Family First Party
:
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 Church, 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.
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"[
1] - 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." [
2]. 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 [
3]. 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."[
4]
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.
The party agreed to share House of Representatives preferences with the
Liberal-
National Coalition at the
2004 election [
5] (with some exceptions discussed below). This was done for a number of reasons, including the Coalition's policy record and promises, and the fact the Labor Party (ALP) had already concluded a preference deal with the
Australian Greens.
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." [
6] (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 mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples were Satan's strongholds and that people should pray for their destruction [
7]), 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" [
8], and an allegation that eggs were thrown at Greens supporters [
9]. 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 [
10]. 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.
A complete list of Family First's declared policies may be found on their website[
11]; 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"[
12].
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 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 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. 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 over Labor[
13].
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" [
14]. However, they have also stated that "The party... believes that all co-dependents should not be discriminated against â€" whether Homosexual or not." [
15].
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"[
16].
"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.[
17]
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.[
18]
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." [
19]
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.
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.
*
Family First Party website*
Family First policies*
Family First family policy (
PDF)
*
Senator Steve Fielding's website*
AEC Party Registration page for Family First*
Family First Wikispace*
Family First Media blog*
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*
Pre-2004 election review of some Family First candidates*
ABC Radio National transcript of The Religion Report - featuring Peter Harris and Andrew Evans
