Tony Abbott . . . who do you trust?

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Tony Abbott was clearly channelling John Howard and the ghosts of an election past when he made his announcement that the forthcoming election was to be “all about trust”.

“Who do you trust to reduce cost of living pressures?” he (Tony Abbott) said. “Who do you trust to boost small business and to boost job security, and who do you trust to secure our borders?

“That’s what this election will be all about.”

Abbott’s strategists have been working on this for some considerable time, with the primary challenge facing Abbott’s people being Tony Abbott himself: The Gospel Truth Tony and Phoney Tony.

From Bernard Keane:

But Abbott also has long-term form in struggling with the truth in interviews. In 1998, he — commendably — undertook a personal mission to destroy One Nation..trouble was, he later denied to the ABC ever funding Sharples — a blatant lie he was sprung on in 2003. Then there was his curious denial of meeting George Pell during the 2004 election campaign, until Tony Jones jogged his memory and Abbott suddenly recalled that he’d met him the previous week.

Infamously, Tony Abbott would be the first leader in Australia’s history to come forth with the statement: Don’t trust me – make sure that you get it in writing.

The vital decision then had to be made by Tony Abbott’s strategists on whether to tackle Abbott’s trust predicament, or to make an attempt to avoid it completely. Clearly avoidance and attempts to replace Abbott’s image with non-threatening positive images have been “it” up until this present point in time.

It is no coincidence that photo ops of Tony always coincide with the issue which is currently foremost in the minds of his spinmeisters.  Defence, Tony holds a gun.  Small business, Tony is with a dead fish.  Women are the issue, enter Mrs. Tony.  Trust is the issue, Tony is a volunteer.

Contingent on this plan was the device of endowing Prime Minister Gillard with the habitual patterns and aspects of behaviour of which Abbott himself is guilty.

Enter the JuLiar Campaign.

At the 2004 election, the method used  to tackle the Lying Rodent and Honest John issue was to confront it, and there would be many amongst us who sputtered at the temerity of John Howard’s declaration:

This election, Ladies and Gentleman, will be about trust. Who do you trust to keep the economy strong and protect family living standards? Who do you trust to keep interest rates low? Who do you trust?

At the Howard-Latham election, “who do you trust?” was a shock tactic and it worked.

The promise made over and over is that Abbott is on the cusp of reinventing himself with plans to dispel his entrenched negativity.

. . . the Opposition had been preparing to roll out its policies and move on to a positive agenda.

The above was written by Lyndal Curtis – the date: May 18, 2010.  Tony Abbott was unable to sustain the momentum then and it is inevitable that he will be unable to sustain the momentum this time around.  This inability suggests a lack of discipline which is quite at odds with the perception which Abbott has gone to great lengths to promote, such as the “almost an excuse” conveniently provided by Michelle Grattan.

He is obsessed with discipline though seemingly unable to avoid periodic lapses.

It is therefore highly likely that during this year’s election campaign that little will be uttered on the issue of Tony Abbott’s image as Mr. Positive; the negativity is far too firmly entrenched. To do otherwise would require a complete change in Tony Abbott’s method of functioning which, as has been proven in the past, has been impossible for him to maintain.

Trust is the issue on which Tony Abbott hopes to run his campaign, however unlike Howard whose longevity provided some barrier between reality and rhetoric, Tony Abbott has no such barrier.  Once again the challenge facing Abbott is Abbott himself.  It would take but one slip, one single act of an aggressive approach such as on the occasion of his debate with Nicola Roxon for history to repeat itself.  Does Tony Abbott possess this discipline?  We are all about to find out.

Election Talk

I don’t have the impression that any contributor here is undecided as to who they will be voting for in the September election. Perhaps one or two among us might be swinging voters, and I’m about to find out. So I ask:

1. Do you know at this stage which party you will vote for in the House of Representatives and/or the Senate?
2. What is likely to change your mind (if it were possible)?
3. What are the issues that are important to you and why are they worth your vote?

