Why do we still have Tony Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia? Perhaps we should blame rightwing Christian lobbyists

ABC News 16 March 2015:

ABC's Four Corners program has revealed the campaign was run by lobby group the National Civic Council (NCC), which emailed thousands of its members and associates, urging them to contact the Liberal MPs.

It follows the leak of a confidential message from party treasurer Philip Higginson pushing for Peta Credlin's removal as Mr Abbott's chief of staff.

The emails link to a live webpage hosted by sister organisation, The Australian Family Association, where almost 100 Liberal MPs could be contacted with a single click.

MPs described being deluged with emails leading up to the leadership spill.

"In the last few days the emails have been overwhelmingly flooding the office saying all this nonsense about leadership has gone far too far, and the emails are now overwhelmingly saying 'stick to the team you've got'," Senator Eric Abetz told ABC Hobart at the time.

Four Corners uncovered the campaign after a detailed instruction email was inadvertently sent to a Sydney barrister.

NCC vice president Patrick Byrne, who organised the email campaign, said it was effective.

"Our email campaign would've gone out to maybe 10,000 people; I'm not exactly sure and I don't have direct feedback, but I think it's had some influence," he told Four Corners.

One NCC email, obtained by Four Corners, warned about the possibility of either Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop being elected to the leadership.

"Whatever his failings, the alternatives are Malcolm Turnbull, who failed as leader, and Julie Bishop, who was forced to resign as shadow treasurer due to dissatisfaction within Liberal ranks over her performance," one email read.

The emails credit Mr Abbott with holding the line on same-sex marriage and repealing the carbon tax.

The Prime Minister is held in high regard by the NCC.

Mr Abbott described its founder, Bob Santamaria, as, "my first political mentor", in his book Battlelines.

National Civic Council website here.

BACKGROUND

The Monthly April 2007:

In the aftermath of the Great Split in the Labor Party, in 1954-55, the Catholic-based anti-communist wing was driven out of all the states, other than New South Wales. The anti-communists, led by Bob Santamaria, then received the cold shoulder from Rome. They soldiered on, forming one of the most determined political forces in Australia. Through his organisation, the National Civic Council, and his newspaper column, his TV spot on the Nine Network and his regular contact with government ministers, Santamaria exerted the kind of influence which political activists and lobbyists these days can only dream of.

March 2015 NSW Election: 7 out of 8 Clarence Electorate candidates against mining on the Dorrigo Plateau*

Blicks River Guardians

Media Release 17th  March 2015                                                  

No to mining on the Dorrigo Plateau

Left to Right: 

Independent  Deb Novak, Christian Democrat’s Carol Ordish, Independent Bryan Robins, 
Country Labor’s Trent Nathan, The Greens’ Janet Cavanaugh

A public forum was held on Sunday 15th March at the Dundurrabin Community Centre on the Dorrigo Plateau where Labor and Greens candidates from the Oxley electorate and Labor, Greens, Christian Democrats and independent candidates from the Clarence electorate debated the upcoming election issues.

The event was hosted by the Blicks River Guardians a local community group who formed in July 2013 to raise awareness of gold, copper and antimony exploration in local catchments.  A spokesperson for the group, Meredith Stanton said,

“Ahead of the forum we sent questions to the candidates and asked, “Do you agree. Is mining an inappropriate land use for the Dorrigo Plateau?”, because our group has serious concerns about mining development in our area and the risk of water contamination.”

A majority Chinese-owned company,  Anchor Resources holds three exploration leases covering private and public land on the Dorrigo Plateau. The Blicks Project (EL 6465 & EL 8100 - Scorpio Resources) is a gold and copper prospect located about 2km’s from Dundurrabin and the third - the Bielsdown Project (EL6388)- is an antimony prospect located in the Oxley electorate, above the Nymboida River catchment near Dorrigo.

Ms Stanton added, “The forum was a great success and I’m pleased to report that all seven candidates who attended voiced opposition to any mine development here on the Dorrigo Plateau. We are still waiting to hear from the Nationals who could not attend, but we hope they will reply in writing when they have time.”

The Dorrigo Plateau has one of the highest annual rainfalls in NSW and receives an average of 2000mm of rainfall p.a. with daily falls of over 400mm recorded during the 2009 floods.

