Financials First
The Australian Electoral Commission released this week its list of political donations. The Australian has an article on the key givers:
Craig Winkler and Dan Daniels may not be household names, but they are among the emerging tycoons who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to bankroll the Christian conservative Family First’s party high-profile entry to federal politics at the October 2004 election.Mr Winkler, who is chief executive of listed software firm MYOB, gave $200,000 to the party’s coffers through his private company Bangarie Pty Ltd.
And Mr Daniels, a 41-year-old Victorian pharmaceutical products multimillionaire who made his fortune in medical waste safety products, contributed $95,000 to the party.
Both men made indirect donations through privately held companies to Families Australia and Australian Families Trust Fund. The two funds then provided $450,000 towards Family First’s $1.74 million election campaign war chest.
Most of the money funded a massive national anti-Greens television advertising campaign, which saw Victorian Stephen Fielding elected to the Senate.
The party’s federal chairman, Peter Harris, described the key donors, all of whom he has met, as “entrepreneurial people who care about families”.
Senior party figures also dug deep to help out: Family First owes Mr Harris’s company Hardel $100,000, while federal party treasurer Chris Baker’s Maccade company is owed $75,000, and gave $60,000 to the Australian Families Trust Fund.
The article goes on to say that the Australian doesn’t know about Winkler’s and Daniels’ religious views, but it only takes a quick Google to find an interview in which Winkler refers to his Christian faith. Jireh International, the Australian franchise holder for Gloria Jean’s coffee, closely linked with the Hillsong Church also donated $10K. Smaller amounts were donated by a bunch of AOG and other churches. Of course, they can get money from wherever they want. However, Family First spent a lot of time saying they were not a “Christian” party, and yet they took a lot of money from people heavily involved with AOG churches.
The point of requiring this sort of disclosure is that it reveals who political parties might be considered beholden to. Family First raised over $1.6M, most of it in a period of less than four months. Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic group raised just over $11K. Just as the big party donations make us wonder whether the ALP is too beholden to the interests of gambling and the Libs are too beholden to the pharmaceutical companies, this “non-Christian” party seems to be funded by an awful lot of Christian money.
February 4th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Of interest from the donors’ list …from a WA perspective… was a $2000 donation in 2004 by Sunset Coast CLC in Joondalup… (run by former Hillsong staff)…to Family First….
And very interestingly…a $20000 donation by ‘Cottesloe Christian Church Inc.’ to Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party.
What’s interesting…. is that the donation was made on the 24th of September 2004…
A week later…a local newspaper article appeared….saying that the church would be disbanded on the 31st of December…2004.
http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20041002/news/019.shtml
February 5th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
I’ve never understood this hostility towards Family First that you hold. I’m interested to find out why it concerns you so much that a political party can hold some Christian ideals and be funded by Christians, yet not be a ‘Christian party’. What do you think they’re trying to hide?
Perhaps it’s just because.
February 5th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Ratcliffem, That is the very reason “Gay Christian Radio” is concerned about where Family First get their funds. They hold Christian values and he doesn’t. Pretty sure all the members of the National Party aren’t farmers either but the Farmers Federation are probably their biggest donors, they fail to mention that!
February 6th, 2006 at 4:32 am
“I’ve never understood this hostility towards Family First that you hold. I’m interested to find out why it concerns you so much that a political party can hold some Christian ideals and be funded by Christians, yet not be a ‘Christian party’. What do you think they’re trying to hide?
Perhaps it’s just because.”
As previous reported at Signposts…Family First is playing to the demographics. It is telling its financial backers one thing..and the community another.
It clearly is mostly supported in its leadership and financially through the churches, particularly AOG churches.
Nothing wrong with that per se, but they’re telling the community that they’re merely a ‘family values’ party, without official Christian affiliation.
That’s just plain bullshit.
And personally…I strongly dislike their pretence on the gay issue.
They’ve said several times publicly (particularly through party chairman Peter Harris) that they’re not an anti-gay party.
This email from Family First MP to his party’s supporters…clearly showed they are an anti-gay party.
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:23 PM
Subject: Statutes Amendment (Relationships) Same-Sex Bill Passes Upper House
Dear Members and Friends,
It is with great sadness that I must inform you about the passing of the Relationships Bill (giving same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples) in the Upper House.
