Family First Party

Family First Party
Family First Party Logo
Current Leader:	Andrea Mason
Founded:	2002
Headquarters:	PO Box 1042 Campbelltown SA 5074
Political ideology:	Christian-influenced conservatism
Holds government:	nowhere
Website:	Family First Party

The Family First Party is a political party in Australia. Although officially a secular party, it does have close links to some Protestant churches, and its policies generally mirror that of conservative Christian values. The party was founded in South Australia, but at 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 Andrea Mason, who headed its Senate ticket in South Australia. Family First has one elected representative: Andrew Evans, a member of the South Australian Legislative Council. One Family First candidate, Steve Fielding from Victoria, won a seat in the Senate at the 2004 election; he will take his seat in July 2005.

Religious influences

Whether Family First is a Christian party is the subject of dispute. Party leader Andrea Mason has said that "we are not a Christian party",[1] and the party certainly does not describe itself as such. However, the party draws much of its support from various Christian groups, predominantly Pentecostal ones, and it has many associations with the Assemblies of God.

Party founder Andrew Evans was the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Australia for twenty years [2]. In a speech to the South Australian Legislative Council he indicated belief in a religious basis for laws: "Out of his love for mankind [God] has set boundaries and these boundaries have been accepted by the world as a foundation for the laws of every country."[3]

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.

A pamphlet published by the party's Victorian Senate candidate Danny Nalliah stated that mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples were Satan's strongholds and that people should pray for their destruction[4].

Family First's supporters typically characterise it as an essentially secular party open to all who share its values, Christian or otherwise; its detractors see it as an essentially religious party that has obfuscated its true nature and agenda in order to broaden its appeal. Regardless of which analysis is correct, Family First's declared policies and values are at the least highly compatible with those of conservative Christianity.

2004 Federal election

The party agreed to share preferences with the Liberal-National Coalition at the 2004 election (but see 'Gay rights', below). This 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."[5] (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 an incident where a Family First supporter said that lesbians were "witches who should be burned at the stake" and an incident in which eggs were thrown at Greens supporters[6]. Family First deny any involvement in egging the Green volunteers, and have disciplined the supporter responsible for the "witches" statement.

Family First did better than initially expected at the election, picking up 2.0 percent of the vote nationally, and outpolling the Australian Democrats by more than 70,000 votes. This resulted in an unexpected and controversial victory in Victoria, where candidate Steve Fielding was elected on preferences, despite being outpolled by the Australian Greens' David Risstrom by a ratio of more than four to one first-preference votes. The party also came close to picking up a second Senate seat in South Australia, with party leader Andrea Mason narrowly missing out. Their preference also assisted the performance of the governing Liberal Party of Australia in several seats, such as in the party'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[7]; 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"[8].

Family First's published policies prominently affirm the value of heterosexual relationships, but make little or no direct mention of homosexuality and gay rights issues. However, the party has expressed unfavourable views on homosexuality elsewhere. An example of which is their campaign to allow Christian schools to discriminate against job applicants based on religion and lifestyle choices.

Andrea Mason, the party's 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 uncompromising attitudes towards homosexuality were also 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. In contrast, a Liberal MP who admitted to having an affair while his wife was pregnant received Family First's preferences over Labor[9].

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"[10]. However, they have also stated that "The party... believes that all co-dependents should not be discriminated against – whether Homosexual or not."[11]. In a Radio National interview, Andrew Evans defined families as being "Mums and Dads, Grandpas and Grandmas, boys and girls, heterosexual, and singles."

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.

Pornography

Family First advocate mandatory filtering of internet pornography at the ISP level, justifying this on child-protection grounds. 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"[12].

In support of such a policy, Family First claim that "A Newspoll study commissioned by The Australia Institute found: 93% of parents of teenagers would support automatic filtering of Internet pornography going into homes." However, advocates of freedom of information strongly objected as there is no surefire way to completely and only block pornography, suggesting that non-offensive sites may be filtered inadvertantly.

However, the scheme proposed by Family First is a mandatory one, whereas the Australia Institute study referred to an optional scheme: "When asked whether they would support a system that automatically filtered out Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise, 93 per cent of parents were in favour..."[13].

Further, the same survey found that 75% of the same group felt the Federal government should be doing more about pornography on the Internet - 18% less than the 93% who favoured a filtering scheme. This indicates either that at least 18% of respondents changed their views on the desirability of government intervention in the course of the study - which would indicate push polling - or that the question did not in fact refer to government-imposed filtering. Without more information on the nature of the poll, its results must be viewed with some scepticism.

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.[14]

Stolen Generation

Although Family First's policy on indigenous Australians does not specifically address the Stolen Generation, Mason 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."[15]

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. It espouses policies very similar to those of Family First, and in the 2004 election the two parties directed preferences to one another.

Despite these similarities, 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 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.

Another party of note is the Democratic Labor Party, based in Melbourne. The DLP was once Australia's fourth largest party, but now has minimal support. 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 it still contests Victorian Senate elections, it is no longer a significant influence on national politics.

External links

• Family First Party website
• Family First policies
• Family First family policy (PDF)
• AEC Party Registration page for Family First
• Paradise Community Church - birthplace of Family First
• ABC RN report
• The people behind Family First
• Crikey Media's Family First files
• One AoG member's view of party
• Anti-Andrew Evans site
• Pre-2004 election review of some Family First candidates
• ABC Radio National transcript of The Religion Report - featuring Peter Harris and Andrew Evans
• Google cache of Signposts article on both Victorian Senate candidates for 2004