News

Published: 04 June 2021

MPs across Australia must “get their act together” to protect more young people from the harms of gender intervention, argues FamilyVoice Australia.

“In response to a growing number of confused children and teenagers receiving puberty suppression or cross sex hormone intervention in various States, we respectfully urge MPs to get their act together and protect young people at risk from the harmful consequences of so-called gender identity treatment,” said FamilyVoice Australia spokesman David d’Lima.

Answers to questions recently raised in the West Australian Parliament by Hon Nick Goiran show a rapid increase in the number of confused young people receiving hormonal intervention in response to gender confusion.

“We commend Nick Goiran, but we need many more MPs to speak up and protect young people from life-long damage in the West and beyond,” David d’Lima said.

FamilyVoice also has applauded recent concerns raised in the New South Wales Parliament by Hon Fred Nile on the issue of gender intervention.

“Questions raised by Rev Nile have confirmed that the NSW Coalition Government supports experimental gender intervention on children that may produce life-long infertility and other irreversible consequences,” David d’Lima said.

“MPs who would not want such radical responses to harm their own young kids or grandchildren cannot sit back and allow confusion to somehow justify high risk prescriptions for young people in the mainstream community.

“The way forward is clarity about biology, and the sensitive encouragement of young people who are struggling with gender identity - but not to prescribe dangerous chemical intervention,” he said.

“MPs must also put a stop to the propaganda and misinformation about gender that is driving the confusion in the first place.”

Published: 01 June 2021

These days, men and boys are in trouble.

Baptist pastor Murray Campbell recently wrote about one example close to his home. As he explained in the Eternity online newspaper, students at the co-ed Parkdale Secondary College were shocked by what happened a few weeks ago.

A female youth worker from the local city council had been invited to give a presentation as part of a “diversity and inclusion” program. According to eyewitness accounts, year 11 boys were “ordered to stand up in class”. What followed was anything but diverse and inclusive.

The Herald Sun reported that the boys were then “slammed by a council youth worker for being white, male and Christian ‘oppressors’”.

If the students were “white”, “male” and “Christian”, they were made to stand and face public humiliation as the youth worker “told them they were responsible for being ‘privileged’ and ‘oppressors’”.

A 16-year-old student said: “It was so messed up, we thought for a moment it was a joke, but then we realised it wasn’t and we were so upset and angry by it all.

“The youth worker basically said straight, white, Christian males were oppressors and they held all the power and privilege in society. The male students felt shamed and targeted.

“It was quite difficult to say anything because she was also talking about LGBTQI+. If you spoke out against that you feared you’d be called homophobic,” the student said.

Murray Campbell said such attitudes and ideas, deriding boys, heterosexuality and Christianity, are not new. “’Safe Schools and Healthy Relationships’ are now part of the curriculum in every Victorian government school and many private schools,” he said.

He could have added that parts of the Safe Schools program are still being taught in other states, including NSW and SA where it is officially banned.

Parkdale Secondary College is only the tip of the iceberg. There is a war against men being waged across the Western world, including Australia and the US, where the photo below was taken.

Feminist message above a mirror in a male bathroom

But social commentator Bettina Arndt has cited extensive research showing that in violent homes it’s not just the dad who is aggressive. Mothers are just as likely to be violent.

“Look at this important study from the Australian Institute of Criminology, which asked young people whether they’d ever witnessed their dads bashing their mums, or the other way around,” Bettina says.

“While the author, David Indermauer, trumpets the finding that almost a quarter of the kids had witnessed their fathers attack their mothers, he totally buries the most important result: almost the same percentage had seen their mothers attacking fathers.”

We are grateful to NSW Upper House MP Mark Latham, who has introduced a Parents’ Rights Bill to give parents a greater say in the moral values taught to their children. We believe all states should pass similar legislation.

And we also believe that Australian students deserve to know the truth – that neither women nor men are naturally peaceful and non-violent. Both sexes need self-control and respect for others.

As the Apostle Paul put it: “All have sinned.”

Peter Downie - National Director

FamilyVoice Australia

Published: 31 May 2021

Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians aged 15 to 40.

Millions are spent to prevent suicides of thousands of Australians every year.

Queensland could soon overturn this social support for those who feel mentally overwhelmed.

A new assisted suicide bill pours millions of dollars into doctors and nurses advising about suicide and administering poison to patients, so long as they have “mental suffering” and are told they have a year to live.

The Queensland bill extends eligibility from the six months restriction in ‘life expectancy’ in WA and Victoria to 12 months.

The bill expressly permits doctors to initiate a discussion solely about assisted suicide.

It also permits registered nurses with requisite experience and VAD certification in WA or Queensland to administer the poisonous cocktail.

