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This article is about the Australian political party. For the New Hampshire health charity, please see Families First The Family First Party is a political party in Australia. Although officially a secular party, it has close links to the Pentecostal movement, in particular the Assemblies of God denomination, and its social policies generally mirror conservative Christian values (but not necessarily politically conservative values). The party was founded in South Australia in time to contest the 2002 state elections, when Andrew Evans became its first MP, winning a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council. In the October 2004 federal election it contested seats all over Australia, and its preferences assisted the re-election of a number of Liberal candidates. The party's leader is Steve Fielding, a Victorian elected to the Australian Senate in 2004.
Christian connections Whether Family First is a Christian party is the subject of dispute. Australia's political climate is predominantly secular and there is general disapproval of overt public manifestations of faith. In 2004, then party leader Andrea Mason said that "we are not a Christian party"* - a sentiment echoed by others in the party at that time. Party founder Andrew Evans once said the party's vision was "to have a social conservative party. Jesus is our hero, he's our saviour, and we worship and love him, but in politics, it's no good me getting up and preaching about my faith, that's the church's role." *. In the same interview, he also said "we're a family party based on Christian principles, but we're not church-based." Family First draws much of its support and many of its candidates from various Christian groups, predominantly Pentecostal ones, particularly the Assemblies of God. Andrew Evans was the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Australia for twenty years *. In a speech to the South Australian Legislative Council, he indicated belief in a religious basis for laws: "Out of his love for mankind A large number of Family First's candidates are pastors or members of Assemblies of God churches. In New South Wales, 11 of their 23 candidates for the 2004 legislative election were from a single Assemblies of God church, the Hawkesbury Church in Windsor. During the election period, the Assemblies of God website was down for maintenance for a considerable period, making it difficult to verify the affiliations of many candidates. Internal politics Family First is registered as an incorporated company, meaning that party decisions can be made by a board rather than the party as a whole. Currently the national executive consists of: 2004 Federal Election The party agreed to share House of Representatives preferences with the Liberal-National Coalition at the 2004 election * (with some exceptions discussed below). This was largely due to an ideological sympathy, and little effort was made to negotiate with minor parties and independents. This preference deal caused some controversy when, the day before the election, Queensland National senate candidate Barnaby Joyce publicly slammed the party, calling them "the lunatic Right", and stating that "these are not the sort of people you do preference deals with." * (Ironically, Joyce himself benefited from these deals, winning a very close-run Senate race with the aid of Family First preferences.) Joyce's comments came in response to a pamphlet published by one of the party's Victorian Senate candidates, Danny Nalliah (which stated that brothels, masonic lodges, mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples, and bottleshops were Satan's strongholds, and that people should pray for their destruction), an incident where a Family First supporter said "Yes" when asked by a Greens supporter if lesbians were "witches who should be burned at the stake" *, and an allegation that eggs were thrown at Greens supporters *. Family First denied any involvement in egging the Green volunteers, and disciplined the supporter responsible for the "witches" statement. Nalliah's statements were not endorsed by the party as a whole. One Nation in Queensland reacted to Family First by pitching itself as a conservative family party *. The primary Senate votes for One Nation and closely aligned Independent Pauline Hanson exceeded those for Family First in this state. Family First did better than initially expected at the election, picking up 1.76 percent of the vote nationally, and outpolling the Australian Democrats by more than 40,000 votes. This resulted in an unexpected and controversial victory in Victoria, where candidate Steve Fielding was elected on preferences, despite being outpolled by the Greens' David Risstrom by a ratio of more than four to one first-preference votes. To the anger of many Australian Democrats and Australian Labor Party members and voters, it was both Democrats and ALP preferences that got Stephen Fielding elected as the first Family First Senator. The party also came close to picking up a second Senate seat in South Australia, with then party leader Andrea Mason narrowly missing out. Their preferences also assisted the performance of the governing Liberal Party in several House of Representatives seats, such as in Family First's base, the highly marginal South Australian seat of Makin. Policies A complete list of Family First's declared policies may be found on their website*; this section will concentrate on those policies that address controversial issues. Euthanasia Family First is opposed to euthanasia, holding the view that "the duty of health carers is to promote health, relieve suffering and safeguard life". Instead, they favour palliative care. Drugs Family First oppose harm reduction as a primary strategy for combating drug abuse, instead favouring prevention, rehabilitation, and avoidance. Gay rights Family First believes the family is the most important social unit in society... Family grows out of heterosexual relationships between men and women. - Family First policy document, "The Family"*. Family First's published policies prominently affirm the value of stable, committed, heterosexual relationships. They also seek to support families going through separation and/or divorce, and sole parents (see "The Family"*). Their website and policies contain few references to homosexuality *. Most of these references are found in media articles or references to other parties' policies *. Their only official gay rights-related policy is that "all co-dependents should not be discriminated against – whether Homosexual or not" *. A practical outworking of this view is Andrew Evans' call