Over to you.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Coalition: A Plan and few solutions

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It was with some trepidation that I ventured into the Coalition website titled: Real Solutions

According to the 12-points, The Plan (my summary) consists of:

• a stronger, more productive and diverse economy with lower taxes – more jobs, higher real incomes and better services for you and your family.
• Budget back under control, cut waste and start reducing debt – to keep interest rates as low as possible; and to protect the Australian economy from future economic shocks.
• help families get ahead by freeing them from the burdens of the carbon ax – especially rising electricity and gas prices.
• help small businesses grow and create more jobs – by reducing business costs and cutting taxes as well as cutting red and green tape costs by $1 billion every year.
• create stronger jobs growth by building a diverse, world-class 5-Pillar economy which will.. 
• generate one million new jobs over the next five years and two million new jobs within a decade.
• build more modern infrastructure to get things moving – with an emphasis on reducing the bottlenecks on our gridlocked roads and highways.
• We will deliver better services including health services – by putting local communities in charge of hospitals and improving co-operation with the States and Territories.
• We will deliver better education – by putting local communities in charge of improving the performance of local schools.
• We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions inside Australia, not overseas – and also establish a 15,000-strong Green Army to clean-up the environment.
• We will deliver stronger borders – where the boats are stopped – with tough and proven measures.
• We will deliver strong and stable government that restores accountability – to deliver a better future for all Australians.

Is there anything new here?  Not that I can find.  A condensed version might be:  Stop the Boats, A Green Army, No Carbon Tax, No Mining Tax, to put local communities in charge of health and education and “restoring” accountability. On the latter, given that Mr. Cori Bernardi is chairman of a committee which scrutinises politicians’ declarations, and given Mr. Bernardi’s failure disclose his links to a right wing, pro-tobacco group which is fighting gun controls, that one might need some work.

It appears that not only are the Coalition intending to locate seemingly cyclopean amounts of money for “better services”, plus vastly improved infrastructure (which is to be commended) but also guaranteed are substantial tax cuts to basically anyone who considers that they pay too much tax, i.e. Everyone.  Plus all the while and simultaneously, bestowing on the country a surplus every year for eternity.

The Coalition has reaffirmed its commitment to delivering a budget surplus within its first year of government, despite there being no mention of the promise in a new policy document.

And how are the Coalition going to achieve this?  As per The Plan:  cut waste.  Simple isn’t it..

The figure previously put on this Mr Hockey said he stood by the $52 billion in spending cuts outlined by the Coalition before last year’s election, and dismissed Treasury criticism of its costings.

From an article in Macrobusiness titled Some questions for Joe Hockey :

If Hockey runs a fiscal surplus with falling business investment and a current account deficit, by definition other parts of the private sector must be borrowing to support growth. That either means selling a lot of assets or, more likely, a lot more debt for households, again inconsistent with Hockey’s larger pledge of living within our means.

And,

In short, Joe Hockey has an attractive liberal message that is right for the times. What he lacks (at least so far) is a policy matrix to match. He is basically offering a return to Howard era economic policy, which is for government to save and the private sector dis-save , and he plans financial reform to make it possible.

Today’s National Times leads with the headline:

Coalition sharpens its razor

Details are as always, sparse as to how the Coalition will achieve this, however motherhood statements and trite phrases do abound:

Tony Abbott:  “..but I tell you what … the fiscal position will always be better under the  Coalition because budget surpluses and reducing debt, paying back debt, that’s in our DNA.”

We are also told by an unnamed Liberal MP that we are ”lumbered with unaffordable policies”.  However, to date the only policies which Abbott has promised to axe are the revenue raisers, therefore where savings are to be made remains somewhat of a mystery.

Certainly axing the number of public servants will be greeted with loud applause; a simplistic and somewhat pompous pandering.  But how does one improve the delivery of services by reducing the number of people whose job it is to implement these services?  According to Tony Abbott, sacrosanct is his pet $3 billion paid parental leave scheme, family payments, and defence.  Which begs the question, if Abbott is intending to cut 20,000 public service jobs who will administer these, and where will his “15 thousand strong Green Army” come from?  Would not a Green Army be public servants?

