News

Published: 17 September 2020

ACT Legislative Assembly

People who live in the Australian Capital Territory will choose their next government on Saturday 17 October.

Even if you don’t live there, you may be interested in our new FamilyVoice Vote Wisely leaflet. You may be able to forward it to friends or relatives who do.

We have focused on the two major parties, because one of them – either Labor or Liberal – will form government after the election. Their current policies and past voting records indicate key differences on issues affecting families, faith and freedom in the ACT:

• gender and sexuality counselling and parental rights
• gender ideology being taught in schools
• gender on government documents
• censorship zones near abortion clinics
• drug laws
• chaplaincy

Your vote – or those of ACT residents you know – could make a real difference. It could decide whether or not ACT children can have access to a public school chaplain. It could decide whether or not ACT children are exposed to damaging sex and gender ideologies in kindergarten, primary and high schools. It could decide whether or not pregnant women seeking an abortion are able to receive compassionate help and information about alternatives.

I have included the image of the ACT Vote Wisely leaflet below. You can also access it on our website.

Last year our Vote Wisely leaflet made a big impact on the federal election on 19 May 2019. Many people thanked us for telling them about policies the mainstream media rarely report.

Some people posted the leaflet on Facebook and other social media. Others placed the leaflet in their local newspaper as an advertisement.

Please pray that one way or another, many people in the ACT may consider the information below.

The work needed to prepare and produce this Vote Wisely leaflet is expensive.  It involves our staff spending many hours researching the policies of the Labor and Liberal parties on these important issues.  We greatly value your financial support that enables this work to be done.  If you are able, a donation at this time would be greatly appreciated.

Peter Downie - National Director

FamilyVoice Australia

Published: 14 September 2020

The Victorian Bar has expressed concern after viewing footage of the arrest of Ballarat woman Zoe Buhler.

Buhler was placed in handcuffs on incitement charges after she posted details of a Freedom Day protest on her Facebook page, despite informing police that she had an ultrasound appointment to attend in an hour and saying she was happy to delete the social media post.

“We recognise the importance of compliance with the law, but enforcement of those laws needs to be proportionate and consistent” said President of the Victorian Bar Wendy Harris QC.

The Bar said that the arrest and handcuffing of Zoe Buhler appeared disproportionate to the threat she presented:

The law in Victoria, explained by the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Court of Appeal in Slaveski v Victoria and Perkins v County Court of Victoria, is that a police officer is not entitled to use handcuffs on a person merely because an arrest has been made.  The footage of Ms Buhler’s arrest portrays no threat posed by her conduct which was suggestive of the need to apply handcuffs.   Consistency in the enforcement of the law is also critical; without it, confidence in the rule of law is undermined.  The Victorian Bar is concerned that the enforcement response to Ms Buhler’s conduct is apparently at odds with other reported and more measured responses by authorities to organisers or promoters of similar protests planned or carried out in contravention of public health directives.  

The Bar said that it had written to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Hon. Lisa Neville, to raise these matters of concern.

Published: 09 September 2020

You may have seen the video recording of the arrest of Zoe Lee Buhler by the Victorian police.

Zoe is a 27-year-old mother who was at home, dressed in her pyjamas when the police called with a search warrant. She was handcuffed and arrested for “incitement” while her children and partner watched. Zoe is pregnant and was due to have an ultrasound an hour later.

Caroline Overington, a columnist with The Australian, called Zoe’s arrest “dictatorial and dangerous.” Zoe’s alleged crime? She was one of thousands of people who have been frustrated with Victoria’s draconian lockdown laws. She put a post on Facebook about a “Freedom Day” in Ballarat last weekend.

The only reason we know about her arrest is that her partner live-streamed the incident until the police confiscated his mobile phone. How many other Victorian homes did police raid in this brutal way?

Murray Gleeson, former chief justice of the High Court of Australia, has said it would be wrong to use the procedure of arrest or warrant unless police reasonably suspect that the accused person would fail to turn up at court.

If Zoe had to be charged, why use the harsh process of handcuffs and arrest, rather than a simple summons? And why not simply accept Zoe’s offer to remove her Facebook post?

Victoria has “All the hallmarks of a police state” said an editorial in The Australian:

This time last year, the idea that any Australian police force would arrest and handcuff a pregnant woman at home in her pyjamas, in front of her children, in a provincial city, for a Facebook post, would have defied credulity.

The pandemic, however, has brought an incremental erosion of civil liberties, especially in Victoria. The heat has been turned up gradually, to the point Victorians are living a dystopian nightmare. House arrest for 23 hours a day, working (if they still have a job) at home while they homeschool children; an 8pm curfew; isolation if they live alone; no visiting friends or family. Many people, understandably, are too fraught to add another worry — the encroaching police state — to their burdens.

Others, alarmed that their state has crossed a dangerous line, are outraged. Professionals at the coalface, such as the medical practitioners who have signed a letter noting the dangers to citizens’ physical and mental health posed by restrictions, are increasingly concerned for the sick and vulnerable.

A serious problem with leaders who grasp draconian powers is that they are most reluctant to give them up. Dictator Dan, as some call him, has just secured a 6-month extension of his state of emergency. It narrowly passed the Victorian upper house, 20:19, last Wednesday.

It is time to draw a line in the sand.

Peter Downie
National Director - FamilyVoice Australia

Published: 01 September 2020

In a remarkable recent development that sets a standard for Australia and every nation, the leadership of Papua New Guinea has resolved to declare the country to be officially Christian.

This builds on Papua New Guinea’s recognition of its Christian heritage, as described in the preamble to its Constitution that was adopted upon independence from Australia in 1975:

We, the people of Papua New Guinea ... pledge ourselves to guard and pass on to those who come after us our noble traditions and the Christian principles that are ours now ... under the guiding hand of God, to be the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.

The country is highly Christianised, with around 70 per cent of people indicating personal faith in Jesus, in a culture that is steeped in Christian morality.

But in June 2020, a report issued by the PNG National Research Institute, concluded the country is not officially Christian.

The report's author, Dr Eugene Ezebilo, said that a country is Christian only when it has Christianity as the official national religion and features an established church. He cautioned that if PNG officially becomes a Christian nation it may dissuade non-Christian people from moving to PNG from overseas.

Papua New Guinea's National Executive Council in August 2020 approved a proposal to formally declare the country Christian under the Constitution, apparently in response to the report.

However, according to Dr Ezebilo, it is unlikely that a constitutional referendum will occur to effect any change.

FamilyVoice Australia spokesman David d’Lima said constitutional recognition of the Christian faith is a helpful feature for any nation, but ultimately does not make for a Christian country.

“Australia and Papua New Guinea have a rich Christian heritage and a constitutional recognition of the sovereignty of God,” he said.

“In Australia, the preamble declares the people to be humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God and the Father of Federation (Sir Henry Parkes) wrote in a column published in the Sydney Morning Herald on August 26, 1885, that we are pre-eminently a Christian people.

“But every nation, just like every person, is Christian only to the extent that Christ himself lays the claim - or not - as he explained when referring to sheep and goat nations,” David d’Lima said.

“Like any parent, we may well be proud of Papua New Guinea as our offspring nation that seeks to honour Christ.

“However, if we continue our headlong plunge into wrongdoing in Australia, we may eventually have to rely upon missionaries from PNG to re-evangelise our country.

“The ethical behaviour of PNG and its embrace of the Christian gospel is far better than Australia which has become increasingly sinful in its social behaviour and legal provisions in recent years.”