Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts

Friday 14 June 2019

Parents with LGBTIQ children call on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison "to do as he promised which was to govern for all of the people which surely must include the LGBTIQ people"




Media Release
10th June, 2019

Religious Freedom is not an issue - Religious Privilege is a huge concern

After Marriage Equality was achieved, the right wing of the Government decided Christian rights were at risk. A Religious Review was held due to concerns about the rights of Christians.

Mr Ruddock, a conservative and Att. General who was the architect of rewording the “marriage act” to read as “man and woman” to exclude same sex couples, was the Chairperson.

Eventually, after much delay the Review showed there was very little concern for Christians.

However, the government’s paranoia about LGBTIQ people is a great concern to LGBTIQ people and their loved ones.  

Because:
Welfare groups, aged care and hospitals are predominantly run by Religious bodies
Teachers working at Christian schools may be retrenched and students expelled
Businesses owned by Christian individuals or organisations 

May all be given the right to refuse service or care, just because their clients, customers or staff involved are LGBTIQ. 

Additionally, there is the concern of the promotion of hate speech. Christians may not believe their words are harmful, or may not care but the impact of what is said or written can be devastating for the LGBTIQ person and their loved ones. Again any freedom, including freedom of speech should never be used as a tool for abuse. 

The ratio of Christians suffering poor mental health or suicide from hate speech is minimal. However, the negative impact of hate speech, homophobia and transphobia against LGBTIQ people is extremely high.

So, as National Spokesperson for parents with LGBTIQ children, I am calling on Mr Morrison and his team to do as he promised which was to govern for all of the people which surely must include the LGBTIQ people. They pay taxes, contribute to society and vote.
           
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays+ also made a January 2018 submission to Religious Freedoms Review.

Saturday 18 May 2019

Tweet of the Week



Saturday 27 April 2019

Quotes of the Week


The ABC's Vote Compass has been harvesting the opinions of Australians for three elections now……The vast majority of respondents — 78 per cent — think that the decision to remove Malcolm Turnbull in August last year was the wrong call. That conclusion is drawn from 153,354 responses to Vote Compass between April 10 and April 16……Among One Nation voters, 59 per cent approved of Mr Turnbull's removal, while 41 per cent disapproved.   [Journalist  Annabelle Crabb writing for ABC News online, 19 Aptil 2019]


“Pentecostalism is in fact the perfect faith for a conviction politician without convictions.”  [Writer & historian James Boyce writing in The Monthly, Februart 2019]

Saturday 9 March 2019

Quote of the Week



"They were openly saying that they would cooperate, but I think you could almost say that the way that they classed their cooperation would be similar to a protester lying on the ground in the middle of the street not resisting the police, but the police would have to pick that person up and drag them off the street. I think that that's the level of cooperation that the Catholic Church gave us."  [Former Detective Sergeant Doug Smith, speaking of Victoria Police Taskforce SANO's investigation into Cardinal George Pell, quoted in ABC News online, 4 March 2019]

Friday 1 March 2019

What will it take to shame religious institutions into joining the national redress scheme for people who suffered institutional child sexual abuse?


Readers living in the Clarence Valley will notice that the Anglican Diocese of Grafton named as perpetrating abuse* by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has not yet joined the national compensation scheme which would allow victims who suffered at the hands of the diocese to seek full redress.

Readers further afield will notice that a large number of Protestant and Catholic institutions are dragging their feet with regard to this redress scheme.
https://www.scribd.com/document/400681740/Institutions-That-Are-Not-Yet-Participating-in-the-Redress-Scheme-For-People-Who-Have-Experienced-Institutional-Child-Sexual-Abuse

* This is the same Anglican Diocese of Grafton which Clarence Valley Council openly supports by inviting it to offer up a prayer of its choice at the beginning of council monthly meetings.

Monday 17 December 2018

Proposed Religious Discrimination Act looks a lot like PM Scott Morrison appealing to his 'base' ahead of the May 2019 federal election


On 13 December 2018 Australia's 'interim' Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook, Scott Morrison, announced that his government intended to protect religious freedom in Australia and to protect the rights of Australians to be themselves by way of a new piece of legislation titled the Religious Discrimination Act.

Not a line of this legislation appears to have been put down on paper to date even though it is apparently expected to come before the Australian Parliament in the seven days or so it will sit before the May 2019 federal election.

