Bishops Bark at Last!

St John Fisher complained that his brother bishops seemed asleep when they ought have spoken out against Henry VIII; they were indeed as dumb dogs that barked not.  Hooray, then, for (nearly all) the Bishops of New South Wales, who have bravely and most counter-culturally spoken out against the anti-Christian, intolerant social engineering agenda of the Greens, warning all believers against voting for such persons at the impending State Election.  Excellent, Your Eminence and My Lords!  God grant all men of good will listen and heed, not least the flocks of Catholics, many of whom are as those referred to in Scripture as perishing through lack of knowledge.

Politics, Politics

How annoying: after five weeks of the most boring and irritating election in living memory, with nought but spin on offer, as the whole nation evidently agreed, the end result being no result at all, only manifest confusion - now, a week's gone by and we're no further forward, and it could be weeks more...

My friends in Hobart (where I've just been, and where alas I've caught a cold) point out that gaining the Prime Ministership in this hung parliament may well be a poisoned chalice for whichever politician manages to cobble together a loose alliance sufficient to gain power, which could well turn out to be a fatally compromised and weak administration: either Labor will be beholden to a curious gaggle of green left-wingers and rightist populists, or the Coalition will have to become even more of a ramshackle assemblage, since the "three amigos", the country independents who are ex-National Party men all, hate and are hated by their former colleagues.

Consider for a moment the situation in the 150 member House of Representatives, as it now appears certain to be, given the agonizingly slow count of absentee, provisional and postal votes in the crucial seats is all but over:

• 72 Labor;
• 1 Green;
• 1 left-leaning independent (Wilkie, the unexpected winner in Hobart, who came third at the polls but won on preferences);
• 3 country independents (ex-National Party);
• 1 Western Australian National (who unexpectly has decided not to sit as part of the Coalition);
• 72 Coalition (44 Liberal; 21 Liberal National; 6 National; 1 Country Liberal).

That is, 72 Labor, 6 crossbenchers, and 72 Coalition M.P.'s.  But which side sits on the Government side of the Chamber, to Mr Speaker's right, and which on the left, as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, that remains to be seen - and could change partway through.   And who will be elected as the Speaker?

Voting for Godot (with apologies to Samuel Beckett)

For non-Australian readers, an explanation of "the Coalition" may be in order.  (But first, note that big-el "Liberal" here means "conservative" or more right-wing generally, as opposed to small-el liberal.  Unlike in the U.S., here "liberal" is not considered a derogatory epithet.)

A history lesson, then: after the first ten years of Federation, the non-Labor side of politics (Free Traders and Protectionists) came together into the first Liberal Party (which went through several amalgamations with ex-Labor men, and resultant changes of name, until its final transmogrification into the modern Liberal Party in 1944).  However, farmers and other rural interests set up the Country Party shortly after the First World War, and this gained the balance of power in the Federal Elections of 1922.  After that result, an all-but-permanent Coalition was agreed between the Liberals and the Country Party (which eventually changed its name to the National Party), so that the right-wing, anti-socialist side of politics could outfox those on the left.  

To this end, Australia both Federally and on the State level famously adopted the preferential system of voting, whereby voters number the candidates on their ballots in order of preference from first to last, and the votes going to the less successful conservative candidate could be redistributed to the more successful - thus preventing Labor winning seats with a minority plurality of votes against a split conservative field. Nowadays, by contrast, it is Labor that profits from the second preferences of those who vote first for the Greens.  Disturbingly for Labor, the Greens for the first time have gained more votes than Labor (in the trendy inner-city seat of Melbourne) and so Labor preferences elected a Green M.P.

To complete the picture, in Tasmania the National Party never succeeded; in Western Australia, the Nationals there - first established in 1913 - are more independent-minded and aren't part of the formal Coalition; in the Northern Territory, the conservative side of politics coalesced as the Country Liberal Party; and just two years ago the Nationals and the Liberals amalgamated in Queensland to form the Liberal Nationals.  The Nationals have faded in strength over the decades as rural Australia has diminished in relative numbers, and now hold seats in New South Wales and Victoria only (in South Australia, they are a very small faction, and in fact support Labor).  The Australian Capital Territory, filled with public servants (a term invented in Australia, and at first a euphemism for convicts), is unsurprisingly a centre of Labor and Green sentiment.

The Australian Labor Party, meanwhile, was founded in 1890, and has survived several splits, whether over conscription during the First World War, or alleged communist infiltration in the 1950's - the notorious Split, which in particular divided Catholics against Catholics (as Catholics then were generally working class and overwhelmingly supported Labor).  For two decades, the Catholic hardliners who broke away to form the Democratic Labor Party supported the Coalition in power, but the D.L.P. died away to nothing by the mid-seventies - yet, as Lazarus, it has risen again, and may just win a Senate seat in Victoria once the full vote is counted.

