targeted sitting MPs who voted against the government’s controversial Religious Discrimination Act earlier in the year. In pamphlets distributed in electorates such as as North Sydney and Reid, it has argued that these MPs, “voted against protecting people of faith from discrimination” and says that they, “voted to remove laws that protect the values of faith-based schools.”

The pamphlets, distributed earlier in the campaign in April, asks voters to consider if, “attacks on Christianity and other faiths accord with your values”.

The same MPs have also been targeted in emails sent by another conservative group, FamilyVoice Australia, to its supporters. The emails suggest that these MPs’ votes were, “putting Australian Christians at risk of persecution, ridicule, and harassment at work, socially and in the public arena”.

While highlighting policy areas such as the proposed Religious Discrimination Act, the ACL and FamilyVoice Australia have stopped short of endorsing particular candidates.

In response to what he said would be parts of the Act that would enshrine discrimination against LGBT staff and students, one of the MPs targeted said that he had no regrets. Trent Zimmerman represents the Liberal Party in the electorate of North Sydney.

“As the son of a faith-based school principal I have a deep understanding of the role of faith-based schools,” Trent Zimmerman said. “But I also have no regrets about standing up for gay students and teachers when I crossed the floor.”


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One issue that has been something of a sleeper during the campaign has been climate change with the major parties highlighting policy differences during the leaders’ debates.

A number of Christian organisations have sought to put climate on the election agenda. One of these is the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, a multi-faith affiliation of religious communities that says more needs to be done in order to achieve climate justice.

In the lead-up to the federal election, the ARRCC has been amplifying its climate activism, targeting MPs in marginal electorates, and urging them to embrace meaningful climate change policies.

ARRCC President Thea Ormeod said in an interview with Australia’s ABC that the organisation was taking an active approach.

“We don’t just run retreats, and have workshops and talk about lifestyles and webinars,” she said. “We actually get out there and hang out banners and meet with members of parliament, and protest at coal mining sites.”

 Ms Ormeod said that faith leaders needed to do more to call politicians to account on environmental issues.

“If politicians aren’t being challenged by the faith leaders of today, then where’s the moral leadership?” she said. 

“The moral leadership is coming from secular people, the environment movement. They’re speaking out for the moral positions that should be championed most strongly by people of faith.”

Australia Great Barrier Reef

Climate change has been something of a sleeper issue in the Australian election. Reef fish swim above recovering coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia, on 25th October, 2019. PICTURE: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Australia’s Pacifika community is one particular Christian group that has been active in lobbying political parties and hosting pre-election forums. One such forum, jointly hosted by the Sydney Alliance, Uniting, and the Uniting Church’s NSW and ACT Synod, took place in late April at the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club. With more than 300 people in attendance, the forum heard the climate concerns and stories of Pacifika people.

While Labor’s Chris Bowen was the only politician in attendance, due to the busyness of the election campaign, organisers said that they hoped to meet with more during and after the campaign. 

Rev James Bhagwan is the General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. Rev Bhagwan sent a video message on behalf of the conference in which he said that the conversation regarding climate change had shifted in the pacific.

“The conversation now in our region is slowly becoming one of relocation, of migration.”

Rev Bhagwan noted other issues including the rights of indigenous people, the roles of traditional leaders, and gender issues.

“The reality is, we consider a lack of political will from our largest neighbour…Australia,” he said. “So the question is, how will you consider your role as a member of the Pacific family?”

But Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has previously hit back at “internal and global” criticisms of Australia’s climate change policy, saying that the country is “doing its bit.”

As with all the other issues being raised by Christian groups and organisations, whether the electorate – and Christian voices – agree, remains to be seen.

 

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