One would have thought that religious freedom and diversity of faith was thriving in Australia given over 127 different formal manifestations of religious faith/spirituality exist in its cities, towns and villages without ongoing overt community discord or institutionalised discrimination.

Even former Liberal Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock concedes the Religious Freedom Review he led found little evidence that discrimination is occurring in Australia. That lack of hard evidence at population levels mean that government cannot reliably assert that religious discrimination as a form of harm is an existing problem requiring the 'solutions' it is proposing - such as Prime Minister Morrison's idea of a religious freedom commissioner to handle religious discrimination complaints, even though it was not recommended by the review

As religious faith holds no interest or importance for up to 15 million of the est. 24.6 million Australians alive today, I'm sure a good many voters are wondering what the fuss is all about and why Morrison is intent on protecting against nebulous future enemies which do not yet exist and whose probability appears to exist in his mind and nowhere else

After all, the Australian Constitution bars the creation of a state religion as well as barring laws prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, organised religions receive tax exempt status, education in faith-based primary & high schools is funded by the federal government and, discrimination in employment or occupation on the basis of religion is already unlawful under federal legislation. 

One has to suspect that the real intention of this new Religious Discrimination Act is to justify and codify discrimination by organised religions against individuals and groups in the wider secular society.

BACKGROUND



*61% of Australians say religious faith/spirituality plays no part/little part in their decision making;
*21% don’t believe there is any God/spirit/life force;
*a further 14% used to believe in God but don’t anymore;
*38% never pray or meditate;
*47% never attend a religious service; and
* only 18 % of Australians regularly attend religious services.


Monday 15 October 2018

Australian Politics 2018: Liberal and Nationals hard right agenda revealed


It appears the rigid hard-right core of the Liberal and National parties, whose face for public consumption is Prime Minister Scott Morrison, thought that Australian voters would find it acceptable that the only people that religious institutions of any denomination would not be able to discriminate against will be heterosexual individuals and those born with absent or ambiguous secondary sexual characteristics.

Everyone else would apparently be fair game for every rabid bigot across the land.

Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender citizens and their children are not to be afforded the full protection of human rights and anti-discrimination law in this New World Order.

It doesn't get any clearer than the main thrust of the twenty recommendations set out  below.

However, now the cat is out of the bag Morrison is backtracking slightly. Just hours after arguing schools should be run consistent with their religious principles and that no existing exemption should be repealed, Scott Morrison told Sky News that he was "not comfortable" with private schools expelling gay students on the basis of their sexuality. 

Rejecting new enrolment applications by gay students was something he was careful not to directly address.

It should be noted that "not comfortable' leaves a lot of wiggle room to look the other way as state and federal legislation is either amended or new Commonwealth legislation created which would allow this blatant discrimination to lawfully occur.


Recommendation 1
Those jurisdictions that retain exceptions or exemptions in their anti-discrimination laws for religious bodies with respect to race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status should review them, having regard to community expectations.

Recommendation 2
Commonwealth, state and territory governments should have regard to the Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights when drafting laws that would limit the right to freedom of religion.

Recommendation 3
Commonwealth, state and territory governments should consider the use of objects, purposes or other interpretive clauses in anti-discrimination legislation to reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion.

Recommendation 4
The Commonwealth should amend section 11 of the Charities Act 2013 to clarify that advocacy of a ‘traditional’ view of marriage would not, of itself, amount to a ‘disqualifying purpose’.

Recommendation 5
The Commonwealth should amend the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to provide that religious schools can discriminate in relation to the employment of staff, and the engagement of contractors, on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status provided that:
The discrimination is founded in the precepts of the religion.
The school has a publicly available policy outlining its position in relation to the matter and explaining how the policy will be enforced.
The school provides a copy of the policy in writing to employees and contractors and prospective employees and contractors.

Recommendation 6
Jurisdictions should abolish any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws that provide for discrimination by religious schools in employment on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status. Further, jurisdictions should ensure that any exceptions for religious schools do not permit discrimination against an existing employee solely on the basis that the employee has entered into a marriage.