Some clues as to the Coalition’s intended direction comes from previous statements:

Mr Hockey insisted that he supported the NDIS but raised doubts over his committment to delivering the scheme when he said he would not raise ”false hope” by committing to promises a Coalition government could not fund.

Mr Abbott has been critical of the government’s cash payments to families with school children, and yesterday the opposition voted against it in the Lower House.

Joe Hockey declared the “age of entitlement” was coming to an end: Speaking to Lateline, he said that Australia needed to scale back the size of its welfare bill to strengthen the national finances. But he declined to say which benefits would be put on the fiscal chopping block.

Babies are however to escape: Joe Hockey: Trimming Baby Bonus is Like China’s Murderous One Child Policy.

Tony Abbott: raising the bar of stupidity

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I must admit that I admire Tony Abbott for having the courage to continually demonstrate his extreme level of stupidity. Over the weekend he has leapfrogged local clowns such as Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Piers Ackerman and now sits alone on the top of the idiot tree. On the international scale, he is now in reach of George W Bush.

What put him there?

This, during his address at the City of Holdfast Bay Australia Day Awards and Citizenship Ceremony in Adelaide:

The first lot of Australians were chosen by the finest judges in England . . .

He really has raised the bar of stupidity, hasn’t he?

Mr Abbott, not only did Australia have an Indigenous population for 60,000 years, but the white settlement here in 1788 was to establish a penal colony. For goodness sake, even new-born babies know that one.

If only Mr Abbott would have listened to little Johnnie way back in 2007:

Prime Minister John Howard has described the “neglect” of history teaching in Australian schools as “shameful”, announcing that he would make the subject compulsory for all students in years 9 and 10.

Mr Howard said students would be made to attend 150 hours of Australian history lessons over two or three years from 2009.

The history guide, to be distributed across the nation, says it is intended for study in years nine and 10, but the first three of the 10 topics could start in year 8, it says.

Mr Howard said compulsory teaching of Australian history would be a condition of the next Commonwealth schools funding agreement with the states and territories, which begins on January 1, 2009.

Yes, Mr Howard, it is shameful. Just look how Tony Abbott turned out . . .

STUPID.

One opinion of the 2013 political landscape

If you haven’t noticed by now, this year heralds a federal election year. For the next few months we will see the first rounds of the election shadow boxing before the election date is finally announced. There are some screaming for the government to go to an early election while others want the government to go the full distance. Given the most recent polling results it seems the government is on its way back from total oblivion. However politics is a strange beast and anything can change between now and whenever the election is called. Under our federal electoral system, only the Prime Minister truly knows the dates for issuing the writs for an election to be held (after the Governor-General has given their consent).

However after the last couple of years of significant negativity in our national politics, the political landscape in 2013 looks very interesting, to say the least. The often repeated statements by the Coalition that the minority government has failed Australia are at odds with reality. The Coalition’s commentary has been the usual negative critique of the government that had, until more recently, been repeated by the mainstream media is likely to continue this year. There are many successes this government has had with the support of the Australian Greens. And at the same time some of the worst this government has come up with has been done in concert with the Coalition, like the return to the worst policies for assisting asylum seekers.

However, while the government is in some serious trouble, it seems to me that the Opposition is in even bigger trouble in reality.

In Queensland, the Liberal National Party (LNP) went from exacting a huge electoral win to now being highly unpopular. Queensland’s conservative premier is suffering from delusions of grandeur as he continues to slash and burn essential services, attacking hospitals, schools and emergency services. The Premier continues to ignore the massive contribution that tourism makes to the state, preferring to rely on mining revenue. The conservative government is very keen to destroy sensitive environs, including the Great Barrier Reef. It has gotten so bad for the LNP in Queensland that the conservative government launched a desperate distraction about compulsory voting over the festive season.

