Minor minor parties V

I'm away on the weekend of the election and so am doing a postal vote. I've received the ballots in the mail so I need to get cracking with my research. This installment looks at the religious parties.

Christian Democratic Party
This is the party run by Fred Nile. I do enjoy this tidbit they have on their web page. We "were responsible for saving the Letona Fruit Canning company, which has unfortunately closed!!!!!" Anyway, here are their policies:
- Parliament starts with a prayer. Which version of Christian prayer do they want? In fact why not let every sect have an opening prayer. And every religion.

- Zero tolerance drug policy. They all point to Sweden as having a successful zero tolerance policy. This article suggests that drug use actually rose after this policy was introduced.

- Immigration should be for those who can readily integrate into Australian society. There should be a 10 year moratorium on Islamic immigration. That is, you better be white, Christian and speak the Queen's English or keep out!

- Fund chaplains in all schools. Again, which denomination has preference?

- Schools should not be used for social engineering experiments such as the promotion of alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality. Yeah. That's what every teacher tries to do.

- Accepts that the scientific debate around climate change is unresolved and in that sense the CDP remains agnostic in respect to scientific elements of the climate change debate. This just goes to show that they have no idea of current scientific thinking and that they still are intellectually in the dark ages.

Family First
I'll put these guys in even though they have a senator because they are really a minor minor party. They don't overtly state they are a religious party, but we all know they are part of the new evangelical "money money me me" movement. Also, they ranked highly on the Australian Christian Values Institute poll. On their website, their policies are listed as over 30 one liners which link to a pdf. This is disingenuous. The one liners may look good on the surface to the naive web surfer, but you need to get the nuts and bolts of the policy to find out what evil lurks within.
- FAMILY FIRST believes “family” refers to relationships that bind grandparents, mums and dads and their children and form the basis of a community. Provided your not gay, a single parent, just plain single, live in a de facto relationship, or don't have your own business.

- More money in your pocket. This means cutting taxes and restoring "real" competition. Hang on a second, doesn't real competition end up mostly with monopolies??? What about taxes to build infrastructure? But then again, "small business is the true hero of our economy". Not nurses, teachers, doctors, the sanitation workers, etc. Notice how the word society is not mentioned? It's the economy, stupid. No need for society.

- Mandatory ISP pornography filtering. Like that's going to work!!! And who defines what pornography is? As Tom Lehrer once sang, "For filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder".

- Ban alcohol ads which are aimed at children or which link drinking to personal, business, social, sporting, sexual or other success. Fielding put this bill up in parliament once. Guess what happened??

- No to euthanasia, abortion, drugs, same-sex marriage, bill of rights. Yawn... What are you afraid of? Your kids blaming you for their distorted upbringing, and wanting to get rid of you. Who could blame them?

Anyway, the rest of the policies aren't really policies but just a bunch of supposedly feel good statements such as we will reduce class sizes at schools, or introduce initiatives that create incentives to reduce waste and pollutants in the environment. But nowhere does it state how they will do it. Maybe if they just pray hard enough, God will do it. Nothing for us to worry about then.

Democratic Labor Party
I'll put these guys in here since they were mainly the Catholics that split from the Labor party in the 1950s. It's amazing these guys are still around since the reds under the bed have basically gone. Anyway, here is what they would do and believe:

- Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. That's the usual mantra for the fundamental religious types.

- Make divorce difficult to do. Presumably if you are in an abusive relationship, then it's your fault and you probably deserve it.

- Federal funding for students attending non-government schools. If we want to indoctrinate our kids with our crazy ideas, you have to pay for it.

- China have a claim on Taiwan, unless the Taiwanese want to be independent. I thought the Taiwanese have made this clear????

- Opposed to imposed multiculturalism, but migrants are free to maintain their cultural practices and traditions. I'm still trying to understand if this is a contradiction.

- Abolition of the Office for the Status of Women, the Commission for the Future, the Human Rights and the Equal Opportunity Commission, and such.

I'll stop there. They have other policies which seem ok, but I can't be bothered going over them and checking them out. My eyes have glazed over.

One Nation and One Nation WA
I'll put them here because they mention Christian values on their website. Also one of their policies is to re-introduce Christian ethics into schools. Of course, nowhere is it spelled out what these ethics are. The WA branch is even having a lone candidate stand in the Victorian senate. Here is a video of one of the Victorian branch candidates. Basically, build more dams and no more immigration.

The Secular Party of Australia
This party was not able to be registered in time and so their candidates don't have the party next to their names. On the Victorian Ballot there are listed as group P. Their policies are:
- supports the 19th century notion that education be "universal, secular and free".
- end religious tax exemptions and subsidies.
- ceremonial references to religious beings are anachronistic, ethnocentric and divisive. Pledges should be towards principles, not deities.
- Support a Bill of Rights.
- religious indoctrination of children in schools violates the rights of the child. The requirement, whether by parents or schools, that children wear religious attire, is a form of indoctrination. The Secular Party therefore opposes this practice. It is the policy of the Secular Party that all forms of religious attire be prohibited in all government schools.
- the right to access information and entertainment, in private, free from censorship dictated by religious ideas.
- become a republic, with an Australian head of state.
- recognise global warming as a significant and dire threat to global civilisation. Implement phased introduction of a carbon tax. Support geothermal, tidal and nuclear energy.

These guys will get my approval way ahead of the others, even though I may not agree will all their policies.