MEDIA RELEASE



For release: Thursday 10^th February 2011



The release of a Senate report into the plight of donor conceived children raises serious issues about kids’ rights in the context of the gay marriage debate, according to the Australian Christian Lobby.



“Arguments by some Australian proponents of same-sex marriage that donor-conceived children being raised by homosexual couples could be denied access to their biological parents flies in the face of the Senate’s unanimous recommendation that there be a prohibition on donor anonymity,” Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Jim Wallace said.



Overseas, Sir Elton John and his homosexual partner David Furnish have indicated their son will be denied knowledge of his genetic mother. (see article Who's the daddy? It could be either of us, says Elton John)



An Australian lesbian couple quoted recently in a national newspaper said the father of their son, whose sperm was selected after an online search of US donors, might never have his dad’s identity revealed to him.



The Senate recommended there be a ban on sourcing donor material from overseas. In its submission to the Senate Inquiry, the donor conception support group Tangled Webs said: “The desire to provide children for infertile couples does not override the child’s need for and right to this vital relationship with his or her genetic parents”.



Mr Wallace said the very slick campaign being run by gay activists about ‘equal love’ was ignoring the rights of children to experience the love of their biological parents.



“The equal love in marriage is not just two way – it is, in normal instances, across the biological links between parents and children.



There are many ethical dilemmas and consequences for children and society that are not being discussed in the gay lobby’s push to change the meaning of marriage.



“Part of the reason for this is the intimidation and attacks on forums for debate such as On Line Opinion which is now no longer covering the gay marriage debate after it was aggressively targeted by gay activists for publishing an article defending heterosexual marriage.



“Mr Wallace said ANZ bank and IBM are yet to explain why they acquiesced to the anti-free speech tactics of the gay lobby to withdraw their advertising from On Line Opinion.



“This has doubtless buoyed the homosexual activists, who now with ever increasing arrogance and clearly now seeing themselves above public reproach, have today claimed wrongly that IBM and ANZ withdrew their advertising because On Line Opinion’s article ‘called for homosexuals to be murdered in light of the same-sex marriage debate’,” Mr Wallace said. Click here for the link



The Senate Report can be found here.

Tasmania’s new Premier Lara Giddings is the architect of a raft of proposed law changes of concern to Christians.

As Attorney General, she flagged surrogacy for same-sex couples, euthanasia, a charter of rights and legal brothels for Parliamentary debate this year.

Given these are also supported by the Greens, which share Government with Labor in Tasmania, ACL will be working hard to activate Christians to the injustices that stem from these agendas to children and other vulnerable members of society.

Ms Giddings replaces David Bartlett who stepped down to spend more time with his family.

ACL was disappointed last year when then Mr Barlett went back on his word and formed the minority government with the Greens after the March 2010 election. He had said on the 7.30 report: “Because a back room deal with the Greens is a deal with the devil, and I'm am - am not going to sell my soul for the sake of remaining in power.”

During ACL’s Make It Count forum before the 2010 election, Mr Bartlett had made a commitment to further examine the Swedish model for criminalising men for purchasing sex, rather than legalising brothels. The ACL hopes Ms Giddings will honour this commitment.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director and retired Brigadier Jim Wallace has put out a call for courage and integrity in public office in a challenging lead article in the latest edition of Viewpoint magazine.

Addressing an issue too often ignored, Mr Wallace urges those taking part in the 43rd Federal Parliament to “set themselves the highest standards of courage and integrity and to commit to protect and demonstrate it, as is so essential in the highest leadership calling in the nation”.

At a time when the bedraggled NSW Government has been seething with scandal and others in the higher echelons of power have not kept their commitments on key policies, Mr Wallace warns of the need to guard against corruption, scandal and ‘backflips’.

He reminds politicians that “if charity begins at home, then so too does integrity”.

“There is a tendency today to view the private and public as separate, but this is a clear fallacy. A person’s private behaviour is very indicative of how we can expect them to carry themselves and act in public life,” he writes.

In his article, Mr Wallace examines the courage of people such as William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King and states: “Today it takes great courage to defend the rights of the unborn or the right of a child to a father and a mother against the powerful ideological agendas that would redefine family and life; just as it requires courage to honour foreign aid in the face of a global financial crisis or in supporting the rights of refugees.” The full text of Mr Wallace’s article can be read by clicking here.

Viewpoint magazine aims to inform and influence policy makers on issues of concern, particularly to the Christian constituency. It is published three times a year and goes out to all federal and state politicians, a growing subscriber base, and is sold in selected newsagencies around the nation.

Other issues covered in the just-released October 2010 edition include:

Problem Gambling: Independent Denison MP Andrew Wilkie has made a deal with the Gillard Govt to address problem gambling. Will these strategies work?