Most recently, the rise of the Greens on the left has begun to whittle away at Labor: as a sign of things to come, the Greens have just won their first lower house seat, and in seven electorates the Greens recorded over 20% of the vote: if their vote continues to increase, overall the left of politics will return more Green and fewer Labor members.  Will there be a phase change, as happened just a hundred years ago with Labor itself, and will Labor die out to be replaced by Greens?  If climate change really be a dire threat (time will tell) then Blind Freddy could predict that the Greens will one day win in their own right...

So, where to from here?

Labor is increasingly leaking support to the new left, the Greens.  Come mid-2011, when the newly-elected Senators take their seats, the Greens will have the balance of power in the Senate, thus giving that chamber a leftist majority.  (Twelve Senators sit for each State, six being elected every three years by proportional representation.)  Should Labor cobble together the majority it needs in the House, however, Julia Gillard will need not only the support of Adam Bandt, the Green (a one-man Trojan horse, taking Labor further to the left with his unwelcome presence), but also somehow ensure the vote of the unpredictable independent M.P. Andrew Wilkie, plus win over the three country independents, rural populists all from conservative, anti-Labor seats - particularly mad Bob Katter.  Strange bedfellows indeed...

On the other hand, can Tony Abbott enlarge the Coalition still further, and calm the hatred between the three country independents and the Nationals whose party they broke away from years ago?  And he will have the aptly-named Mr Crook, the new W.A. National M.P., to negotiate a deal with as well: these four conservative rural populists will all want their pound of flesh, or rather some good old-fashioned pork barrelling for their electorates.

The six cross-benchers have been self-importantly flexing their political muscles all week, and even some Senators have got into the act.  What a madhouse!  And how bad for the nation, since whichever side of politics gains power, the mainstream will be stymied in attempts at rational reform by the necessity of placating whichever independent members deign, for the moment, to guarantee a slim majority in the House.

Whatever the solemn promises made of this Parliament going the full term of three years, I for one will be unsurprised to find whatever deal is done breaking down, and in the midst of mutual mudslinging we'll all be back to the polls by next year.  This is particularly likely given the looming domination of the Senate by the Greens.

In the Constitution, the provision for overcoming deadlocks between the Houses comes down to the possibility of the Governor-General granting a double dissolution, and a full Senate election as well as that of new House of Representatives.  

If Abbott wins the confidence of the House and becomes our Prime Minister within the next few weeks, he will certainly be shrewd enough to pass his legislation through the present Senate with all speed, but also leave a few controversial bills for the new Senate of 2011 to reject - which will be so many double dissolution triggers.  Come July next, and Prime Minister Abbott will fight a full Senate and House of Reps. election, right versus left, Liberal-National Coalition versus Labor-cum-Green.  Such is one real possibility.  But P.M. Gillard might well try the same trick: kill or be killed, old left versus new left.

But whoever gains power, our Julia or our Tony, La Guillotine or the Mad Monk, it will be in the interest of their own parties to win at all costs an absolute majority next time, without the vexation of dealmaking.

We are at a crossroads: will Australian politics remain a basically two-party contest, Labor versus the Coalition, or will our polity fragment into a multi-party system, as has already happened in our ANZAC neighbour, New Zealand?

A week is a long time in politics, indeed.

Green Slippery Slide

Bob Brown speaks of this Federal Election as a Greenslide, with the first Green member of the lower house elected, more Green Senators elected than the Australian Democrats ever garnered, and the largest ever number of votes cast for the Greens in Australian history.  Alas, it will not end here.  It would not surprise me if the left side of politics sees a shift from Labor to Green just as a hundred years ago the old Liberals in England gave way to Labor.

At the outset, I have no illusions that either Labor on the left or the Coalition parties on the right are simon-pure or very much morally better than the other.  Politics in Australia are hardly Christian, despite the leaven in the lump, to put it very hopefully, that more-or-less Christian politicans are.  However, I do wish to argue against a most dangerous delusion: the illusion that there is one party of light and of progress (beware that word!): the Greens.

As the Apostle said to the Galatians (i, 6-12):

I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.  Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.  But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.  As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.  For do I now persuade men, or God?  Or do I seek to please men?  If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.  For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.   For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Christianity is the true religion, not made up by men but revealed by God through His Incarnate Son.  Yes, if even an angel from heaven preach to you a different Gospel, one earthbound and other than true - then let him be anathema.  For even Satan can appear as an angel of light (II Cor. xi, 14). 

The Greens, I would argue, are that lying angel.  They preach an earthly, not a heavenly paradise, and by their contempt for heaven and assent to moral turpitude reveal themselves as carnal men, apt sons of their infernal father.

Their insufferable sanctimoniousness, and unblushing assumption of the moral high ground, is particularly offensive.  Brown had the nerve to claim that he and his Greens are better Christians than Pell and the hierarchy, more in tune (perhaps true, sad to say) with the notions of average believers - more fool them, I say.  He reduces Our Divine Lord to a forerunner of social justice and the new morality.  He certainly does not bow the knee to Christ as God.

