Vote “No” to The Voice
politics
Albo Gets A Lesson From the Framers Of The Constitution
The World Hates You
If you love the Lord, then the world will hate you.
The Bible uses the word “world” in three different was, as we do in English:
- the physical planet on which we live
- humanity in general “God so loved the world…”
- the system of culture, governance and business that operates independently of God, and often in opposition to Him.
It is that world as system which hates all Christians.
Andrew Thorburn was on Monday night announced as CEO of the Essendon AFL Club. By Tuesday he was fired.
His huge crime was that he is also Chairman of the Board of City On a Hill Church, a church which describes itself as being in the Anglican tradition.
Apparently back in 2013 somebody there preached a sermon that was against abortion and another person preached a sermon that said homosexuality is a sin. He was not the preacher of either message, but merely associating with such people is an unforgivable sin.
Dictator Dan Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, condemned him as “hateful” and a “bigot”, currently the worst judgement that can be bestowed on a person by the State of Woke.
So he resigned before he even started,
For the axe of Cancel Culture to have fallen so swiftly, it is clear that there was a “dirt file” already in existence. There are people who are so dedicated to destroying christians that they have already done the research on those whom they hate.
So the AFL, and organised sport more generally, justify their actions by wanting to make the sport inclusive and diverse. Their inclusion and diversity will come by excluding Christians.
The world really does hate you.
Any christian who works in an organisation big enough to have an HR Department now needs to have a Plan B.
Churches and other christian organisations, especially schools, also need to consider what might happen if the Government takes exception to their beliefs, which they will.
We live in a culture that has rejected God’s ways, and rather than seeing the church as a comfort and an ally, it sees the church as the enemy.
Why conservatives are happier than liberals
From The Spectator:
Why conservatives are happier than liberals
President Biden (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Ross Pomeroy, editor of RealClearScience, calls it “one of the most surefire findings in all of social psychology, repeatedly replicated over almost five decades of study: American conservatives say they are much happier than American liberals. They also report greater meaning and purpose in their lives, and higher overall life satisfaction.”
Given their recent embrace of lockdowns and masking as a societal ideal, drag queens as role models, abortion as a good career move, and sanctions against “misgendering,” it might not surprise you that American liberals are much more prone to neurosis, depression, and anxiety, and, as one recent study cited by Pomeroy pointed out, “have become less happy over the last several decades.” Their unhappiness “is associated with increasingly secular attitudes and actions.”
Think about that for a moment. “Attitudes” and “actions” imply that liberals might be people who choose to be unhappy.
That may sound flippant, but it’s a reasonable conclusion, especially given that social scientists often assert that conservative happiness rests on three “attitudes” and “actions” that pretty much anyone can adopt.
The first attitude is religious belief. Now, “religion” is a broad word — sort of like saying “politics” — but in our context, what we’re really talking about is Christian belief, and the action is going to church.
After 2,000 years of Christian witness and theology, and pro- and anti-Christian polemics, it’s reasonable to conclude that on the question of whether Christianity is true, there are respectable arguments on both sides. The odds are at least fifty-fifty that there is a God — a prime mover, a creator, a designer — that the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are reliable historical documents, and that our lives have an eternal purpose. This is against the belief that the universe is the product of chance and random evolution, that the New Testament is a conspiracy theory, and that our lives have only such meaning as we give them.
If it’s a fifty-fifty proposition — and, frankly, it would be easy to calculate the odds much more in favor of Christianity — why would one choose a path shown by the science, albeit the social science, to be the path of neurosis, depression, anxiety, and unhappiness?
Marriage is the often proposed second pillar on which conservative happiness rests. Marriage might be less easily willed because it requires a willing partner, but conservatives are nevertheless much more likely than liberals to want to get married and have children. Liberals apparently see marriage as an inhibition to their freedom. The science tells us that this is the freedom to be unhappy.
