‘Sex work’ review to consider the Nordic reform model
The Australian Christian Lobby welcomes the assurance of Victoria’s ‘sex work’ review committee that all aspects of decriminalisation and alternative views will be considered, notwithstanding the chair Fiona Patten MLC’s advocacy for decriminalising prostitution.
Read moreMelbourne emails weaponised to enforce LGBT political correctness
The City of Melbourne Council has invited future litigation and more political correctness tangles with its weekend push to invite council staff to declare their preferred pronoun in their email signatures.
Read moreVictoria meddles with confused kids’ gender
The Australian Christian Lobby has consistently expressed concern over the surge in the number of children rushed into irreversible, life-changing gender reassignment medication or surgeries. A recent report found there were 336 new referrals to the Royal Children’s Hospital gender clinic in 2019, representing a staggering 1,767% increase since 2012.
Read moreChristian school case exposes religious freedom risks
Did you ever think that a Christian school would be hauled before a Tribunal for stating orthodox, historical Christian beliefs? No, neither did I, but welcome to our brave new Australia.
Read morePatten’s anti-discrimination bill to put limits on free speech, warns the ACL
The Australian Christian Lobby opposes a plan by Victorian upper house MP Fiona Patten to extend the reach of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill to gender identity and sexual orientation.
Read morePremier Andrews – please explain what you mean by ‘gay conversion therapy’
On Sunday 3 February, Daniel Andrews the Premier of Victoria attended the Midsumma Pride March. He used the march as a platform to announce in an Australian first, that his Labor government would be introducing legislation to ban what he called ‘gay conversion therapy’.
Read moreBigoted quackery?
Let me be the first to engage in some bigoted quackery and talk conversion.
That is to quote Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who has announced plans to ban so-called ‘LGBT conversion therapy.’
Read more""Most agree that an infant is viable after 20 weeks""- Dan Flynn
This week on the political spot, some good news from Victoria. ACL Victorian Director, Dan Flynn, discusses the new Infant Viability Bill which has been introduced to correct the State's unacceptable current abortion laws.
Transcript
Transcript
School communities should not be forced to run “Safe Schools”
MEDIA RELEASE
8 March 2016
Victorian school communities should be free to say no to the so-called Safe Schools Coalition, according to the Australian Christian Lobby.
ACL Victorian Director Dan Flynn said the Andrews Government was wrong to force the age-inappropriate sexualised program on school communities and parents when opposition against it was growing.
“It is of deep concern to the Australian Christian Lobby and many Victorian parents that the Government is behaving like big brother and enforcing contested rainbow ideology onto our children,” Mr Flynn said.
Mr Flynn made the comments in response to a media report yesterday in which the Andrews Government first appeared to back away from making the program compulsory before back-peddling and reaffirming its stance to make Safe Schools mandatory in every Victorian high school by 2018.
“School communities that have decided not to align themselves with the program, such as Kyabram P-12 College, should not be forced to do so," Mr Flynn said.
He said bullying children for any reason was unacceptable but the Safe Schools program went way beyond the purview of an anti-bullying program.
“As parents and teachers become better informed they are questioning why their school should have the program, particularly when other anti-bullying programs are already available which already address minority issues,” Mr Flynn said.
“The Victorian Government should immediately withdraw the program from schools, pending its review by the Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham.
“As a significant funder of the program, the Victorian Government has a duty to Victorian taxpayers to hold its own review into Safe Schools.
"Parents expect their children to be safe at school but encouraging boys who identify as girls to use the girls’ bathrooms and share school camp accommodation is not the way to do this," Mr Flynn said.
"Safe Schools tells children they must have access to the Minus 18 website which instructs girls in chest binding so their breasts are flattened and penis tucking for boys.
“We are opposed to making the program mandatory and forcing parents and children to take on this rainbow ideologically driven program.”
ENDS
Media: 02 6259 0431
8 March 2016
Victorian school communities should be free to say no to the so-called Safe Schools Coalition, according to the Australian Christian Lobby.
ACL Victorian Director Dan Flynn said the Andrews Government was wrong to force the age-inappropriate sexualised program on school communities and parents when opposition against it was growing.
“It is of deep concern to the Australian Christian Lobby and many Victorian parents that the Government is behaving like big brother and enforcing contested rainbow ideology onto our children,” Mr Flynn said.
Mr Flynn made the comments in response to a media report yesterday in which the Andrews Government first appeared to back away from making the program compulsory before back-peddling and reaffirming its stance to make Safe Schools mandatory in every Victorian high school by 2018.
“School communities that have decided not to align themselves with the program, such as Kyabram P-12 College, should not be forced to do so," Mr Flynn said.
He said bullying children for any reason was unacceptable but the Safe Schools program went way beyond the purview of an anti-bullying program.
“As parents and teachers become better informed they are questioning why their school should have the program, particularly when other anti-bullying programs are already available which already address minority issues,” Mr Flynn said.
“The Victorian Government should immediately withdraw the program from schools, pending its review by the Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham.
“As a significant funder of the program, the Victorian Government has a duty to Victorian taxpayers to hold its own review into Safe Schools.
"Parents expect their children to be safe at school but encouraging boys who identify as girls to use the girls’ bathrooms and share school camp accommodation is not the way to do this," Mr Flynn said.
"Safe Schools tells children they must have access to the Minus 18 website which instructs girls in chest binding so their breasts are flattened and penis tucking for boys.
“We are opposed to making the program mandatory and forcing parents and children to take on this rainbow ideologically driven program.”