Recommendation 7
The Commonwealth should amend the Sex Discrimination Act to provide that religious schools may discriminate in relation to students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status provided that:
The discrimination is founded in the precepts of the religion.
The school has a publicly available policy outlining its position in relation to the matter.
The school provides a copy of the policy in writing to prospective students and their parents at the time of enrolment and to existing students and their parents at any time the policy is updated.
The school has regard to the best interests of the child as the primary consideration in its conduct.

Recommendation 8
Jurisdictions should abolish any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws that provide for discrimination by religious schools with respect to students on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status.

Recommendation 9
State and territory education departments should maintain clear policies as to when and how a parent or guardian may request that a child be removed from a class that contains instruction on religious or moral matters and ensure that these policies are applied consistently. These policies should:
Include a requirement to provide sufficient, relevant information about such classes to enable parents or guardians to consider whether their content may be inconsistent with the parents’ or guardians’ religious beliefs
Give due consideration to the rights of the child, including to receive information about sexual health, and their progressive capacity to make decisions for themselves.

Recommendation 10
The Commonwealth Attorney-General should consider the guidance material on the Attorney-General’s Department’s website relating to authorised celebrants to ensure that it uses plain English to explain clearly and precisely the operation of the Marriage Act 1961. The updated guidance should include:
A clear description of the religious protections available to different classes of authorised celebrants, and
Advice that the term ‘minister of religion’ is used to cover authorised celebrants from religious bodies which would not ordinarily use the term ‘minister’, including non-Christian religions.

Recommendation 11
The Commonwealth Attorney-General should consider whether the Code of Practice set out in Schedule 2 of the Marriage Regulations 2017 is appropriately adapted to the needs of smaller and emerging religious bodies.

Recommendation 12
The Commonwealth should progress legislative amendments to make it clear that religious schools are not required to make available their facilities, or to provide goods or services, for any marriage, provided that the refusal:
Conforms to the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion of the body
Is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion.

Recommendation 13
Those jurisdictions that have not abolished statutory or common law offences of blasphemy should do so.

Recommendation 14
References to blasphemy in the Shipping Registration Regulations 1981, and in state and territory primary and secondary legislation, should be repealed or replaced with terms applicable not only to religion.

Recommendation 15
The Commonwealth should amend the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, or enact a Religious Discrimination Act, to render it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a person’s ‘religious belief or activity’, including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious belief. In doing so, consideration should be given to providing for appropriate exceptions and exemptions, including for religious bodies, religious schools and charities.

Recommendation 16
New South Wales and South Australia should amend their anti-discrimination laws to render it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a person’s ‘religious belief or activity’ including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious belief. In doing so, consideration should be given to providing for the appropriate exceptions and exemptions, including for religious bodies, religious schools and charities.

Recommendation 17
The Commonwealth should commission the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative information on the experience of freedom of religion in Australia at the community level, including:
Incidents of physical violence, including threats of violence, linked to a person’s faith
Harassment, intimidation or verbal abuse directed at those of faith
Forms of discrimination based on religion and suffered by those of faith
Unreasonable restrictions on the ability of people to express, manifest or change their faith
Restrictions on the ability of people to educate their children in a manner consistent with their faith
The experience of freedom of religion impacting on other human rights
The extent to which religious diversity (as distinct from cultural diversity)
is accepted and promoted in Australian society

Recommendation 18
The Commonwealth should support the development of a religious engagement and public education program about human rights and religion in Australia, the importance of the right to freedom of religion and belief, and the current protections for religious freedom in Australian and international law. As a first step, the panel recommends that the Attorney-General should ask the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to inquire into and report on how best to enhance engagement, education and awareness about these issues.

Recommendation 19
The Australian Human Rights Commission should take a leading role in the protection of freedom of religion, including through enhancing engagement, understanding and dialogue. This should occur within the existing commissioner model and not necessarily through the creation of a new position.

Recommendation 20
The Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Attorney-General should take leadership of the issues identified in this report with respect to the Commonwealth, and work with the states and territories to ensure its implementation. While the panel hopes it would not be necessary, consideration should be given to further Commonwealth legislative solutions if required.

Because Scott Morrison made no secret of his dislike of same-sex marriage and his intention to make new laws protecting so-called religious 'freedoms'. he is now going to have a fight on his hands every single day until the next federal election - these recommendations have made that a certainty.