for caution and broader consideration in same-sex superannuation changes *. He mentions "two women who are in a relationship of domestic co-dependence", and asks "By failing to include domestic co-dependents, does this bill perpetuate discrimination rather than remove it?" However, the party has expressed unfavourable views on homosexuality elsewhere. An example of this is their campaign to allow Christian schools to discriminate against job applicants based on religion and sexuality. Andrea Mason, then the Party Leader, spoke against anti-discrimination efforts by the Greens and Democrats: "The Greens and Democrats policies aim to remove discrimination against what they term as LGBTI people... they want to see that transvestites and others have the right to teach our children" (Sydney Morning Herald, October 8 2004). Family First's strong opposition to gay relationships was demonstrated in their direction of preferences in the 2004 election. While Family First generally directed their preferences to the conservative Coalition ahead of Labor, they reversed this in the seats of Brisbane and Leichhardt because Ingrid Tall (Liberal candidate for Brisbane) is a lesbian, and Warren Entsch (Liberal for Leichhardt) supports gay marriage.** Socially conservative Labor senator Jacinta Collins also received preferences from Family First. In contrast, Liberal MP Ross Cameron, who admitted to having an affair while his wife was pregnant, received Family First's preferences ahead of Labor after expressing regret over his behaviour.**. Family First do not acknowledge families with same-sex partnerships (currently, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in Australia), stating their affirmation of marriage as "a union of a man and a woman" *. Family First have not indicated whether they acknowledge gays who have children as a legitimate form of family; while it is evident that they consider homosexuality undesirable, it is not known to what extent this disapproval will be expressed in policy. In a Radio National interview, Andrew Evans said he stood for "Families, and family values". When asked to define what a family was, he said "Mums and Dads, Grandpas and Grandmas, boys and girls, heterosexual, and singles." Pornography Family First advocate mandatory filtering of internet pornography at the Internet service provider (ISP) level as a matter of child protection. They estimate that such a scheme would cost around $7 annually per user; "this may have the result of putting cost pressures on some of the smaller ISPs but there is arguably too many of these at the moment and adequate competition could be maintained with 30 ISPs rather than the hundreds in existence now"*. "It is a national travesty that is so easily fixed if the Government and the opposition would exercise their moral will and pass legislation that requires Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to provide a compulsory filtering of pornography on the Internet," said Andrea Mason in a media release on Wednesday, 25 August 2004.* War in Iraq Family First believes that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was wrong because diplomatic avenues had not been exhausted, but that having participated in that invasion Australia is now obliged to protect Iraqis and Australians in Iraq through a military presence.* Indigenous Australians Although Family First's policy on indigenous Australians does not specifically address the Stolen Generation, Mason (who is Aboriginal) has said: "I think there is a cobweb, there is a veil over our country... in terms of this unresolved issue... I think that there will be a significant change in the way we perceive ourselves and our relationships with each other when there is an apology made to the stolen generations." * The party did hope to attract a large Aboriginal vote in South Australia where Andrea Mason was touted as possibly the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to parliament. Nevertheless, their decision to preference the Liberal party was criticised by Lowitja O'Donoghue, a supporter of Mason but fierce opponent of John Howard (because of his refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generation) and the Liberal party. Similar parties The Christian Democratic Party has existed under various names since 1974, and was Australia's only declared Christian party for most of that time. Many of its policies are similar to those of Family First, and in the 2004 election the two parties directed preferences to each other. While Family First has publicly stated positions on most major issues in Australian politics (see above), the CDP has a narrower political focus. For instance, unlike Family First, the CDP has not publicly taken a position immigration and detention policies, or the war in Iraq (although CDP leader Fred Nile is personally supportive of the Coalition's policies on this issue). The CDP has never had anywhere near the level of support Family First has managed to attract within a few years of its emergence. One possible reason for this is an Australian reluctance to mingle religion and politics; where Family First has striven to present itself as a secular party, the CDP emphasises its Christian beliefs, and its public leader Fred Nile is an ordained minister. Another possible reason is Fred Nile's notoriously outspoken rhetoric, which might have reflected badly upon the CDP. Besides broadening Family First's direct appeal to voters, its less religious image may also have made it easier to secure valuable preference deals with other parties. The Family First party also showed a surprising degree of national organisation for a newly-formed political party; this may be associated with the experienced former Liberal Party figures who have become members of the party. Finally, Family First has mixed ethical positions usually associated with the conservative right with other positions associated with the left, allowing those people who are opposed to (for example) both abortion and the war in Iraq to be able to vote for a single party. The Democratic Labor Party, based in Melbourne also had similar policies. The DLP was once Australia's fourth largest party, but lost support and was dissolved in 1976. Much like Family First, it had strong religious influences (in the DLP's case, Catholic) and was often seen as a 'Christian party', but did not describe itself as such. While a successor party of the same name and with similar policies still contests Victorian Senate elections, it is no longer a significant influence on national politics. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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