* Member for Clarence Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis did not attend. According to his electorate office he sent his apologies.

BACKGROUND

Candidates standing in the Clarence Electorate on 28 March 2015: 

Prime Minister Abbott's plan still permits an outrageous attack on Australian press freedom

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance 16 March 2015:

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union and industry advocate for Australia’s journalists, cannot support the Prime Minister’s proposal for government “agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access a journalist’s metadata for the purpose of identifying a source”.

The Prime Minister’s plan still permits an outrageous attack on press freedom and would have a chilling effect on journalism in Australia leading to whistleblowers being fearful that they risk exposure if they seek to reveal instances of wrongdoing, corruption, waste, illegal activity and dishonesty.

MEAA believes the lack of understanding of what is at stake requires the proposed Parliamentary Inquiry into press freedom concerns to go ahead in order the concerns of journalists and media organisations are heard and acknowledged by MPs.

MEAA CEO Paul Murphy said: “What needs to be understood is that no journalist, anywhere, can ever allow the identity of a confidential source to become known – that is a guiding principle of journalism the world over. It is a principle acknowledged by every Australian journalist in clause 3 of MEAA’s Journalist Code of Ethics: ‘Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances’.”

Murphy added: “Accessing metadata to hunt down journalists’ sources, regardless of the procedures used, threatens press freedom and democracy. It means important stories in the public interest can be silenced before they ever become known, and whistleblowers can be persecuted and prosecuted. It means journalists can be jailed for simply doing their job.

“The so-called ‘safeguards’ recommended by the Parliamentary Committee were no safeguards at all because they still allowed government agencies to hunt down journalists’ sources. Similarly, the Prime Minister’s proposal also allows those agencies to trawl through a journalist’s metadata in order to expose a confidential source. Putting a hurdle like a warrant in the way will not change the outcome: using a journalists’ metadata to pursue a whistleblower. Why does the Government not understand that no journalist can breach their fundamental ethical obligation to never allow the identity of a confidential source to be revealed?”

MEAA has consistently explained this principle of press freedom in every submission to Parliament on the national security laws. MEAA also repeated those concerns on Thursday last week when it was visited by representatives from the Prime Minister’s, Attorney-General’s and Communications Minister’s offices and the AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin. During that meeting, the AFP confirmed it has been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’ metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go trawling through journalists’ metadata.

Murphy said: “Journalists cannot allow the relationship they have with a confidential source to be breached, under any circumstance – that is their ethical responsibility. If the surveillance continues and is formally adopted in the Data Retention Bill with or without a warrant, then journalists will be forced to use the tools of counter-surveillance such as anonymisation and encryption to protect their sources. It remains our fundamental position that this Bill should not be proceed at all and that the press freedom concerns of the previous two tranches of national security laws must be addressed.”

In an interesting twist, the Australian Federal Police issued a media release in which it admitted that police already request access to journalists’ metadata:

Fact check: Use of metadata in relation to journalists

Release Date: Tuesday, March 17 2015, 02:34 PM

In a statement released yesterday, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) claimed that AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed the AFP had “been repeatedly asked to hunt down journalists’ sources by accessing journalists’ metadata and he confirmed that it is doing so. The Data Retention Bill will simply formalise these activities with no regard to the press freedom implications and presumably encourage at least 20 government agencies to go trawling through journalists’ metadata.”

This is inaccurate and a distortion of the comments made.

Commissioner Colvin said that over the past 18 months, the AFP has received 13 referrals relating to the alleged unauthorised disclosure of Commonwealth information in breach of section 70 of the Crimes Act.

This offence specifically criminalises the activity of Commonwealth officials who have released Commonwealth information in contravention of their obligations, not journalists.

In the overwhelming majority of these investigations, no need was identified to conduct a metadata telecommunications inquiry on a journalist. AFP requests for accessing a journalist’s metadata are rare. [my red bolding]

On  19 March 2015 the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 was passed by the House of Representative. Only three MPs voted against it - The Greens'Adam Bandt and Independents Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan.