The generally cited third source of conservative happiness is “personal agency” or what you and I might call the can-do spirit. Conservatives are much more likely than liberals to believe they can improve their circumstances through hard work. While conservatives revere the past and tradition — where they find examples of American grit and pluck — they are, in fact, future-oriented, focusing on achievement, supporting a family (the next generation), and one’s eternal reward. You could call it: the purpose-driven life.
Yet just as liberal cosmology denies free will, so too does it deny the idea of meritocracy (at least in its popular formulation). We live, in the liberal view, in a world shaped by an oppressive white, male, Christian patriarchy that needs to be overthrown. To that end, we should sort ourselves (if we are not conservative Christian white males) into a wide variety of alleged oppressed minority groups — a rainbow coalition, if you will. Or, if one is a liberal straight white male, one must be an “ally” of alleged oppressed minority groups.
In practice, this sorting leads to a relentless pursuit (intentional or not) of immiseration, pessimism, grievance, and anger — not to mention the creation of ever more obscure (and perverse) group identities. This, again, is a choice.
In the 1970s, a time oft-compared to our own — with its foreign policy disasters, energy crisis, skyrocketing crime, and social upheaval — a tribe of liberals packed up their tents, moved to the right, and proclaimed themselves “neoconservatives” or “liberals who had been mugged by reality.”
But today’s liberals are not much interested in reality — no matter how often it mugs them. They have prior ideological commitments.
If you think we live in a crazy world, it’s because we live in their world, a world where liberals who have lost reason and faith dominate every institution and use their bully pulpits to impose their neuroses on the rest of us.
Luckily, however, there is a cure. The ballot box is one part of it. Making the right choices ourselves is another.
Why Pastors Cannot Support The Uluru Statement And The Voice
From the Caldron Pool
Reasons Pastors Should Reject the Uluru Statement
“Yes, we must unequivocally condemn racism and oppression—but we must also care enough to listen to the indigenous voices on each side and engage our fellow image-bearers endearingly, not in a one-size-fits-all manner…”
As an Australian-American currently living in Houston—one of the most racially segregated cities in the US—it is disconcerting to see similar racial tensions gain steam in Australia in light of present debates regarding stolen land.
Front and centre in heated discourse is the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a document written by certain indigenous leaders and endorsed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on behalf of the Australian Labor Party. The statement itself seeks to bring about “structural reform” and “constitutional change” through a voice to parliament, advocating that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the “first sovereign nations” of Australia.
Even so, religious leaders in Australia have come out in support of the Uluru Statement. But is such support good, wise, or biblical?
Caldron Pool colleague Mark Powell has shared legitimate and compelling reasons for Australians to reject the Uluru Statement in his piece Enshrining Victimhood into the Constitution, reasoning that it will perpetuate the failures of the ATSIC, distort Section 116 of the Australian Constitution, diminish the moral agency of Aboriginal people, promote more racial division, etc. In line with his insights, I shall provide more reasons, for pastors and elders, in particular, to do the same.
The Uluru Statement—both in its wording and intent—must not gain a foothold in Australian churches.
First, from a pastoral perspective, we ought to listen to the voices of ethnic minorities, because all of them are our neighbours and God’s image-bearers. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of employing prudence and impartiality when it comes to gauging the indigenous Australian experience. As is evident, indigenous Australians are divided over issues of race. No doubt many agree with the message of the Uluru Statement, but many indigenous Australians also vehemently disagree.
Pastors and elders, therefore, must not assume that an entire demographic shares a singular experience when it comes to race relations, as the Uluru Statement does. Yes, we must unequivocally condemn racism and oppression—but we must also care enough to listen to the indigenous voices on each side and engage our fellow image-bearers endearingly, not in a one-size-fits-all manner, but pastorally, on the merits of their own experience as Australians.
