There are two by-elections in Queensland next month that ACL is organising Meet Your Candidate Forums (MYCF) to help Christians make an informed vote. The by-election for the federal seat of Griffith is set for the 8th of February and the by-election for the state seat of Redcliffe is set for the 22nd of February.



ACL's Queensland Director Wendy Francis is organising two forums for these events.



Griffith By-Election

Meet Your Candidate Forum

Monday 3rd February

7pm - 8.30pm

Greenslopes Baptist Church Hall

39 Dunellan Street (Corner of Henry Street) Greenslopes



Confirmed candidates attending -

LNP's Bill Glasson

Family First's Chris Williams

Katter Party's  Ray Sawyer

Greens' Geoff Ebbs

Independent Travis Windsor

Independent Karel Boele

Stable Population Party's Timothy Lawrence



Candidates attendance TBC

ALP's Terri Butler

Bullet Train for Australia' Anthony Ackroyd

Pirate Party's Melanie Thomas

Secular Party of Australia's Anne Reid



Redcliffe By-election

Meet Your Candidate Forum

Monday 10th February

7pm - 8.30pm

Clontarf Baptist Church

6 Alice St, Clontarf



Confirmed candidates attending -

LNP's Kerri-Anne Dooley

ALP's Yvette D’Ath

Independent Len Thomas

Independent Talosaga McMahon

Independent Gabriel Buckley



Candidate declined -

Greens' John Marshall

ACL has again joined calls for the Australian Government to add its voice to the global campaign to save Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani (pictured), who is currently under sentence of death by stoning at the hands of the Iranian government.

On Tuesday Tasmanian Liberal Senator Guy Barnett called on his constituents to take action on the issue and encouraged community members to write to Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd or Prime Minister Julia Gillard, expressing their concerns over the case.

“Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani has been denied her fundamental human rights. Her case has lacked transparency and due process,” Senator Barnett said.

“The Foreign Minister should raise these issues with the Iranian Government as other countries and human rights organisations around the world have done.” Please click here to read Senator Barnett’s media release.

ACL made a public statement in July calling for Australia to stand up for women’s rights under Sharia Law and asking the Government to take action.

Despite the international outcry it appears that Sakineh’s life is still in the balance, with the strong possibility of her facing execution any day.

ACL supporters are urged to write to the Government on this issue and also to sign an international petition by going to www.freesakineh.org. You may also like to express your views on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/savesakineh.

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

Media Release

Those pushing for Parliament to hold a euthanasia debate should tell politicians where the line should be drawn on whether or not to euthanise a patient, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said today.

ACL Chief of Staff Lyle Shelton said proponents of euthanasia such as Dr Philip Nitschke have suggested that troubled teens should also be able to access the so-called ‘peaceful pill’.

Mr Shelton said Australians who voted Green on August 21 thinking they were signing up to an environmental agenda must be perplexed that Greens’ Leader Bob Brown has nominated euthanasia as his top priority and that one of his Senators, Sarah Hanson-Young, says gay marriage is the Greens’ top priority.

“I wonder how many of these people realised that the Greens’ true priorities lie in a radical social agenda?”

Mr Shelton said Dr Nitschke told a Parliamentary Inquiry in Tasmania last year that he favours the Swiss approach where people who are not terminally ill are allowed to be euthanised.

“It is one thing to talk about so-called voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill, but this is not the experience in the small number of jurisdictions around the world who have gone down this path.

“In Holland where euthanasia is legal more than 1000 people a year are euthanised without their consent and a protocol, the Groningen Protocol, has been developed for euthanising babies.

“Dr Nitschke and Dr Brown need to be clear with the Australian people about where they see the euthanasia debate heading.

“Doubts remain over whether some of the patients Dr Nitschke has euthanised were terminally ill and he is on the record saying that euthanasia should be available to troubled teens.”

Mr Shelton said several State Parliaments had recently considered Greens’ euthanasia bills and rejected them.

“It is not a reflection on the competency of the people in the Territory Assemblies to say that an issue as grave as euthanasia should be considered in the larger State and Federal Parliaments where a larger number of peoples’ experience can be brought to bear and where there are checks and balances such as a house of review.”

Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan 0408 875 979

The federal election and ACL’s concerns over the NSW same-sex adoption bill were the main issues ACL received media coverage for this week.

Please see below for a wrap up of ACL’s coverage in the media since last Thursday.