 Image from The Guardian 19 March 2015

NSW Clarence Electorate March 2015: So who was trying to fiddle the outcome of a local independent Survey Monkey opinion poll?

It seems that some political party supporters never learn……

This was on Facebook this week.

Rebecca Beare-Bath So who ever has a computer positioned here is adding multiple votes in the same time period from the same IP address:

Which candidate was someone in the Croydon-Five Dock area attempting to boost in this small local poll?

Well it appears Rebecca has the answer:

The opinion poll can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-VFCSMB37/.

U.S. Politics in 2015: you couldn't make this sh*t up

It seems the U.S. tea party crazies, whom Australian Liberal and Nationals MPs and senators frequently emulate, have finally launched themselves into the political stratosphere.

The Hoopla 17 March 2015:

In an extraodinary step and one that show just how nasty conservative Christianity has become in the US – the State of Oklahoma has just passed a law in its lower house to ban marriage for atheists.

If passed by Oklahoma’s senate, Bill 1125 will mean that no secular marriage licences will be issued. All marriage licences will have to be approved by a member of the clergy. Under the proposal from Republican State Representative Todd Russ… , a marriage would have to be signed off by a preacher, minister, priest, rabbi or ecclesiastical dignitary (no marriage celebrants or judges here)  – which would effectively restrict the right to marry to Christians and Jews.

About non-believers Russ said: “They don’t have a spiritual basis for a marriage and don’t want to have a clergy member or a priest or someone involved in the spiritual aspect, then they can file an affidavit of common-law marriage.”

(Except that, in an absurd twist, the State of Oklahoma doesn’t recognise common-law marriage.)…

At its Third Reading in the Oklahoma House of Representatives on 10 March 2015 Bill 1125 passed: Ayes: 67 Nays: 24.

The latest version of the bill does allow Oklahoma judges and retired judges to perform marriages. Otherwise the only persons who appear able to conduct marriage ceremonies under this bill are an ordained or authorized preacher or minister of the Gospel, priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary of any denomination who has been duly ordained or authorized by the church to which he or she belongs to preach the Gospel, or a rabbi and who is at least eighteen (18) years of age.

In addition the bill states; Marriages between persons belonging to the society called Friends, or Quakers, the spiritual assembly of the Baha'is, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or other assemblies which have no ordained minister, may be solemnized by the persons and in the manner prescribed by and practiced in any such society, church, or assembly.

Under this bill the marriage ceremony must now precede the granting of a marriage licence.

The Oklahoma Senate has not yet voted on the bill.

The State of Oklahoma has a land area of 68,594 sq miles, a population of est 3.8 million people and approximately 290 serving judges unevenly spread across the landscape.

Agnostics, atheists and same sex couples may have to travel some distance to find themselves a judge to perform their marriage ceremonies if this piece of legislative madness makes it into law.

The state issues over 27,000 marriage licences (and grants over 17,000 divorce decrees) each year in Oklahoma.

* Map of Oklahoma's 77 counties, cities & major highways from www.travelok.com

Every Australian Counts launches the DIY Disability Housing Plan

Media release 20 March 2015:

DIY Disability Housing Plan

“While the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been talking about making a plan to start building accessible housing for people with disability, TV’s ‘The Block’ has built 18 units”.

The NDIS at full scheme will have a budget of up to $700 million a year to invest in accessible housing for people with disability. This week we learned that after two years of discussion the housing options paper prepared by the National Disability Insurance Agency has been binned! Instead they are going to discuss the issue again at the next national meeting of disability ministers in April.

John Della Bosca continued “By 2020, there will be 122,000 people with disability eligible for the NDIS without accessible housing. This problem is not going away. It’s time the Ministers took disability housing out of the too hard basket”.

It is taking too long for the governments to come up with a plan and so we are making our own. Today the Every Australian Counts launched the DIY Disability Housing Plan. While our politicians are talking about making a plan, people with disability and their families are going to write a plan ourselves.

John Della Bosca concluded: “We are calling on our 160,000 supporters to send in ideas on how the NDIA should invest $700 million each year to provide accessible housing to people with disability. What they have taken two years to do, we will do in one month.

Contributions to the paper are being made at http://www.everyaustraliancounts.com.au/take-action/