Fairtrade: Many Christian, and other ethically minded consumers, are switching to Fairtrade products. What is Fairtrade and does it make a difference?

Stem Cells: In 2006 the human cloning ban was overturned to allow embryonic stem cell research. Have any miracle cures resulted?

R18+ Video Games Debate: Australia currently bans R18+ video games. Should this ban remain?

For more information about Viewpoint or for subscriptions go to www.viewpointmagazine.com.au

Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979

By Jim Wallace, ACL Managing Director

Despite the disillusionment by most people at the negativity of election advertising, both major parties have made announcements in the last 48 hours that benefit family and marriage.

Julia Gillard used her campaign launch to announce an increase in Family Tax Benefit Part A that is aimed at helping parents with the additional costs of teenage children living at home and still undergoing education. The change will effectively mean that families will receive an additional $4,000 per year for each teenager in education. She said that her aim was to encourage parents to be able to encourage teenagers to stay at school and improve their education, and is an initiative that should definitely help in that regard.

On the weekend the Opposition Shadow Minister for Families Housing and Human Services, the Hon Kevin Andrews, announced that the opposition would provide a $200 voucher for couples intending to marry for use on pre-marriage training or parenting courses. They hope it will increase the take up rate of available services which they believe will help to keep families together and children from being the victims of broken families. The announcement was made at the Marriage Coalition conference, an initiative of the AFA with other family groups.

In another shot at Greens policy, the Greens were criticised by an indigenous academic for policies inconsistent with indigenous advancement. Referring particularly to their support for Qld’s wild rivers legislation, which prevents indigenous owners developing aboriginal land on the Cape, The Australian noted: "Professor Langton said Australians who voted for the Greens because they believed they were the most sympathetic towards indigenous rights were mistaken. "The Greens party hasn't stood up on indigenous rights on the Wild Rivers Act. They either agree with indigenous rights or they don't," she said. "They can't say they are standing up on indigenous rights and support the denial of the right to economic development.""

Federal Labor was also supportive of the Qld legislation with only Tony Abbott committing to oppose it.

Family First’s Qld Senate Candidate Wendy Francis also had criticism for the Greens in committing to support the fishing industry and recreational fishing if elected. Referring to the fishing industry around Cairns in particular she said: "the Greens don’t care about them and the minor fishing parties are too small to realistically be able to do anything."

I am certainly sympathetic to the Greens position on both these issues from a stewardship point of view, but again, it is a matter of whether their policies are showing the necessary balance as their critics are highlighting.

An interesting day, but Labor may have won the last Monday of the election with an additional $4,000pa per teenager.

By Jim Wallace, ACL Managing Director

Today’s revelation that the Coalition now trails Labor on a two party preferred basis may say more about the style of this campaign than anything else.

Modern politics has become a 24/7 media event and at no time is that more so than during an election campaign. The result is that party strategists adopt an approach that minimises the risk of losing, rather than strategising to win – the concern always being that a media gaff might derail their candidate’s campaign.

Unfortunately we, the voters, are invariably the losers in this. The often stilted performance by candidates more concerned to hide their real selves than project them, leaves you and I none the wiser about who they are or what they stand for. It has effectively neutralised leadership and the contending claims on what should be statesmanship, as a major factor in the election, and particularly between the two leaders of the major parties.

Ms Gillard clearly identified at the end of last week that this approach was taking her nowhere and it was reflected in the polls that put the Coalition ahead. The press at the time was full of: “Who is the real Julia?” However she is widely reported as having decided to put her minders advice aside and run on her intuition.

This has clearly paid dividends and it is now only to be hoped that, in the interests of giving us real choice, Tony Abbott will do the same.

Julia Gillard is well known for her charm and warmth by those close to her, but equally anyone who knows Tony Abbott knows that he has the refreshingly attractive quality for voters of exuding “what you see is what you get.” For Christians of course there is the added attraction of a strong Catholic faith.

If he too decides that coming off the ropes in the last round means its more up to him and his intuition than the advice of minders, we could yet have the close election we were promised.

MEDIA RELEASE

For release: Fri Aug 6, 2010

PM Gillard’s video address to Christians to be uploaded tomorrow

The Australian Christian Lobby will upload footage of its interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard to its Australiavotes.org.au website tomorrow evening.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace today asked Ms Gillard the same questions asked of the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at ACL’s June 21 Make it Count event.

Ms Gillard reaffirmed her and Labor’s commitment to marriage and support for school chaplaincy.

More detail of her comments on these and other issues will be available when the footage is uploaded to australiavotes.org.au alongside Mr Abbott’s June 21 address.

ACL has distributed one million pieces of literature to more than 5000 churches around Australia this week to publicise the australiavotes.org.au website and Party responses to 24 questions of Christian concern put by ACL.

Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979.

In a sign of growing dirty tactics in the Federal election campaign the Australian Sex Party yesterday made an under-handed attempt to discredit the Family First political party by claiming that Family First tried to make a preference deal with them.

Family First’s Federal Chairman Bob Day yesterday strongly denied reports of the party entering a preference arrangement with the Australian Sex Party, saying “I want to reassure you that this is completely false. I am the Federal Chairman and no preference arrangement can occur without my approval.”

“This is a blatant attempt by the Australian Sex Party to discredit Family First. You might recall some months ago this Party took out large advertisements in The Advertiser expressing one of their key aims was to ‘stop Family First’.” Click here for more details.

According to a report in today’s Adelaide Advertiser, a Family First staffer did make contact with the Australian Sex Party to discuss preferences, but Mr Day is reported as saying that the staffer was acting outside of his authority. Family First’s Dennis Hood clarified the situation further in an interview with the ABC’s World Today program.

Mr Day also told the Advertiser that a preference deal would never have been done with the Sex Party, whose views were "diametrically opposed" to Family First.

In the face of new evidence of the increasing levels of children sexually abusing other children the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today called for both major political parties to immediately commit to a comprehensive review of the classification system across all media.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said the classification system is broken and that the lack of effective regulation of what is being viewed and read in the community must be acknowledged as at least part of the reason behind the appalling growth in sexualised and sexually abusive behaviour in children.

“Revelations by the Australian Crime Commission’s National Indigenous Task Force that between 40 and 90 per cent of sexual offending against children was committed by other children – and that the problem is not confined to indigenous communities – should deeply concern all Australians and demand an urgent response from our political leaders,” Mr Wallace said.

“There has been widespread acknowledgement of the role of the media environment in sexualising children but despite inquiries and talkfests, nothing gets done.

“Children don’t learn sexualised behaviour in a vacuum and we know that viewing pornography is often associated with this problem. However it goes much further than this, with children continually being bombarded with overtly sexual messages by everything from billboards to films to music videos. When the problem is getting this bad it is time for real action to be taken.”

Mr Wallace said a comprehensive review is needed because Australia’s classification system has not kept pace with technology and is effectively a toothless tiger even when standards are breached – with no real penalties for those involved.

“Growth in technology has meant that Australia’s classification system doesn’t even apply to a range of new media content, such as mobile phone applications. And where the classification system does apply it is completely ineffective – with standards rarely being enforced and the penalties being laughable even when they are.

“By way of example, Classification Board Chairman Donald McDonald told an Estimates Committee in May this year that since July 2009 he had ‘called in’ for classification 440 adult films and 40 adult magazines, but none of those notices had been complied with.

“This just highlights how irrelevant our classification system has become and the need to address a problem which is helping feed an epidemic of sexualised behaviour in children.”

Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979

MEDIA RELEASE

For release: July 9, 2010

Australia needs to speak up for women’s rights under Sharia law

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is calling on the Australian Government to join the global campaign to pressure the Iranian Government to save the life of Ms Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani who has been convicted of having an ‘illicit relationship’.

“Although the Iranian Embassy in London has said that Ms Ashtiani will no longer face death by stoning, sentencing someone to death for committing adultery is archaic and inhumane and highlights the poor treatment of women under Sharia Law,” said ACL’s Chief of Staff Lyle Shelton.



Mr Shelton said the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith should call in the Iranian Ambassador Mahmoud Babaei and make plain to him the feelings of the Australian people about the draconian treatment of women under Sharia Law.

The Iranian Government has not yet made clear whether Ms Ashtiani will be spared, or executed by some other means.

“This woman has already had her human rights grossly abused, suffering 99 lashes for her ‘crime’.

“That Ms Ashtiani still faces execution or further punishment reminds the world of Iran’s constant violation of their citizens’ human rights – particularly the human rights of women.

“The Australian Government needs to pressure the Iranian Government to protect the sanctity of life and to protect this woman from such an act of cruelty and ultimately, to have Iran remove stoning and other human rights abuses from its penal code.

“Australia should join the global campaign to uphold this woman’s human rights. Our nation’s silence is disappointing.”

Brian Rosner, a fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity, writes in today’s The Australian about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German church leader whose involvement in the famous Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler led to his death; a man who Kevin Rudd admired most. In these difficult times for Kevin Rudd, Rosner offers words of solace from Bonhoeffer; a man whose high hopes ended too, in disappointment.



While Rosner’s words are addressed to the former Prime Minister, Bonhoeffer is a shining example for all Christians in times of doubt and difficulty. Bonhoeffer’s Christian faith helped him to focus on the ‘invaluable’. Rosner reminds us that like Kevin Rudd, Bonhoeffer’s resilience was not cultural or constitutional, but theological.