Moreover, the Uluru Statement is dehumanising because it peddles a white guilt narrative that is rooted in a white saviour complex (i.e., the assumption that indigenous Australians need to be acknowledged and saved by whites in order to live their lives). In relation to this, Jacinta Price has stated, “It is suggesting we need this voice because we are in a position of marginalisation; the way I see it, I would like to see us all as equally taking advantage, having these opportunities, and to live our own lives, which would make us equal to everyone else; and we would not then need to be a stand apart voice…”
Last of all, amid ongoing debates in the church, pastors and elders must be diligent to protect their congregations from the Uluru Statement, because it simply does not comport with the message of the gospel wherein Jesus secured reconciliation between ethnic Jews and Gentiles in his atoning death (Matt. 27:51); and despite being a persecuted Jew himself, Jesus’ message was never “Jewish lives matter” but rather “repent” (Matt. 4:17) and “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) because all have “sinned” (Mark 2:17).
As pastors, we are also called to keep the main thing the main thing. If your colleagues or congregants want you to, in a plea for racial unity, express approval for what is in the Uluru Statement, just lovingly explain to them that Jesus has already achieved racial reconciliation on the Cross, which means the unity that people experience within the true body of Christ far transcends any sin allegedly inherited from British ancestors (Eph. 2:11-13).
James MacPherson: Father, Forgive Labor Over the Lord’s Prayer
From the Daily Declaration, James Macpherson writes:
Father, Forgive Labor Over the Lord’s Prayer
Australian Senate President Sue Lines is right to demand that the longstanding tradition of opening each day of federal parliament with the Lord’s Prayer be abolished.
The words of Jesus are dangerous and politicians should be protected from hearing them lest they startle the country by governing with wisdom and humility.
For those unfamiliar with the prayer the self-declared atheist Labor MP wants gone, let me explain the 10 nation-destabilising ideas from which our leaders must be insulated.
“Our Father who art in heaven…” is a shocking acknowledgment that the highest office-bearers in the land may not be the highest office-bearers in the universe. Should politicians realise this, they may start acting with humility and become completely unrecognisable to their own electorates.
“Hallowed be Thy name…” is the dangerous admission that we must live for something bigger than our own name or self-aggrandisement. This could lead inadvertently to politicians no longer naming pet policies after themselves. Now that would be a welcome outcome.
“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” could cause politicians to consider if perhaps they ought to act according to noble convictions rather than simple convenience. This would throw the public service into significant confusion.
“Give us this day our daily bread…” is just plain offensive. If there is a God, he (or she) has not been distributing the bread according to the left’s favourite slogans — “equality” and “fairness”. If he (or she) were fair, the Greens would have more bread than the people the Greens don’t like, such as those making the bread.
“Forgive us our sins…” is a self-esteem-sapping admission that none of us is perfect. Even lefty senators are beset by the flaws of human nature and are therefore prone to mistakes. This is a dangerous idea that our MPs should never under any circumstances be allowed to contemplate, lest they stop thinking of themselves as our betters.
“As we forgive those who sin against us…” is a devilish promise to respect the common humanity of those with whom we disagree rather than simply demonising them. The Labor senator is right to insist MPs must never hear this, lest civility break out in parliament and those sitting in the public gallery think they are in the wrong building.
“Lead us not into temptation…” is that unflattering idea that we are all prone to wander off on tangents. Were politicians to think about this, they might start acting with caution rather than haste. Then we wouldn’t have pink batts or cash for clunkers or the National Broadband Network or Camp Wellness in Queensland.
“But deliver us from evil…” is the foolishly outdated idea that evil exists, when we know the problem is really structural issues that can be fixed by constant government interference in the affairs of free men.
“For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory…” is an insidious idea that may lead politicians to wonder if perhaps building monuments to themselves is mere vanity. We don’t want MPs thinking there is a cause greater than their own name or political stripe, lest they begin to work together for a greater good; and then where would we be?
“Forever and ever, amen…” is the clear suggestion our politicians soon may be gone, but that the decisions they make will echo on in the lives of our children’s children.
Should MPs have to hear such words, they may start thinking beyond the 24-hour news cycle. God, er, Labor forbid!