Thursday 11 October 2018

Religious Freedom Review Report: a curate's egg in the hands of an Australian prime minister who doesn't understand the definition of secular or why there is a separation between Church and State


"Australia is not a secular country — it is a free country. This is a nation where you have the freedom to follow any belief system you choose.”  [Scott Morrison, 2007]

“Secular [adj] of or pertaining to the world or things not religious, sacred or spiritual; temporal, worldly.” [Patrick Hanks & Simeon Potter, Encyclopedic World Dictionary, 1971]

On 22 November 2017 then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the appointment of an Expert Panel to examine whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion.

The Panel’s Religious Freedom Review Report was delivered on 18 May 2018, accompanied by a statement that the report was now in the hands of the Prime Minister any government response was a matter for him.

The prime minister of the day is now the Liberal MP for Cook - a nakedly ambitious man who uses his public profession of Christian Pentecostal faith as a political tool.

Until this week the national electorate had no idea what the report might contain. It remained a closely guarded secret.

Which leads one to wonder if the leak which came Fairfax Media’s way is in fact Morrison preparing voters for what at best is highly likely to be proposed legislation which attempts to extend the exemptions religious institutions enjoy when it come to obeying human rights and anti-discrimination law and at worst an attempt to insert church into the heart of state.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 2018:

Religious schools would be guaranteed the right to turn away gay students and teachers under changes to federal anti-discrimination laws recommended by the government’s long-awaited review into religious freedom.

However the report, which is still being debated by cabinet despite being handed to the Coalition four months ago, dismisses the notion religious freedom in Australia is in “imminent peril”, and warns against any radical push to let businesses refuse goods and services such as a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The review was commissioned in the wake of last year’s same-sex marriage victory to appease conservative MPs who feared the change would restrict people’s ability to practise their religion freely.

The contents of the report - seen by Fairfax Media - are unlikely to placate conservatives and religious leaders, and will trigger concern within the LGBTI community about the treatment of gay students and teachers.

The report calls for the federal Sex Discrimination Act to be amended to allow religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status - something some but not all states already allow.
“There is a wide variety of religious schools in Australia and ... to some school communities, cultivating an environment and ethos which conforms to their religious beliefs is of paramount importance,” the report noted.

“To the extent that this can be done in the context of appropriate safeguards for the rights and mental health of the child, the panel accepts their right to select, or preference, students who uphold the religious convictions of that school community.”

Any change to the law should only apply to new enrolments, the report said. The school would have to have a publicly available policy outlining its position, and should regard the best interests of the child as the “primary consideration of its conduct”.

The panel also agreed that faith-based schools should have some discretion to discriminate in the hiring of teachers on the basis of religious belief, sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status…..

The panel did not accept that businesses should be allowed to refuse services on religious grounds, warning this would “unnecessarily encroach on other human rights” and “may cause significant harm to vulnerable groups”.

The review also found civil celebrants should not be entitled to refuse to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies if they became celebrants after it was was legalised.
The review does not recommend any changes to the Marriage Act. Nor does it recommend a dedicated Religious Freedom Act - championed by several major Christian churches - which would have enshrined religious organisations’ exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

“Specifically protecting freedom of religion would be out of step with the treatment of other rights,” the report found.

However it did recommend the government amend the Racial Discrimination Act or create a new Religious Discrimination Act, which would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of a person’s religious belief or lack thereof.

The panel said it had heard a broad range of concerns about people’s ability to “manifest their faith publicly without suffering discrimination”.

This included wearing religious symbols and dress at school or work, communicating views based on religious understandings, obtaining goods and services and engaging in public life without fear of discrimination.

The report also recommends federal legislation “to make it clear” that religious schools cannot be forced to lease their facilities for a same-sex marriage, as long as the refusal is made in the name of religious doctrine.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last month told Fairfax Media new religious freedom laws were needed to safeguard personal liberty in a changing society.

“Just because things haven’t been a problem in the past doesn’t mean they won’t be a problem in the future,” he said.

While the panel accepted the right of religious school to discriminate against students on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, it could see no justification for a school to discriminate on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status.

“Schools should be places of learning, not breeding grounds of prejudice. This looks and feels like a vindictive attempt to punish LGBTI people for achieving marriage equality."  [just.equal spokesperson Rodney Croome, 2018]

As is usual for this prime minister, Morrison fronted the media with half-truths and misdirection about the Religious Freedom Review Reportimplying that the contentious matters within the report were already uniformly codified in law across all the states.