In Victoria, the Liberal National coalition is also deeply unpopular. Since pledging to do so much for the state, the Baillieu conservative government have spent the last couple of years sitting on their hands. There has been little development of the state’s economy and in fact there have been active efforts to damage the economy and undermine industries associated with renewable energy production and distribution. The government continues to back a Member of Parliament caught using public funds for his private business with a new round of allegations of a Liberal MP meddling in local government matters. And then there have been the changes to Melbourne’s green wedge to enable further development and expansion of the city, despite the lack of controls on such developments. However the Planning Minister is to give himself more powers to allow him to fast track developments, enabling the Minister to work around environmental protections and planning laws. For the most part this conservative government has been busy doing very little; they’re certainly not rolling out its so-called election agenda.

In Western Australia the conservative government is facing its first real challenge at the polls with the election happening in March this year. The conservatives have done little to improve their position. Despite the efforts of the loose coalition of conservative parties there is little harmony. The state government continues to pour money into the metropolitan regions, neglecting regional centres. There continues the acquiescence to the mining and gas lobby as the state government threatens local communities of forced, compulsory acquisition of land; and removes environmental protection standards. There continue to be problems for senior members of Colin Barnet’s front bench, especially for Troy Buswell, the state’s Treasurer and then there is the souring relationship between the major conservative parties.

In New South Wales, the conservative Premier, Barry O’Farrell, started out swinging but found it hard going not having out-right majorities like his colleagues to the north, south and west. While he hasn’t been as out-rightly vicious as Queensland’s conservative government, he has steadily and systematically been attacking the public service, and especially essential public services like public hospitals, schools and the fire-fighters. There has been little development of the state’s economy and there remains little being done about the pressing infrastructure needs of New South Wales, especially existing and future growth areas.

The Northern Territory conservatives are still busy dealing with being in government after a long time in opposition. It’s clear that there are some internal issues given the website still notes the conservatives being in opposition. While in South Australia the conservatives are completely incapable of making any inroads electorally with regular public spats about whether or not the current leadership is capable of winning an election. However despite the apparent problems, leadership spills have returned the existing leadership; though you have to wonder how well things are going for the conservatives when the leader that is regularly and openly bagged is continually returned as leader after each spill.

At a national level there are even more problems for the conservatives.

The popularity of the leader is perhaps the biggest problem for the conservatives at a national level. For two years the conservatives have maintained a relentless war of negativity against policy proposals before properly considering them, something the greater public has woken up to. However it seems to be very hard for the Leader of the Opposition to back away from his negativity and attacks. Every attempt by Tony Abbott to present a more positive front fails and he quickly resorts to being negative. There are, as already mentioned, problems with the policy platform.

There has been an endless stream of thought bubbles presented as policy and numerous contradictions between Tony Abbott and his shadow cabinet about what is or isn’t Coalition policy. For the last two years we’ve often heard the Coalition talk about their policies yet claim they’ll only be released before the election; it’s surely evident to most observers that the Coalition is extremely light on policy details to be continuing to use this tired line.

More recently they have run into trouble over the Slipper-Ashby case. The calls for a proper investigation have become louder, though the conservatives were probably hoping the festive season would make people forget this affair. There are many, many elements about this case that warrant further investigation, especially given the implications of who may be involved from the leadership of the conservatives.

Unfortunately if the summer is anything to go by, we still have a media environment that spends more time copying and pasting media releases than doing some real work to file stories. You only need to think of the ANZ hoax earlier this year to see that our media is cutting and pasting rather than doing some real work – simply put – such a hoax would not have happened if journalists did their jobs and media companies stopped sacking journalists. We have a media environment that insists on covering the trivial and fluff while ignoring the more substantive issues facing the nation.

Our media will likely fail to cover the important issues leaving most Australian voters poorly informed about the policies and positions of the various political parties and independent candidates.