(This piece was first published in The Australian when the Greens were campaigning for the Lord’s Prayer to be ditched)
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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.
The Voice: We Don’t Need It
From cis.org.au
A national body can’t speak for Aboriginal people as a group and Aboriginal people won’t recognise it. Any representative ‘voice’ group that isn’t tied to country will have no authority
I was talking to an Aboriginal man at the Garma Festival last weekend, an elder from a community in another state. He said: “What I’ve heard about the Voice to parliament is nothing I haven’t heard before.” Einstein is credited with saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people was first proposed by then Prime Minister John Howard in 2007, passing like a baton through five more PMs before landing with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Initially about symbolic recognition, since the 2017 Uluru “Statement from the Heart” the campaign has been to enshrine a First Nations “Voice” in the constitution. The campaign is championed by Australia’s elites, including corporate Australia, media figures and Aboriginal academics.
When I speak to Aboriginal people day-to-day I don’t find support, but rather indifference, confusion as to what it’s about or outright opposition. I know why. The Voice, like the representative bodies before it, is not built around Aboriginal cultures and how we look at ourselves.
This week we are told that the proposal will be to add three provisions to the constitution:
1. There shall be a body to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to parliament and the executive government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
3. The Parliament shall, subject to this constitution, have powers to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
My first reaction was why amend the constitution at all? The Commonwealth government already has power to create Aboriginal representative bodies and has before including the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, ATSIC and the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
It could legislate tomorrow to create a Voice. No referendum. The previous bodies all made representations to parliament, as do many other Aboriginal bodies and individuals all the time. Recent changes to the Closing the Gap targets were made on advice from Aboriginal community bodies known as the Coalition of the Peaks.
When down in parliament, I’m always tripping over blackfellas there to talk to politicians and public servants. Aboriginal people don’t need constitutional permission to tell government what they think.
The most important thing about the Voice — its composition, functions, powers and procedures — won’t be in the constitution at all but decided by parliament.
The government of the day can make the Voice anything it wants: from a small, hand-picked committee to hundreds of elected members or anything in between. Enshrining the Voice in the constitution doesn’t depoliticise it; quite the opposite.
But the main reason I remain unsupportive is if Aboriginal Australians are to have representative bodies to speak on things that matter to us, those bodies will fail if they conflict with our own identities. There isn’t one Aboriginal group but hundreds, each with their own country, language, kinship system and culture.
A year after the Uluru Statement of the Heart I was in Mutijulu, a small community at the base of Uluru, and a local elder took me aside to tell me that the Uluru Statement of the Heart was not their culture and does not speak for them. What they were talking about is that traditional owners of a particular country are the only people who can speak for that country.
A national body can’t speak for Aboriginal people as a group and Aboriginal people won’t recognise it. Likewise a regional body that spans and has membership of different countries.
Any representative group that isn’t tied to country will have no authority to be anyone’s voice. I predict the Voice will be just another bureaucratic structure that further entrenches government in Aboriginal lives.
Despite the missions and reserves being disbanded since the late 1960s, Aboriginal people are the most over-governed people in Australia. We need less government, not more.
Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO is the Director of the Indigenous Forum, Centre for Independent Studies
Read the full article here
Aboriginal Senator Slams “Welcome to Country”
From the Daily Mail:
Aboriginal senator Jacinta Price slams welcome to country ceremony after Pauline Hanson fled Senate
Indigenous senator says Australia is now ‘saturated’ by welcome to country ceremonies – after donning traditional headdress for maiden speech slamming ‘handouts’ thrown at Aboriginals
- Pauline Hanson stormed out of senate to protest acknowledgement of country
- New Aboriginal senator Jacinta Price has now backed the One Nation leader
- She says profusion of ceremonies has removed their sacred nature
- And she blasted Labor’s proposed indigenous Voice to Parliament proposal
By Kevin Airs and Nic White For Daily Mail Australia
New Aboriginal senator Jacinta Price has slammed welcome to country ceremonies for being token gestures and ‘throwaway lines’ – and backed Pauline Hanson after her walkout from the Senate on Wednesday.