This is far from the truth.

Thursday 20 September 2018

Sometime Australian Prime Minister & MP for Cook, Scott Morrison, is the protector of religious freedom? Don't make me laugh


This was Australia’s most recent Liberal prime minister quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald on 17 September 2018:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will enact "preventative regulation and legislation" to shield freedom of religion from future enemies, giving his strongest hints to date about the government's intentions regarding "religious freedom" laws.

What a load of codswallop, manure, dung, heifers dust, cowpats, meadow cocktails – what ABSOLUTE BULLSH*T!

The Liberal Member for Cook Scott Morrison already knows that the Australian Constitution without qualification guarantees religious freedom in this country at federal level:

Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion
                   The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. [my yellow highlighting]

As the Australian Constitution is the highest source in the land on this issue, one can only suspect that:

a) Scott Morrison has never read the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (as amended up to 1977); or

b) Scott Morrison is shamelessly pandering to his far-right, ideologically blind & bigoted supporter base, in the hope of being re-elected in 2019.

He appears to forget that Australia has also ratified a number of UN resolutions which directly or indirectly protect religious freedom and these have been upheld by the courts.

While he ignores the fact that Tasmania has had a religious freedom provision written into its state constitution since 1934 and Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory as well as the ACT have passed legislation prohibiting direct and indirect discrimination on the ground of religion. Only South Australia appears to have no legislation specifically covering religious freedom to date.

Morrison also forgets that whatever legislation he forces through this parliament, or whatever regulations he imposes, can all be undone in the first instance by subsequent federal parliaments and in the second instance by the minister of the day.

If he really wants to genuinely strengthen existing religious freedoms he would call a referendum to change the Australian Constitution.

Even a callow first-year-in-parliament politician knows that when state law is in conflict with federal law it is federal law which usually prevails and, if either is in conflict with the Constitution it will be the Constitution which prevails.

Having well and truly politicised his own faith Morrison may in fact be creating his own "future enemies" - he has all but guaranteed that someone will take his legislation and regulations to the High Court of Australia - where every word, phrase and punctuation mark will be studied closely.

Thursday 13 September 2018

Australia has a prime minister who rejects realitiy and embraces idiocy


Scott Morrison with a coal specimen supplied by the Minerals Council of Australia
ABC News, 9 February 2018
During an interview with the ABC 7.30 program on 11 September 2018 Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison declared he is “troubled” by the politics of envy in Australia and has “a very strong view” on what fairness means.

His version of “fairness” is a redefinition far removed from the contents of any dictionary wherein it is usually taken to mean impartial and just treatment or behaviour without favouritism or discrimination.

His expresses his version of fairness as “those that have a go get a go” or “a fair go for those that have a go”– phrases that are inherently judgemental.

It seems that in Morrison's world only individuals who are already capable of helping themselves in some fashion will deserve assistance from others.

Morrison again refused to say why the parliamentary Liberal Party changed leaders and in the interview sought to divorce himself from both the spill process and outcome, as though he wasn’t a participant in those rolling leadership ballots.

But what caught the attention of a numbers of viewers was his response to two questions.

The first response contained Morrison's assertion that he had separated climate/ environment and energy policies and admissions that he was removing climate change targets from future energy policy and was giving no guarantee of future funding for greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
The second involved his belief that there was a need for additional legal protections of religious freedoms when none were being threatened....... 

For Scott Morrison the primary fear of a majority of the Australian population is less important that demonstrating his missionary zeal to institutional Christianity and his unwavering support to the fossil fuel industry. 

Monday 10 September 2018

Under Morrison's prime ministership will church and state begin to regressively merge?


Liberal MP for Cook, former Australian Immigration Minister and former Treasurer, Scott John Morrison, is being marketed as Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister.

Right from the start of his parliamentary career Morrison politicised his own faith and made sure he identified as a Pentecostal ‘Christian’ in his First Speech in the House of  Representatives on 14 February 2008.

This month the Pentecostal ministry returned the favour by commencing his re-election campaign….

The Guardian, 7 September 2018:

Pentecostal leaders have warned their congregation that “darkness” will spread across Australia and Christians will be persecuted if Scott Morrison does not win the next election.