ENDS
Media: 02 6259 0431
Australia’s worst abortion laws just got worse
For two nights this week the Legislative Council has had marathon sittings lasting until 4am on Wednesday morning and 2am Friday morning in the Government’s bid to clamp down on pro-life speech or posters within 150 metres of Victorias abortion clinics. This ban extends to public and many private hospitals and all of the 100 plus doctors’ surgeries that administer the abortion drug RU 486.
The debate was dominated by a volley of questions from Coalition & DLP MP’s to Minister Jenny Mikakos regarding the Government’s intentions and the proposed operation of the exclusion zone laws.
It is alarming that the Government is refusing to provide any information to the public on where the zones will be located. Minister Mikakos made a statement that it would not be helpful for the public to know where the clinics that administer RU 486 are located. This demonstrates the uncertainty that surrounds the Bill.
It was pointed out by Inga Peulich MP that Victoria’s Universities have clinics providing RU 486 and therefore “clubs and societies” on campus would be limited in their free speech, especially during Orientation week.
Sensible amendments, designed to make a bad law better, were all defeated. The amendments sought to reduce the zone from 150 metres to 15 metres and reduce the maximum jail term for those who breach the zone, from 12 months to 1 month.
A critical amendment, by Bernie Finn MP, attempting to remove prayer and other forms of religious expression from the free speech ban was unsuccessful.
The wheels were set in motion for these speech censorship laws because the ALP Government denied its MP’s a conscience vote on the issue.
The Andrew’s ALP Government failed to honour the clear provisions in the ALP national rules, applicable since 1984, that guarantee ALP MP’s a conscience vote on abortion.
Sadly, a large number of Coalition members exercised their free vote on the issue to support the draconian laws, mistakenly accepting the false narrative that those who seek to offer alternatives to abortion at abortion clinics, cause harm. In fact, these pro-life counsellors’ compassionate activities usually result in 12 live births every year.
The mothers of these children have not regretted their choice to continue with their pregnancies. One such mother and her four year old daughter were present in Parliament during the debate; hearing that the method by which the young girl’s life was saved, a compassionate conversation, will now be an imprisonable offence.
Due to the votes of the 30 MP’s who approved this Bill, there will be twelve less children around the Christmas table next year. This is indeed a shocking outcome for a vote taken in the middle of the night. It seems unreasonable that the lives of children depend on the votes of MP’s at a time of day when making decisions is difficult.
The Government’s banning of allowing alternatives to abortion, where information is most needed, facilitates a cruel type of domestic violence, where the most vulnerable pay the ultimate price in silence.
Conservative free speech Victorians applaud the courage of the eight MPs who repeatedly voted against the jackboot of Government speech control; Bernie Finn, Inga Peulich, Richard Dalla-Riva, Rachel Carling-Jenkins, Daniel Young, Gordon Rich-Philips, James Purcell & Jeff Bourman.
While a minority group, they represented the views of the majority of correspondents to MP’s on this issue, as was acknowledged by MP’s on both sides of the debate.
This free speech ban is now likely to be tested in the High Court in the likely scenario that a compassionate pro-life advocate seeks a consensual conversation with a young mother outside of one of Victorias abortion clinics.
The debate was dominated by a volley of questions from Coalition & DLP MP’s to Minister Jenny Mikakos regarding the Government’s intentions and the proposed operation of the exclusion zone laws.
It is alarming that the Government is refusing to provide any information to the public on where the zones will be located. Minister Mikakos made a statement that it would not be helpful for the public to know where the clinics that administer RU 486 are located. This demonstrates the uncertainty that surrounds the Bill.
It was pointed out by Inga Peulich MP that Victoria’s Universities have clinics providing RU 486 and therefore “clubs and societies” on campus would be limited in their free speech, especially during Orientation week.
Sensible amendments, designed to make a bad law better, were all defeated. The amendments sought to reduce the zone from 150 metres to 15 metres and reduce the maximum jail term for those who breach the zone, from 12 months to 1 month.
A critical amendment, by Bernie Finn MP, attempting to remove prayer and other forms of religious expression from the free speech ban was unsuccessful.
The wheels were set in motion for these speech censorship laws because the ALP Government denied its MP’s a conscience vote on the issue.
The Andrew’s ALP Government failed to honour the clear provisions in the ALP national rules, applicable since 1984, that guarantee ALP MP’s a conscience vote on abortion.
Sadly, a large number of Coalition members exercised their free vote on the issue to support the draconian laws, mistakenly accepting the false narrative that those who seek to offer alternatives to abortion at abortion clinics, cause harm. In fact, these pro-life counsellors’ compassionate activities usually result in 12 live births every year.
The mothers of these children have not regretted their choice to continue with their pregnancies. One such mother and her four year old daughter were present in Parliament during the debate; hearing that the method by which the young girl’s life was saved, a compassionate conversation, will now be an imprisonable offence.
Due to the votes of the 30 MP’s who approved this Bill, there will be twelve less children around the Christmas table next year. This is indeed a shocking outcome for a vote taken in the middle of the night. It seems unreasonable that the lives of children depend on the votes of MP’s at a time of day when making decisions is difficult.
The Government’s banning of allowing alternatives to abortion, where information is most needed, facilitates a cruel type of domestic violence, where the most vulnerable pay the ultimate price in silence.
Conservative free speech Victorians applaud the courage of the eight MPs who repeatedly voted against the jackboot of Government speech control; Bernie Finn, Inga Peulich, Richard Dalla-Riva, Rachel Carling-Jenkins, Daniel Young, Gordon Rich-Philips, James Purcell & Jeff Bourman.
While a minority group, they represented the views of the majority of correspondents to MP’s on this issue, as was acknowledged by MP’s on both sides of the debate.
This free speech ban is now likely to be tested in the High Court in the likely scenario that a compassionate pro-life advocate seeks a consensual conversation with a young mother outside of one of Victorias abortion clinics.