Thread by @hardenuppete

THREAD: Australia has a major problem with right wing Christian political influence. It's been bubbling away since John Howard was PM, with power brokers like Bruce Baird wielding their influence over the Liberal Party, hand picking the likes of Scott Morrison, and Stuart Robert.

My attention was first drawn to this when Steve Fielding joined 'Family First'. The Family First Party was a conservative political party in Australia from 2002 to 2017. The party was generally considered to be part of the Christian right.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Fi…

The most thorough examination of this political trend in Australia has been written in this excellent book which I can highly recommend.

God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics is a 2005 book by Marion Maddox.

allenandunwin.com/browse/books/a…

Yet this growing influence comes at a time when Australians are becoming less religious and more religiously diverse. There has been an increase in migration from countries where religions other than Christianity are common.

abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.…

In my thread "The Family in Australia" I explored this secretive Christian network. Their founder Doug Coe and subsequent members like Bruce Baird influenced political leaders across the Globe over more than 50 years as a new form of Christian Ministry.

https://twitter.com/hardenuppete/status/1173464635502030848

Seasoned Australian journalists like @d_hardaker went onto to write a series of in depth articles investigating the power and reach of some of these fundamentalist Christian groups and individuals.

crikey.com.au/investigations/

This is a brilliant series of articles published on @crikey_news resulted in a formal investigation into Esther foundation in WA, and contributed to the holding the Hillsong founder Brian Houston to account.

crikey.com.au/2022/04/22/hil…

The end result of years of political support and secretive deals with these right wing Christian groups is we now have a Pentecostal Prime Minister and NSW Premier who have both openly and publicly supported a transphobic bigot, and a failed Pentecostal pastor.

They have opposed gay marriage, sex education in schools, and fought against abortion laws. These are the issues that cause these right wing Christian types to lose sleep at night. They consider all these issues as examples of our slide into moral decay.

And now we have a new National Party candidate for the seat of Richmond openly declaring her aim is to ‘bring God’s kingdom’ to politics! Yes you read that correctly, she actually said that!

theguardian.com/australia-news…

When Scott Morrison was first elected to the seat of Cook and gave his maiden speech to parliament in 2008 he declared that he did not believe Australia was a secular country.

"Australia is not a secular country—it is a free country."

@ScottMorrisonMP has been using his influence and religious backing to ensure that statement is truer now than it was then. In my personal opinion this is his only real achievement in politics, and the very reason he was selected in the first place.

What we are witnessing now is the last throw of the dice, with Morrison putting it all on the line, blatantly hand picking fellow Christian's who share his views of creating a conservative Christian Government in Australia. Afterall, these are the end times in their eyes.

If Morrison and is powerful right wing conservative Christian backers are successful then every Tribunal, Agency, Court and Federal Gov't Dept will be stacked with their Christian friends. Fear and loathing will become normal Australia will shrink further, and close in on itself.

This is not a vision for the future of Australia that I share, but make no mistake my friends. It is perilously closer to becoming a reality than it ever has been before. #auspol #secular #australia #ausvotes

sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/a-pms-fai…