Others have been told that Morrison’s rise to power was a “miracle of God” that answered three days of prayer and fasting. They have been told that Morrison has made a public stand for Christian freedoms, and has promised to keep doing so, so God intervened to ensure he beat the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, in the Liberal leadership spill.

Videos posted to YouTube show how Pentecostal and evangelical religious communities are reacting to the rise of Morrison as prime minister.

Last Sunday, pastor Adam F Thompson from Voice of Fire Ministries and Adrian Beale from Everrest Ministries told a congregation of Hope City Church that Morrison’s elevation to power was divinely inspired.

Thompson, who says he can interpret dreams and that supernatural signs and manifestations accompany his ministry, said he’d received a message from God that Morrison and the Coalition must win the election.

“The Lord woke me up at 4.30am this morning,” Thompson told the Hope City Church congregation on Sunday, in a video he asked to be recorded.

 “Scott Morrison, he’s a born-again Christian, he’s probably one of the first ever born-again prime ministers, but it’s not time to celebrate at the moment.

“This is a crucial time right now … In the next six months it’s time for the body of Christ [the Christian church] to put its differences aside … and come together and agree that Jesus is the Messiah and start praying together and calling it in and praying for our prime minister right now, and for our government.

“I really see that the body of Christ is going to have influence in the arena of – the political arena of this nation.

“[But] if the prime minister right now doesn’t get elected in this next election there’s going to be darkness coming. And I’m not being negative. The laws are going to change where darkness is going to come and there will be persecution on the church.”

Thompson asked the congregation if they truly wanted a Pentecostal revival and reformation in Australia.

 “If it doesn’t happen in the next six months, in the next year I should say, there is going to be, the laws are going to come in, where they’re going to change and darkness will come,” Thompson said.

“The Lord is saying he wants us to rise up and pray, rather than come into persecution where we’ll have no choice.”

In the video, Beale from Everrest Ministries then leads the congregation in prayer for Morrison, calling on God to help Australians grasp the value of his intervention in the leadership spill.

 “Just as Scott has come to the fore, unexpected Lord, you’ve kept him hidden for a time such as this,” Beale said.

“Lord, we pray that the whole of the body of Christ in Australia would grasp the value of what you’ve done, Lord, and get behind our new leader … and that the next election would be won so that godly principles would be put into place, rather than the enemy having his way.”

In a different video posted to YouTube, Warwick Marsh from the Australian Christian Values Institute has claimed three days of prayer and fasting had been answered with two miracles.

“Firstly, on the 15th of August, the Senate voted down the euthanasia in the territories proposal. No one expected this. This was an absolute miracle,” Marsh says in the video, which was posted last month.

“Secondly, on Friday the 24th, the Liberal party voted in a new prime minister, Scott Morrison, after a week of political turmoil.

“Many people here in Australia of faith believe this was a miracle of God, as Mr Morrison has a strong faith in God and has made a stand for Christian freedoms and has promised to do so in the future.

“It would seem that this is a direct answer to our prayers, as we prayed against the erosion of our Christian freedoms under the forthcoming Ruddock report.”....

In apparent response Morrison has stated....


Pause for a moment and consider the ramifications for an Australian democratic secular society, when the far-right leader of a right wing federal government apparently believes that secular society has no greater claim to legitimacy than faith-based society and, that prayer not environmental or economic policy is an appropriate response to the effects of climate change.


BRIEF BACKGROUND


Subsequently he stood for parliament as a Liberal Party candidate and won the seat of Cook in the 2007 federal election.

On the election of the Abbott Government in 2013 he began his ministerial career:
Cabinet Minister from 18.9.2013
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection from 18.9.13 to 23.12.14
Minister for Social Services from 23.12.14 to 21.9.15
Treasurer from 21.9.15 to 26.08.2018
Prime Minister from 24.8.2018.

As Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Morrison had a reputation for refusing information to parliament, mainstream media and the general public.

Eight asylum seekers in onshore/offshore detention died during his term as immigration minister - these deaths included three suicides (one by self immolation), one ruled a death in custody, one due to failure to receive adequate medical care whilst in offshore detention and another a murder of an asylum seeker by offshore detention security guards.