Let us make the effort to maintain the pressure on all politicians and political parties to be up-front about their policies and positions on the key issues and not accept attacks as legitimate electioneering. And let us keep the pressure on our mainstream media outlets to provide us with information not fluff.

NOTE: This was first published on Alex Schlotzer’s personal blog

Tony Abbott’s Australians for Honest Politics

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Time for another gem from Truth Seeker, and this one is a real gem. After enjoying this piece you’ll probably agree with me that it’s his best yet.

Tony Abbott’s Australians for Honest Politics

Australians for honest politics

Is another Abbott lie

The slush fund that won’t go away

Despite how hard he’ll try

He’ll push the usual Abbott lines

Of spin and lies and slogans

But the truth won’t set the Abbott free

Just expose his bunch of bogans.

😯

Ms Hanson was the problem

That Tony felt he had to fix

By garnering some funding

From his mates, the right wing dicks

Terry Sharples, Abbott guaranteed

Would not be out of pocket

If the disaffected Hansonite

Made sure that she would cop it.

😛

So with Abbotts clear assurance

Sharples lodged his supreme court writ

But it soon came clear to Abbott

That the case had turned to shit,

He said, “Terry, you have perjured yourself,

So terminate your action now.

And costs will be ordered against you

But I’ll just milk the LNP cow”.

😀

Then the Abbott set up his slush fund

And called it Australians for Honest Politics

Then he sold it to his donors

A bunch of wealthy right wing dicks

But when the AEC asked who they were

The Abbott promptly lied

Saying he’d spoken to a lawyer

And those names, he’s right to hide.

🙄

So the AEC were fooled

Taking Abbott at his word

Which, with Abbott’s form on lies and spin

Seems totally absurd

Then his right wing lawyers said to Sharples

As he was holding out his hand

“Abbott’s not prepared to pay all your cost

But he’ll give you this ten grand”.

😉

Though Sharples lost, Hanson paid the cost

And to the gaol she went

While the questions asked of Abbott

Showed the man is really bent

And when questioned about lying to Tony Jones

He said, “misleading the ABC

Is not as bad as misleading parliament

As a political crime, you see”.

😉

Now all this happened from 1998

To the year 2003

But Hanson served less than three months gaol

And on appeal, she was set free

But there were questions that were never asked

Of Abbott and his donors

With their born to rule mentality

Who when winning, all get boners.

😳

So fast forward to, 2012

With Abbott’s plans all gone awry

And his schemes and machinations

To steal government, just won’t fly

So with typical right wing projection

He points the finger at our PM

Saying the AWU slush fund affair

Was illegal way back then.

🙄

So his mates in the MSM decided

To dig up all the dirt

And he gave the task to Bishop

To be executioner, in a skirt

But being morally deficient

She just couldn’t hit the spot

And her sidekick Pyne proved spitting dummies is fine

But it’s all the poodle’s got.

😯

Still they dug and dug, and accusations flew

But none of it could stick

Till the PM finally called the bluff

On the Misogynistic dick

And the best he had was an ambit claim

Of conduct unbecoming

For a lawyer with a shonky bloke

With whom, with hindsight, she was slumming.

😳

But corruption claims, they could not prove

Cos there were no points there to score

But in the process Abbott’s own slush fund

Started coming to the fore

And the people want some answers

To some questions never posed

Of the Abbotts slush fund and the investigation

That the AEC conveniently closed.

🙄

And the names of all the donors

That the Abbott would not disclose

With the whole thing, like a corrupted version

Of the Emperors New Clothes

With the Abbott in his budgies

Crying “Gillards still a crim”

While the spotlight slowly turns around

To focus right on him.

😳

So the moral for the LNP is just

Be careful, who you accuse

As with skeletons in your own closets

It could be you that starts to lose

And it’s at your own sad peril

When you start throwing your stones

Cos just like Abbotts slush fund skeletons

He’s rattled . . . the wrong bones

😯

The village idiot

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A clearly agitated, nay disturbed Andrew Bolt thinks that Julia Gillard dumped Labor Senator Trish Crossin because she’s not black. Her replacement, Nova Peris, is. From his high horse dear Andrew cites how this flies in the face of the Racial Discrimination Act. He knows all about that Act; he himself having been found guilty of breaching it.