The Victorian government wrongly predicted the state’s assisted suicide laws would help the euthanasia of a dozen people every year.

Two years later, 224 vulnerable Victorians have been killed by a state-provided death-enabling cocktail, and a further 259 declined to use the poison they were provided with.

New amendments to the “End-Of-Life Option Act” in California reveals what pro-euthanasia advocates are expecting just five years after introduction: a removal of what the sponsoring Senator calls “roadblocks”.

The bill, SB 380, reduces 15 days between oral requests for euthanasia to just two days, and it also compels conscientious-objecting doctors to refer patients and hampers religious care and hospital institutions from declining to assist in a suicide. 

Meanwhile, palliative care spending and public awareness is languishing behind world-class standards in Victoria, Queensland and WA.

Funding and staffing for holistic palliative care for dying patients is over $100 million behind national benchmarks in all three states. Queensland has just one third of the palliative care specialists required for their population.

A recent survey by Palliative Care Australia found just 4 in 10 Australians (39 per cent) know a person can ask for palliative care when they are first diagnosed with a terminal, chronic, or degenerative illness.

“About 40,000 people a year we estimate are not accessing palliative care [when they need it]" PCA deputy chair Helen Walker told the ABC, as carers called for better education around available services.

Spending millions on euthanasia reverses the anti-suicide culture. It pushes potentially millions of Australians into a new deadly rejected category, according to The Australian’s Paul Kelly.

He observes that “Euthanasia creates two classes of social citizens – those who lives are deemed to be inviolable, and those who are deemed to be better off dead.”

Mental health presentations in the latter half of 2020 jumped 23 percent in Victoria. Ninety-four people died by state-provided poison in the same period.

Both the Victorian and Queensland governments are seeking exemptions from the Commonwealth offence of using a “carriage service” to encourage suicide. The protections to halt the suicide of any rational adult are being torn down.

The WA law comes into effect on July 1.

Published: 28 May 2021

Last week, Brisbane’s Courier Mail published a disturbing article by Melinda Tankard Reist of Collective Shout.

“Barely a day goes by,” she said, “that a parent doesn’t contact me to tell me of the devastation and trauma caused as a result of their child being exposed to porn:

‘My 6-year- old was shown porn by an older boy at school.’

‘My daughter was on a kids’ games site and a porn pop-up appeared.’

‘My child googled an innocent term, and it took him straight to a porn site.’

‘My son was shown porn on the school bus on the way home.’

‘My 7-year-old saw porn at the school camp.’”

My own Downie children were largely home-schooled – protected to some degree from pornography thrust under their nose by other kids.

But these days, internet-connected devices are required for all types of school subjects. Some of the horror stories Melinda mentions can happen to any child or grandchild – yours or mine.

“Some of these children now suffer insomnia, nightmares, anxiety,” Melinda went on. “In the worst cases, they are medicated due to the level of disturbance caused by exposure to violent porn.

“It surprises many parents to learn there is nothing to prevent their child being exposed to porn. No barriers – such as proof-of-age requirements – to stop them entering rape, sadism, torture porn and incest websites. All before their first kiss.

“We have allowed a never-before-seen experiment on the sexual development of our kids,” Melinda says. “And we’re now seeing the results.”

And what are those results?

Melinda relays reports from deeply worried parents and grandparents:

“My 10-year-old granddaughter was approached by a boy while waiting for the school bus and asked, ‘Do you do arse?’

“My 8-year-old found a note in her school bag which read, ‘Ready for sex?”

“An 8-year-old old boy told my 8-year-old girl he wanted to ‘f**k you hard’.”

Melinda points out that no boy is born this way – it is learned behaviour. Pornography has become the world’s biggest department of education. It’s a sex ed handbook that links sex with aggression, and the word “consent” is never mentioned.

It is child abuse on a massive scale.

So what can we do about it?

Peter Stevens, Director of FamilyVoice Victoria, is also our Coordinator for Child Internet Safety.

In 2019 he sent a detailed submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry into online gambling and pornography, urging compulsory age verification for these websites in order to protect children.

The inquiry report, Protecting the Age of Innocence, was released in February 2020. It agreed with Peter Stevens and many others, recommending mandated age verification for pornographic and other harmful websites. This would not be a “silver bullet” – but would be a big step forward.

Now more than a year has gone by. The federal government has not responded.

Peter Stevens has met with an adviser to the federal communications minister Paul Fletcher to ask what is going on.

The adviser assured him that the government’s response is complete, but the Covid pandemic has delayed its tabling in parliament.

That was weeks ago. Still nothing has happened.

That is why I'm asking that you send a quick message to your federal MPs via our website on this issue.  It will only take a few moments.

Peter Downie

National Director