At 11.30 pm last night, the Bill passed the Legislative Council - 13:6. The Bill was voted on in the following manner: Those in favour of same-sex couples getting the same legal rights as married couples: Nick Xenophon (No Pokies) Michelle Lensink (Liberal) David Ridgway (Liberal) Rob Lawson (Liberal) Gail Gago (Labor) Terry Roberts (Labor) John Gazzola (Labor) Paul Holloway (Labor) Rob Sneath (Labor) Carmel Zollo (Labor) Terry Cameron (Ind) Kate Reynolds (Democrats) Sandra Kanck (Democrats) Ian Gilfillan (Democrats)
Those against the Bill:
Andrew Evans (Family First)
John Dawkins (Liberal)
Rob Lucas (Liberal)
Caroline Schaefer (Liberal)
Angus Redford (Liberal)
Julian Stefani (Liberal)
Terry Stephens (Liberal)
…
The bill is now headed for the House of Assembly and will probably be debated within the next few days.
We do not have “the numbers”.
What is at stake is the full normalisation of homosexual behaviour in our community, affecting our sons, our daughters and our grandchildren. We pray for a miracle.
Yours Sincerely,
Andrew Evans”
At least the Christian Democratic Party is clear that it’s anti-gay ..and wants poofs like me locked up.
““REBECCA CARMODY: You built your name fighting against the decriminalisation of homosexuality - that debate has been and gone. Have you given up on that issue?
REVEREND FRED NILE: I can’t change that. I suppose I could reintroduce another law to try to reinstate it, but I think with the state of both Liberal and Labor parties, it wouldn’t get very far.””
But like the AOG…Family First is a bit more media savvy than Fred …and they know that being anti-gay is not a vote-winner….so they engage in this double-speak.
I have the same regard for Family First, as I have for the pus squeezed out of a sore toe.
Although I think Family First are negotiating a preference deal with the pus squeezed out of a sore toe….to get another Senator into the House.
Lance.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Michael, I don’t pretend to have the same level of feeling as Lance about this issue. However, I do think that the rise of Family First is an important issue for us to comment on. First, there is the fact that Lance points out that they have distanced themselves from any association with the church, but in a whole range of ways are a primarily christian political party. I think that is dishonest.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Family First as a small party with an incredibly small percentage of the vote managed to affect the outcome of the election, through preference deals and media attention which did not match their actual influence. Similarly, they have managed to raise a huge amount of money entirely out of keeping with their size and electoral performance. I think that this is a rise of God politics in Australia.
I don’t have anything against Family First but I think they are worth commenting on because the level of attention devoted to this party seems to suggest that there is a change (or at least a perceived change) in the way that religious people engage in politics in this country. I think that it is shifting the secular debate on social issues towards religious principles.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Lance, I appreciate your taking time to comment; your position on Family First has always been quite clear. Perhaps I should’ve been clearer about who was the ‘you’ I was refering to.
Dan, I haven’t seen anything, in my opinion, to suggest dishonest practices by Family First. I think it’s always been clear to anyone who’s looked into Family First their ties with AOG and other Christian organisations and people. Attempting to distance themselves from any association with the church is smart politics, not dishonest. They haven’t denied association, to my knowledge.
I agree they’re worth the attention, they do have some influence greater than their size and electoral performance.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Arguably they haven’t been dishonest, but they have walked a fairly fine line. For example their statement “We are not a church party and we are not funded by AOG churches” here. The latest disclosures show that they certainly received funds from AOG churches. Of course their association and links with the AOG and other Christian organisations has been clear, which makes their attempts to distance themselves from churches even weirder.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
For the record, here is Family First chairman Peter Harris…denying the bleedin’ obvious with his distancing the party from the AOG church.
From …
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1217824.htm
“TONY JONES: Tell us a little bit about yourself, if I can, because it seems that you and other candidates are quite worried that the close connection between the Assemblies of God Church and Family First could be something of a negative for you?
PETER HARRIS: Well, we’ve actually spoken very openly about this during the campaign.
I don’t think it’s actually been reported very fairly and it’s been certainly misrepresented.
Certainly the party was established in South Australia back in 1992 when Andrew Evans became a member of the Legislative Council in the South Australian Government.
Andrew Evans certainly comes from the Assembly of God and was a leader in the Assembly of God movement but made a determination to go into politics, some two years after he retired.
So he first actually went to Nick Xenophon, the No Pokies politician in South Australia, and asked him if he could join his party and Nick suggested there was a vacuum on family values and that’s really how the party established itself.
So Andrew Evans was certainly a couple of years out of retirement.
Now, there’s no debate from us that our network of relationships and friendships around the nation certainly come from a whole range of environments, including the Assembly of God and other churches.
TONY JONES: You are a prominent member of the Assemblies of God yourself, aren’t you?