He might consider his ‘not being black’ statement to be a master-stroke of subtle revenge, but his subsequent rant about Julia Gillard’s contravention of the Act is a claim laced with extreme hypocrisy.

What did he have to say about this:

Mr Abbott said he was “very proud” that Mr Wyatt had entered federal politics as a member of the Coalition but said he hoped Northern Territory indigenous MP Alison Anderson would also join his team in order to better represent “the ancient cultures of central Australia”.

Mr Abbott flew to Alice Springs on the weekend to try to persuade Ms Anderson to run in the Country Liberal Party preselection race for the federal seat of Lingiari

It is understood Mr Abbott approached Ms Anderson about standing for preselection in Lingiari over breakfast on Sunday.

Absolutely nothing. It’s only a problem when the Prime Minister seeks an Indigenous representative.

Andrew Bolt is an idiot. Mike Carlton of the Sydney Morning Herald goes so far as to call him Melbourne’s village idiot. But Mike doesn’t go far enough.

A hundred years from now

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I just listened to an interesting interview speculating about the human race in 100 years from now.

What technology will we have? What will the environment we live in be like? Will we have artificial intelligence? Could we have wiped ourselves out by then? Could we be wiped out by artificial intelligence? Will we travel to other solar systems? Will wars be commonplace? Will we evolve intellectually? Could we have cured all disease? Will we need to be employed? Will we have mastered time travel? Will we engage – friendly or otherwise – with extraterrestrials? What will our agriculture be like? Will society be recognisable from 2012?

What, what, what?

Not all of those questions were discussed, and I won’t reveal what was predicted.

I thought I’d leave that up to you.

A hundred years from now, what will life on planet Earth be like?

Mungo’s best

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A few days ago, listening to political journalist and commentator Mungo MacCallum chatting to Phillip Adams on Radio National’s Late Night Live, Mungo was asked who he considered to be the best Australian Prime Ministers in his lifetime. He nominated three: Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating and John Gorton.

I imagine both sides of the political divide will be surprised at one, some, or all of his choices. The spectacular ends to their prime ministerships were inconsequential to Mungo. He was judging them on the jobs they’d done. Simply, their achievements.

I do not remember Mungo’s justifications, so I thought I’d Google them and list them here.

Gough Whitlam

• 1972 – ended conscription during Vietnam War.
• 1973: created new government departments including Aboriginal Affairs, Environment and amalgamation of armed forces into Defence.
• 1974: Aboriginal Land Fund Commission, Australian Legal Aid Office, National Employment and Training Scheme.
• The Health Insurance Act 1973 established ‘Medibank’, a national health scheme funded by levy which provided free public hospital treatment and medical benefits totaling at least 85 per cent of the cost of doctor and hospital services.
• The Trade Practices Act 1974 outlawed restrictive trade practices and ensured consumer protection and product and manufacturing liability.
• The National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 established a service to plan and manage national parks in line with international standards.
• The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 enabled Australia to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination.
• The Family Law Act 1975 replaced the existing grounds for divorce with a single ground, irretrievable breakdown of marriage (for example, having separated and lived apart for 12 months or more) and the extension of federal jurisdiction to maintenance, custody and property matters.