• ACL is referred to as one of the “bulwarks of Christian orthodoxy” in an opinion piece by Angela Shanahan entitled ‘Worship not at the ethics altar of Greens extremists’ in last Saturday’s The Australian. Click here to read it.


• The Greens decision not to answer most of the election questions put to them by the ACL is given coverage in an opinion piece by Tim Wallace posted on the Online Opinion website last Friday, where he says this “indicates coyness verging on contempt”. Click here to read it.


• This morning ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace, in his role as former head of the SAS, was interviewed on Channel Seven’s ‘Sunrise’ program regarding Australia’s role in the Afghanistan conflict and the death of a 28-year old Australian soldier. Click here to watch the video.


• ACL Chief of Staff Lyle Shelton is quoted in a front page article in the August edition of The Advocate Christian newspaper in WA regarding ACL’s opposition to the creation of a new domain name for pornography on the internet and the ACL’s support for the decision by three ISPs to voluntarily block child pornography. Lyle is also quoted in a separate article urging the Government to take action on the recommendations of the recent Productivity Commission Report into Gambling. Click here to read the newspaper online.


• Jim Wallace’s post-election blog comment has received coverage on the new My Christian Daily news website.


• ACL’s concerns about the NSW same-sex adoption bill have been given coverage by the Same Same website, the SX website,  and the ‘Pink’ News Service in Europe.


• ACL was referred to on the Sunday Night Safran program on Triple J on Sunday night during an interview with Fiona Patten from the Sex Party.


• This week’s political spot (broadcast on Canberra’s 1Way FM and some other Christian stations) features an interview with Australian Christian Lobby research officer Ben Williams and focuses on the outcome of the recent federal election – what does it all mean and where to from here in terms of Christian engagement in politics?


• On Monday morning Jim Wallace was interviewed by Tracy Weare about the federal election outcome for Vision Radio Network’s 20-20 program.

In welcome news for those who value the sanctity of human life, a US federal court ruling has temporarily blocked new Obama administration guidelines on embryonic stem cell research because they involve the destruction of human embryos.

Pro-life groups have welcomed Monday’s ruling, which comes after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued new guidelines last year that permitted federal funding for research on stem cell lines that had already been created.

However the Obama administration has decided to appeal against the court injunction, with the appeal expected to start this week.

According to an article in yesterday’s The Australian, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that all embryonic stem cell research involved destroying embryos in breach of a US law, the Dickey-Wicker amendment, which bans federal funding. Click here to read the article.

The ruling was lauded by US pro-life groups, with the Catholic News Agency reporting that the Alliance Defense Fund had stated that the “American people should not be forced to pay for experiments – prohibited by federal law – that destroy human life.” Click here to read the report.

Debating the issue on the American PBS Newshour, senior fellow for Life Sciences at the Family Research Council, David Prentice, made the point that: “Embryonic stem cells come from destroying a human embryo. As far as the regenerative medicine part, the adult stem cells are only the stem cells that are actually already treating patients, thousands of patients every year, what we used to know as bone marrow transplants.”

The destruction of human embryos for stem cell research is also a fiercely contested issue here in Australia, where a Federal Parliament decision in 2006 saw approval given for the cloning of human embryos for research purposes despite a fierce campaign against this by pro-life groups, including the ACL.

The legislation passed by Federal Parliament in 2006 is currently due for a review, and the issue was raised in one of the 24 questions the ACL put to all political parties prior to the recent federal election. Our question asked:

“Given that the scientific basis for ‘therapeutic cloning’ has changed since the Federal Parliament considered cloning in 2006, and that there is now an entirely ethical and uncontentious method to obtain the same specialised stem cells that cloning scientists have never managed to obtain, does your Party support a new conscience vote on laws permitting the creation of cloned human embryos solely for research?”

Click here to read the different party responses to the question.

With little more than two weeks to go until the Federal election, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today launched a website – promoted by a million flyers and booklets sent to churches throughout Australia – informing Christians about the different political party standpoints on key issues they care about.

The website www.australiavotes.org.au provides the responses of eight political parties, including the Coalition and Labor, to 24 questions on issues of interest to Christians ranging from homelessness and foreign aid to freedom of religion and the sexualisation of children. Tellingly, the Australian Greens only answered six of the questions, choosing to avoid scrutiny on a variety of issues where their policy is unlikely to be well-received by most Christians.

“The failure of the Australian Greens to answer 18 of the 24 questions – even where they have known positions on the issue such as their support for gay marriage and removing school chaplains – can only be seen as a cynical exercise to avoid scrutiny of their more radical policy positions,” ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said.