PETER HARRIS: I don’t know if I’m a prominent member, I’m a member of the Assembly of God Church, but you know, Family First established itself to represent family values in Australia and that’s how we promoted ourselves and obviously there were other representations throughout the campaign.
And you know, we don’t have a spiritual agenda for the nation.
We’ll leave that to other people.
What we have is an agenda to represent Australian families and a lot of us have come from a base where we’ve been working very hard with many families over many years in society.
TONY JONES: Alright, but if your case, let’s just go through a little bit of your background as reported.
You can correct it if it’s not true.
Apparently you were a board member of the the church, the Paradise Assemblies of God.
It’s also reported you were involved in setting up a strategic vision for your church which would bring it into a position of influence in political business and media areas.
Is that so, and is this move into politics an extension of that?
PETER HARRIS: Well, certainly I have been a member of the board of the Paradise Church.
I am no longer.
But some years ago, we talked about wanting to have a greater say and a greater influence in that environment, but this party has something that has resonated with the majority or the silent majority of Australian families and it’s certainly become something which has captured the minds and hearts of Australian people.
TONY JONES: Why in a way deny the connection with the church?
It seems so obvious in a way.
I mean, Stephen Fielding is a member of the CityLife Church, which is part of the Assemblies of God as we understand it.
PETER HARRIS: Well, Tony, I actually don’t think we’ve denied it.
I think we’ve acknowledged the network.
There’s no formal links between Family First and the Assembly of God movement or any church movement, so the issue for us is not a matter of denial — I’m proud of my Christian heritage.
I don’t apologise for that at all.
But the real issue is that the party was not established to represent the Assembly of God Church, it wasn’t established to represent spiritual issues, it was established to represent the broader needs of family issues in society as we saw them as being important in terms of them trending downwards.
TONY JONES: It may only be getting picked up by the newspapers, but there does seem to be quite a lot of a religious nature, for example, do you stand by the material put out by one of your candidates, Pastor Danny Nalliah in Victoria, who called on his followers to pull down Satan’s strongholds.
They included, along with brothels and gambling places, mosques and temples.
Most Australians would consider that to be an incitement to religious violence.
PETER HARRIS: Oh, absolutely.
And some people would see it that way but we, you know, we last week totally distanced ourself from that situation.
We received a letter from the Islamic Council of Victoria.
We responded to that letter and our position is simply that we totally promote and believe in the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of choice.
And I personally contacted the Islamic Council of Victoria and expressed that view and they reflected a sense of relief that Family First wasn’t about that.
TONY JONES: So what has happened here, Peter?
Have some nutters gotten on board your bandwagon?
PETER HARRIS: Oh, look we certainly wasn’t aware of the material that was out there at the time.
But, look, any party, I mean, this is a party that didn’t exist federally a short time ago, and we fielded 125 candidates.
And we’re going to have a situation —
We’re going to have a situation where you’ve got some people on both the extreme left and the extreme right of situations.
TONY JONES: Alright.
Here’s another one.
There are posters put about the seat of McMillan, in the La Trobe Valley, that said, “A vote for Christian Disarray” — he was the Labor member before he was voted out — “is a vote for Satan”.
PETER HARRIS: Well I’m not aware of that and certainly the party had no involvement in that situation at all.
TONY JONES: So the party doesn’t stand by what some of its candidates are doing, that’s what you’re saying?
PETER HARRIS: Well, I mean, sometimes people say things that are not supportive of the policy of the party, and so in those situation situations, we step in, we deal with those issues and we move forward.”
Now…this was a very revealing comment by Ratcliffem.
“Attempting to distance themselves from any association with the church is smart politics, not dishonest. They haven’t denied association, to my knowledge.”
Why is ‘attempting to distance themselves from any association with the church’…smart politics?
Are you suggesting there may be some sort of cringe factor about the Australian church among Aussie voters?
Christians seem to want to have it both ways.
You all want to put this beautiful spin on how the church is going in connecting with the average Aussie…..but at another level…there is this embarrassment factor.
For example…I know people who go to Phil Baker’s Revenue Church..and talk it up as being a wonderful church..but they won’t take their friends there because they’d be embarrassed about the long tithing sermons or some of the other wank and nonsense that’s said from the stage.
The same was true for Churchlands where I DID take some visitors to church there once, and we WERE all embarrassed.
Fred Nile has been an embarrassment to the church for decades…but Christians are quite happy to have him portraying the church as a pharisee organisation in the media.
The Cringe Factor for Fred in the community is off the scale…
In theory…shouldn’t it be a POSITIVE thing…for a political party to be associated with the church…if the church were not the embarrassment it is now?
