The May Election confirmed no appetite for U.S.-style religious meddling in Australia’s politics, as Alan Austin reports.
THE SOLITARY SENATOR elected by supporters of Clive Palmer’s recent right-wing nutter political parties has declared his religious outlook.
Victorian Senator Ralph Babet tweeted last week:
‘You can never defeat me. My resolve is unbreakable, my strength eternal. I will never tire, for I am driven by a higher purpose. In the end, victory will be mine — for I have God on my side, and you do not.’
As Babet didn’t face the voters this year, we must wait to see if his God keeps him in Canberra next time. We know already that most candidates with his brand of religiosity in the Family First and Trumpet of Patriots parties suffered humiliating defeats on 3 May.
Family First candidate in Newcastle, Jason Briggs, enjoyed the energetic support of prominent right-wing Christian activist Lyle Shelton, currently Family First’s national director. Briggs campaigned strongly on ‘traditional Australian Judeo-Christian values’, which include schools that won’t ‘debase the minds of children with social Marxist indoctrination and propaganda’.
He managed 2.14% of the vote.
Right-wing fundamentalism rebuffed
Most candidates who raised U.S.-style religious issues – abortion, religious freedom, same-sex marriage, gender identity – have failed badly in recent years. These include Freya Ostapovitch in Queensland, Thomas Brough in WA and Bernie Finn in Victoria.
Well-travelled Christian social analyst Rod Benson has served within Australia’s Baptist, Anglican and now Uniting Church communities in roles from pastor to church planter to ethicist. He is now the general secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council.
Dr Benson told IA that the “Christian vote” in Australia has essentially evaporated.
This is partly because there is so little difference today between the two major parties on many issues, and partly because we participate in a mature liberal democracy that is well served by the rule of law and a free press.
The Australian Christians I talk to are passionate about the full spectrum of sociopolitical issues, but most are reluctant to get involved in local protests or do more than ‘like’ a polemical post on social media.
Calls for abortion bans denied
Experiences in the states are instructive on anti-abortion activism, particularly in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales.
Prominent member for Traeger Robbie Katter campaigned energetically on abortion law reform in last year’s Queensland State Election. He also sponsored a bill to ban transgender athletes.
His primary vote tumbled to just 49.3% in 2024, down from an average of 62.5% at the previous two elections, forcing him to preferences for the first time. That happened as other right-wing parties surged against the defeated Labor Government.
We cannot prove Katter’s anti-abortion views directly caused that reversal, but they clearly didn’t help him.
Advance in retreat
Right-wing political funding group Advance was set up in 2018 to oppose what it calls ‘woke politicians and elitist activist groups’.
They have been crowing that they destroyed the Greens at the May Election, just as they destroyed the 2023 Voice Referendum. The evidence, however, shows Greens lost to Labor, not to right-wing extremists.
Greens leader Adam Bandt relinquished Melbourne with a 5.26% primary vote decline. Labor’s vote increased 5.68% while the L-NP’s rose only 0.24%.
Stephen Bates lost in Brisbane, with a decisive 4.92% swing towards Labor, while his Greens vote fell 1.34%. The L-NP primary vote fell 3.48%.
Max Chandler-Mather lost in Griffith when his primary vote fell 2.94% while Labor’s increased 5.57%. The L-NP vote fell a thumping 4.16%.
In Ryan, the Greens candidate just hung on with a primary swing of 1.23% against, despite Labor’s vote increasing 5.94%. The L-NP vote fell 3.89%.
Family First averaged a puny 1.02% of the primary vote in Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan. So there is no evidence Advance swayed any result anywhere.
Damage done by America’s religious Right
Observers of U.S. affairs worldwide are seeing in real time the disastrous consequences of Evangelical Christians having supported President Donald Trump. His overtly cruel administration is abandoning free speech, bipartisanship, compassion and the rule of law. It is destroying critical departments, cutting vital services, destabilising global trade, shrinking local economic growth and engaging in open corruption and criminality.
Religious crazies backing Trump include Republican House leader Mike Johnson, who claims God personally gave him a specific biblical calling.
Among the evils now visited upon Americans directly courtesy the religious Right are preventable deaths of pregnant women, hate crimes against LGBTQ folks, violence against minority faiths and imprisonment of residents without trial.
Great reputational damage is being done to Christendom worldwide by charlatans such as greedy televangelist Paula White-Cain in the White House Faith Office, who claims Trump is God’s chosen leader and promises her gullible followers miracles and other gifts from God when they send her money.
Australia is not the USA
Generally, according to Rod Benson, Australian voters are more educated than North Americans and benefit from better journalism and more diverse media:
‘Australians are more inclined to exercise their capacity for critical thinking and think for themselves. They are less inclined to adopt a herd mentality when it comes to party politics. This is all bad news for single-issue dog-whistlers, no matter how well funded they are.’
Dr Benson believes the last thing most Australians want is religious leaders and shadowy think tanks with links to ultra-conservative American institutions telling them how to vote:
‘What they ask of their religious leaders is that they model the core teachings of their faith and show how they contribute to the common good, and do so without hypocrisy.’
Voters confirmed this pretty clearly at this month’s election.
Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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