The One Nation leader stormed out as Senate President Sue Lines acknowledged the Indigenous comunity at the opening of Wednesday’s sitting, yelling; ‘No, I won’t and never will’.
Senator Hanson was branded ignorant and racist by Greens senator Lidia Thorpe after the stunt, but she has now won backing from Senator Price who admitted the ceremonies had reached the point of overkill.
‘We’ve just been absolutely saturated with it,’ she said on Thursday. ‘It’s actually removing the sacredness of certain traditional culture and practices.
‘And it’s just become almost like a throwaway line.’New Aboriginal senator Jacinta Price has slammed welcome to country ceremonies for being token gestures and ‘throwaway lines’ after Pauline Hanson’s walkout from the SenateOne Nation leader Pauline Hanson stormed out as Senate President Sue Lines acknowledged the indigenous comunity at Parliament’s opening, yelling; ‘No, I won’t and never will’
The former deputy mayor of Alice Springs was elected Country Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory and made her maiden speech in traditional costume on Wednesday.
She used the moment to rail against Labor’s proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, an elected body of First Nations representatives enshrined in the constitution that would advise the government on issues affecting them.
‘I’ve had my fill of being symbolically recognised,’ she told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Thursday.
‘I’ve had enough – they’ve done really nothing to improve the lives of really marginalised people.
Read the full article here
Jo Nova: Time For the Liberals to Reset
Jo Nova writes:
Reinvention time: Liberals tried to win wealthy inner city Woke seats and lost the nation
If the Liberals stop trying to pander to the wealthy Woke electorates and focus on what most Australians want they can reinvent themselves to speak for mainstream Australia by the next election.
The dismal election result for the Liberals and Nationals in Australia may yet set them free. By shifting to the left on issues like Climate Change the Liberals were hobbled. They tried to be Labor -lite, but then couldn’t point out the sheer stupidity of trying to change the weather. Net Zero was a good goal they said, and so the voters voted for people who would do more of it sooner. By adopting Labor-Green ideas and just trying to be better managers of bad programs they lost their mojo. There were no battles on principles in this election, just personalities.
The Right have been bullied into submission — afraid of being called climate deniers, racists, sexist or anti-vaxxer, they fought for nothing much. And so the voters voted for nothing much — splitting every which way. Astonishingly a new government will be formed that nearly 70% of Australians didn’t vote for. The Labor Party won with the lowest primary vote ever recorded in Australian history.
The great realignment of politics bit the Liberals
Waleed Aly, surprisingly, captured it better than anyone, pointing out that voters in wealthy electorates shifted left, while those in less wealthy seats moved right. The Liberals lost the traditional well heeled blue-ribbon seats to the renewables industry candidates in the Teal Party (the Sneaky Greens). But climate change is a fashion contest, and not only does it make no sense, but by definition, the sensible-option never wins on the cat-walk. Once one half of politics gave up fighting the intrinsic silliness of it, and stopped talking hard numbers, the only contest left was the fashionable one.
And popping the fashion bubble may yet even win those wealthy seats back. When everyone else is trying to outdo the Emperor, there’s nothing like pointing out the Emperor wears no clothes.
So much better than winning a pointless contest is to speak the truth and destroy the contest.
The loss of the Woke part of the party would be a blessing in disguise
Australian voters are fracturing into different party groups because the major parties are not serving their original bases. The Labor-Green Party was the party of the workers but has become the paired-party of the rich and fashionable, and the welfare dependent. The Liberal-National parties were still trying to win the inner city blue-ribbon seats while also appealing to the suburbs, small business and rural areas. But that was an impossible deal. Something had to give.
If the Liberal Party can regroup against political correctness, they could storm back in just as Tony Abbott did. If they don’t, the minor parties on the Right will fill that space and do it for them.
Elon Musk’s Political Evolution
New Life Narrabri 
Aboriginal Australians have heard the Voice before