“But as disturbing as the deception in not declaring their antagonism to faith in society, is the failure to comment on issues like youth unemployment, the funding of private schools and the sexualisation of children – all issues of concern to a broader constituency,” he said.

“This deception and narrow agenda is hardly the stuff of a legitimate third force in politics.”

Mr Wallace reiterated that Christians don’t vote as a homogenous block but that they tend to care about a broad range of moral and social justice issues which are likely to influence their vote.

“The questions put to political parties are in keeping with this wide range of interest and mean the parties have had to clearly state their policies on issues which sometimes fall below the radar of day-to-day election coverage.”

Mr Wallace said the responses to the questionnaire will be widely distributed among Australian churches from a broad range of denominations, with 250,000 16-page summary booklets sent out this week, along with 800,000 flyers promoting the www.australiavotes.org.au website (more than one million pieces of literature in all).

Party responses to each question were limited to 250 words, plus a dot-point summary which is used in the printed booklet. Website users have the option of customising the information by choosing particular parties and questions they wish to compare.

Some key commitments revealed in party responses on the website include:

• Federal Labor has said it will continue to tackle homelessness as a national priority and will continue with its funding initiatives in this area and plans to halve homelessness by 2020. By contrast the Coalition statement does not refer to funding for housing but details initiatives in the areas of mental health, illicit drug use and education.


•  The Coalition has given a commitment to continue school chaplaincy funding at its present levels and make it an ongoing program. By contrast Labor has not guaranteed funding past “the end of the program” in December 2011, but has said it will conduct a consultation process to consider future options. Both Family First and the Christian Democratic Party want to extend the chaplaincy program.


• In response to a question about the proposed national school curriculum failing to acknowledge Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the Coalition states that “If elected we will review the National Curriculum and widen the consultative process”. By contrast, Labor only talks about the consultation process which has already taken place.


• Both Labor and the Coalition have given a commitment to maintain the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, as do Family First and the Christian Democratic Party. Despite the Greens’ publicly announcing they are in favour of gay marriage and promoting this to certain interest groups, they made the decision not to answer this question for the Christian constituency.


• Responding to concerns about the sexualisation of children, the Coalition has committed to review the “broken” classification system and task the review with developing a new way of ensuring that proper community standards are applied to all media. By contrast, Labor refers to the current classification system as “a valuable guide to Australians”.


• Labor has restated its commitment to mandatory ISP level filtering of RC content. By contrast, the Coalition is non-committal about ISP filtering.


• Both Labor and the Coalition have given clear commitments not to remove fringe benefits tax concessions for the not-for-profit sector. This was one of the many questions the Greens refused to answer.


• Both major parties said they would continue the practice of opening Parliament each day with the Lord’s Prayer. This is another question the Greens avoided.


• Both Labor and the Coalition have indicated they will take action to help end religious persecution overseas.

NB: The political parties which have responded to ACL’s questionnaire are: the Australian Labor Party, the Coalition (Liberal and National Parties), Family First, Christian Democratic Party, Australian Sex Party, Climate Sceptics Party and the Non-Custodial Parents Party. The Australian Greens provided answers to only six of the 24 questions. Answers are in the parties’ own words.

Media Contact: Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979.

This Federal election, the Australian Christian Lobby is providing all candidates for the House of Representatives the opportunity to speak directly to the Christian constituency via a video message hosted on the ACL’s election website – www.australiavotes.org.au.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates to speak directly to voters about matters of conscience and values that go beyond party partisan politics.  Additionally, ACL would like to hear from candidates about issues important to their local electorate – roads, schools, hospitals etc. and what each candidate in promising for their electors.

AustraliaVotes.org.au will be heavily promoted in churches across Australia and is expected to draw wide media attention.

Filming and submitting a video is simple.  To assist, ACL has provided a few guidelines to ensure fairness and a level playing field for all candidates. Videos failing to meet these requirements will not be placed on the site.

The website is going live in the first week of August. The earlier you submit your video, the sooner voters can see it. If you want to submit a video before the site goes live, follow the guidelines below.  The site will contain links to enable uploading as well.

If you have any further questions about this exciting opportunity please contact either:

David Hutt on 0409 678 484 (david.hutt@acl.org.au)

Rob Ward on (03) 9018 172 or on 0408 348 352 (rob.ward@acl.org.au)

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