Now, I would not wish here to uncritically echo a certain former bishop of Sale, who used to say, back in the days of the Split, that of course the Church ought not and does not tell people how to vote - but that of course it would be a mortal sin to vote Labor!

Yet, I do believe that, whatever many people of good will sincerely believe who vote for the Greens, the underlying philosophy of the Greens is inimical and antithetical to the true philosophy, and to Christianity.  

Consider, for example, what made me turn - be ready for a shock, gentle reader! - from my own youthful support for the Greens (for I campaigned and scrutineered for them at the 1989 state election): the sad fact that their party platform unabashedly supports abortion on demand.  As even a lukewarm believer I had to turn aside from them as soon as I read that; my eyes were opened, and I conscience I could no longer keep fellowship with such persons.

Similarly, the Greens support what is most euphemistically called euthanasia (a death not really so good), or slightly more realistically "mercy killing" (though it is not so much a matter of mercy as of expedience), and they also loudly trumpet the need to "end the discrimination" and "bring Australia into the 21st century" by legislating for so-called gay marriage (which is neither truly happy nor truly marriage).  One may as well declare the sky to be mauve not blue.

Since I wish to warn against embracing the Greens on account of their unacceptable moral position, I forbear from mounting much criticism of their economic policies, anti-rationalist and highly damaging though they would be if implemented.  The economic devastation wrought by Hugo Chavez may indicate where their unreal policies would lead the country, to give a necessarily imperfect analogy.  

As Cardinal Pell has justly observed, many of the hard-left Greens in particular are in fact watermelons - green on the outside, red on the inside.  In one of the new Senators-elect, we have the scion of a family of dedicated Communists, unrepentantly so, now gone Green in an instance of the Soviet doctrine of the Popular Front.  No doubt her combination of new morals and new economics is designed to foster the development of a postmodern version of New Soviet Man.

But what of climate change? - which is the principal reason for the popularity of voting Green.  If climate change is indeed a dire threat, then I do not believe that the strange economic suggestions of the Greens will save the earth.  Indeed, properly harnessing the invisible hand of economics, as Adam Smith would have us do, is a better idea: I fear that Big Government would not so much save us as apply cures worse than the disease.

What the world needs now is nuclear energy and geoëngineering, I claim half in jest, if the threat of dangerous climate change be really potent.  If technology got us into this mess; technology will get us out - that seems a good argument to me.  Naïve nonsense about a no-growth economy, a curtailing of breeding and a return to hippiedom fueled by windfarms ain't gonna save nobody.  (My own plan, should nature go crazy, is to emigrate to the South Island of New Zealand - Kiwis and Aussies have free access to each other's countries, after all.)

Even if climate change strike with alarming rapidity, the Green panacea is not the answer.  You don't need to enforce new morals, intolerant of the old ones, in any case.

The Greens frighten me because they articulate a post-Christian, anti-Christian militant secularism, even substituting a pseuo-spiritual cult of humanity in place of Chrst, of the Earth Mother in place of God the Father, of the transient fashions of our age for the Holy Spirit.  Their dogma is more infallible than that of any Pope!  Gaia, it seems, is best offered the sacrifice of sterile sexuality, in polymorphous perversity, not excluding the oblation of slaughtered infants.

Here beginneth a lesson from the Apocalypse.

The philosophical basis of the Greens lies with philosophers of frightening ideas, such as Peter Singer, who takes utilitarianism to hideous lengths, advocating infanticide as well as sins too terrible to name.  Not only do they view man as but an animal, they view our own species as a plague on the enviroment, a plague best culled.

How long will it be that the Greens tolerate Government funding of Church schools, as we have had for many years in Australia?  How long before the right of Christians and the churches to speak out against the Zeitgeist (the Spirit of the Age, being exactly opposed to the true Spirit Who is Holy) be taken away?  How long before the right of Christians to bring up their children as Christians and teach them Church teachings is restricted? - Dawkins calls this the worst form of abuse, to indoctrinate the young!

Too many, too many cafeteria Christians, particularly ill-formed Catholics of the social-justice-yes, pro-life-no type (you know, the millions who haven't been to confession since 1968), the ones who see doctrine as alien and the Vatican as the home of twisted old men, are the willing dupes of the Green agenda.  I predict that none of them will suffer any secular persecution even in the most Orwellian future, since they are hardly different to worldlings anyway.

Beware the Green slippery slide down into the abyss.

Yet the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church; as a friend observed to me in Melbourne, the Church would be more fervent here if they were burning priests on Bourke Street (outside Parliament House).  We Australian Christians are so compromised with the world, serving God not so much as Mammon, trying to league together Christ and Belial without pleasing either, that we merit the terrible rebuke of Our Lord: As thou art lukewarm, I will spew thee out of My mouth (Apoc. iii, 16).  We slumber and sleep as the foolish virgins, or as the disciples when His enemies came to arrest Christ.  Sleepers, awake!

In the world you will have distress, Our Lord predicted, but fear not - for I have overcome the world (cf. St John xvi, 33).