His well-known antipathy towards asylum seekers has been demonstrated by his actions and statements such as this in 2013:


In 2015 and 2018 Scott Morrison took part in the removal of two Liberal prime ministers - Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. In the first instance by agreeing not to stand as deputy on Abbott's ticket and in the second instance by sending his own supporters to lobby for the second leadership spill and then successfully standing for the vacant prime ministership. 

The first two Newspolls published after he was sworn in as Australia's 30th prime minister were unfavourable to the government he leads.  The second was the Coalition Government's 40th consecutive unfavourable Newspoll with First Preference voting intentions running at Labor 42% to Coalition 34% and Second Preference voting at Labor 56% to Coalition 44%

So unlike the prime minister he replaced, Morrison experienced no 'honeymoon period' after he came to office.

Due to the resignation of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on 31 August 2018 Scott Morrison currently leads a government without a majority in the House of Representatives.

Morrison has not been generally viewed in a favourable light by the media nor by some who worked with him in the private sector.

The New Daily, 25 August 2018:

Morrison attended Sydney Boys’ High School through to Year 12. In March 2015, approximately 300 alumni of the schools former students signed a letter protesting Mr Morrison’s attendance at a fund-raising event. The letter accused Mr Morrison of having “so flagrantly disregarded human rights”…..

Veteran Canberra journalist Laurie Oakes once said on television that the government “should avoid the goading and arrogance of Scott Morrison, where he just pours mullock on journalists”. Oakes added that his attitude towards journalists was disgusting. “When people like Scott Morrison give us the finger when we ask tough questions, we’ve got to shine a light on that and expose it because it’s not acceptable.”

To become Liberal candidate for Cook in 2007, he lost the preselection ballot, 82 votes to 8, to Michael Towke, a telecommunications engineer and the candidate of the Liberals’ right faction. However, allegations emerged that Towke had engaged in branch stacking and embellished his resume.The Liberal Party’s state executive disendorsed Towke and Morrison won the pre-selection. Later, the allegations against Towke were disproved and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was successfully sued by Towke.

When 48 people died in the Christmas Island disaster of 2010, Morrison objected to the Gillard Government offering to pay for families’ fares to the funerals in Sydney……

The BBC’s Nick Bryant ungenerously wrote: “My hunch is that Scott Morrison doesn’t spend much time agonising over the contradictions that have marked his career, or fretting about the veering course of a political journey that has taken him from the moderate wing of the party, to the right. The main point for him is that his career has been heading in an ever-upward trajectory.”

The Saturday Paper, 8 September 2018:

Twelve years ago, Morrison was sacked from Tourism Australia – two years into his term as boss there. The then Liberal minister for tourism, Fran Bailey, in 2006 said the board could no longer work with him. He was “incapable of being a team player” and faced a revolt from state and territory tourism executives.

An Australian National Audit Office report released a scathing report into Tourism Australia’s management of “perceived conflicts of interest” while Morrison was at the helm and quoted industry observers who had “expressed the view that the perceived conflicts of interests of board members are a major risk to Tourism Australia’s reputation”.

Morrison’s reported half-a-million dollar payout was questioned as excessive and not in accordance with regulations according to then Remuneration Tribunal president John Conde.

Morrison’s ability to listen to others was questioned during his time as treasurer. Sydney Liberal John Alexander, who headed a group of parliamentary colleagues worried about housing affordability, was incensed by Morrison’s dismissive attitude to him. The task of holding his badly fractured government together will make Morrison’s time at Tourism Australia seem like a walk in the park.

Karl Stefanovic put it bluntly on the Nine Network: “You are the boss but you have little or no control over the party … Your party is an absolute dog’s breakfast.” Amazingly, Morrison said he was “not fussed” about all that. “We are focused on the job ahead.” But in a giveaway that it’s getting to him, the PM leaked one of his own pending announcements: that his five-year commitment to raise the pension age to 70 was being ditched. Labor’s Jim Chalmers quipped the PM was getting in first.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 November 2012:

In 1998, aged 30, Morrison went to New Zealand to run that country's national Office of Tourism and Sport, answering directly to the then tourism minister, Murray McCully. He became known as "Murray's Rottweiler", so enthusiastically did he throw himself into a battle between the minister and the national tourism board. When the dust settled, the casualties included the board's chairman and chief executive, as well as McCully himself. A Wellington newspaper reported that in the ensuing inquiry, Morrison emerged as "a cross between Rasputin and Crocodile Dundee".