Paul Keating

• As Treasurer in the Hawke government, Keating was the architect of the deregulation of the Australian economy.
• The government floated the Australian currency and allowed foreign banks to operate in Australia from 1983.
• Removed direct government controls from interest rates which had helped create a competitive disadvantage for Australian companies.
• Abolished the two-airline policy and achieved a general lowering of tariff levels.
• As prime minister, built strong bilateral links with Australia’s Asia-Pacific neighbours, particularly Indonesia.
• Was a driving force in establishing the Asia Pacific Economic forum (APEC) heads of government meeting with its commitment to regional free trade.
• Responded to the High Court decision in the Mabo case 1992 and enacted the Native Title Act 1993 and the Land Fund Act 1994, which was the first national recognition of indigenous occupation and title to land.
• In April 1993 he appointed a Republic Advisory Committee to examine options to make Australia a republic.
• Established the National Training Act 1992, presented the White Paper Working Nation in 1994 to combat rising unemployment. Proposed a national superannuation scheme to redress low national savings.

John Gorton

• Established National Film and Television Training School and Australia Council for the Arts. As Minister for Education and Science, laid groundwork for government assistance to independent schools.
• Initiated reform to Commonwealth law that led to decriminalising homosexual acts between consenting adults in private.
• Rates of pay were standardised between the sexes.

That is just a brief look as time was against me, but it gives you a fair idea of their achievements. Based on what I’ve found though, I can’t say I agree with Gorton as a choice. Perhaps you will know something that I don’t.

Do you agree with his list? What would your list be?

The Homophobic Church

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What is it with the Church and their open display of homophobia? It’s as though they have been awarded with the God-given right to decide who is a good person and who is not. In their eyes, being a homosexual does not qualify the person as being a valid human being.

The Christian mouthpiece, Catholic Archbishop George Pell’s views on homosexuality first came into the spotlight, with the gay and lesbian community at least, back in 1999 when he was quoted as saying:

• homosexuality, especially among the young, is not a “fixed” or “in-escapable” condition and youth should be discouraged from “going in that direction”
• those who “work to win recruits to homosexual practice” and “the homosexual community” must share some of the blame for, “the suicide of homosexuals”
• the “gay agenda” seeks to “silence public discussion of health risks” which are “much greater than smoking” and to “lower the age of con-sent and recruit new members to the sub-culture”.
• moreover, the “homosexual orientation often brings suffering, but acting this out generally brings greater suffering, particularly when accompanied by adult seduction.”
• therefore, “to legitimise homosexual activity and boost the recruitment drive would only make a sad situation far more sad”.
• the Church will be “working consistently to stop the spread of the gay agenda in our schools.”

Further displays of his homophobia also came into the spotlight in 2000 when as Archbishop for Melbourne he refused to give communion to gays and lesbians in St Patricks. We learn, from that incident that:

The archbishop’s homophobia has not been confined to church ceremonies. In one instance, when asked about how the church will address the issue of homophobia in schools, Pell responded “We will be doing nothing to encourage the spread of the gay agenda in Catholic schools and we will be consistently working to oppose it”.

When asked if he was concerned with the effects of homophobia on youth he responded, “If [youth suicides] are connected with homosexuality, then that is another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction”.

Pell further outraged gays and lesbians as well as AIDS activists when, on one occasion, he referred to homosexuality as “being a greater risk than smoking”.

And back in 2002 he again refused Holy Communion to openly gay and lesbian parishioners. He followed with this Almighty attack:

Our Judeo-Christian religious tradition allows men and women sexual expression within the bounds of family life, a sexuality which is life-giving. Homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law, they close the sexual act to the gift of life.

It’s laughable that this man was availed the opportunity to submit his opinion to a Senate inquiry into amendments to the Marriage Act.

Evidence of homophobia in the Church is not confined to our most high-profile religious leader and not confined to Australia. It seems to be a phenomenon in the Mother Country as well.

In London, Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister said religious leaders had a responsibility not to “fan the flames of homophobia” after fierce by the UK’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, while across town Ruth Whippman writes:

You have to hand it to the Catholic Church.  It takes a certain level of chutzpah to come through arguably the most widespread global paedophile scandal in human history and its subsequent alleged cover-up, and still be dishing out moral guidance on ‘disordered sexual practices.’

With their continued endorsement of homophobia, the Catholic Church, in my opinion, is morally backward.

Cardinal George Pell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)