Lance.
P.S. There’s now more Paul Colman playing on ‘Cockbreath Sinners Radio’
http://www.xy.cool.as
February 7th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
February 7th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
“I distance myself from AOG’s when talking about my Christianity with friends.”
I can understand that….because you’re distancing yourself from something that you’re not a part of…and you know to be full of shit.
But why would the people who come from AOG circles…and are still a part of it…distance themselves from their own organisation?
That makes no sense…if they believe what they’re doing within the AOG is good and right.
February 8th, 2006 at 7:58 am
The crux of the connection is the vaguely defined term “family values” that the party stands for. One would presume these are not family values as defined by the muslim faith, or hindu, or buddhist and it is certainly not the values of homosexual families. They are clearly the family values of the AOG church which may or may align with the general understanding of the term by the broader Christian community.
In fact, if these family values were fully enunciated we may find that some aspects are quite incompatible with broader community’s understanding of this term but who would know.
The dilemma they face is that they are trying to appeal to the extremely conservative Christian right and the more middle of the road broader Australian community at the same time. This is where keeping the term “family values” vague is essential as is the close connection that the party has with AOG church.
March 17th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Now just a reminder, Family First is NOT a church-based political party..and is NOT an anti-gay party, because that’s what they always tell us…….right?
Now this…from Family First MP Andrew Evans’ latest email to supporters…
“Dear Members & Friends
South Australian Election – 18 March 2006
There are some issues we would like to bring to your attention regarding the imminent election. They are issues which I believe will affect your decision about who to vote for. In addition, they will assist you in voting for candidates that will better represent your views in the South Australian Parliament.
1. Family First will oppose any legislation that is ‘anti-church.’
2. Family First will introduce a bill that aims to reduce abortion by up to 80%. Where the concept has been implemented in the United States, abortions have fallen by up to 80%. This is an outstanding result.
3. Family First will vehemently oppose and vote against any legislation that seeks to weaken the status of marriage.
4. Family First will also oppose any legislation which seeks to recognise homosexual relationships and grant rights to such relationships. As you are aware, the Government introduced into Parliament the Relationships Bill in an attempt to recognise homosexual relationships and grant such relationships extensive rights akin to those enjoyed by marriage. The Bill was dropped at the end of the last Parliamentary session. However, it will no doubt be reintroduced by the Labor Government if they are re-elected. You may also like to note that when the Relationships Bill was voted for in the Upper House, the entire Labor Party, the three Democrats, Nick Xenophon and Terry Cameron voted in favour of the Relationships Bill. By voting for conservative candidates you can go some way to ensuring that the Relationships Bill will be defeated if it is re-introduced in the upcoming Parliamentary term.
5. Family First promises to strongly lobby against the following issues in the upcoming Parliamentary session: euthanasia, pokies, legalisation of prostitution, religious vilification laws and the legalisation of marijuana.
6. Family First will fight for increased funding from the State Government for Independent, Catholic and Christian schools. We are concerned about the fact that the Labor Party has not currently responded to the request made by Independent and Catholic schools to bring the South Australian State Grant up to the average funding per student across Australia.
7. We will also strongly oppose the intentions of the Minister for Education, The Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith, to substitute the name ‘chaplain’ for an alternative title.
But remember, Family First, is NOT a church party, and is NOT anti-gay, as they always re-assure us.
Because lying would be unChristian.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
For those who would like to meet the candidates. Careforce has it in their april newsletter
http://www.careforce.org/church/newsletter/CareNewsApril.pdf…
April 18th, 2006 at 3:21 am
But …..but …they keep telling us they’re not a Christian or church-based political party.
“For those who would like to meet the candidates. Careforce has it in their april newsletter
http://www.careforce.org/church/newsletter/CareNewsApril.pdf ”
“FAMILY FIRST PARTY.
Find out what’s happening in the Victorian election for November 2006?
Family First Rally Eastern Districts
Life Ministry Centre, Mardoonah (sic) Hwy, Chirnside Park
Wed April 12th (7:30pm - 9:30 pm)
Have a coffee, network, meet candidates for the Upper House. Share your ideas and meet community leaders. Register now! Bookings are essential.
Contact
Richard Hunt Ph:9276 4324 Mob: 0412 821 684
Email: huntrich@alphalink.com.au
Joshua Reimer Mob: 0438 078 053
Email: joshuareimer@gmail.com
Jacinta Ayres Ph: 9739 7349
Mob: 0408 829 204 Email: ayresj@aol.com “