The Other Cheek interviewed the CEO of the Australian Christian Lobby, Michelle Pearse. By coincidence, we chose the day PM Anthony Albanese called the poll.
The Other Cheek: My general question is, what should Christians pay attention to in this election?
Michelle Pearse: “That’s a great question, and I think the Christian constituency is very broad in terms of the things that they’re concerned about, and we acknowledge that. But I think the key issue that we really need to be weighing up seriously is religious freedom because that’s what’s going to give us the ability to continue to be faithful to our Christian values not only in schools but also in Christian charities and the church as well, to be able to speak a faithful biblical view.
“I think specifically on things like biblical sexual ethics is really under threat, our freedom to be able to do that. There are many pieces of legislation that have recently been passed that are threatening our ability to be free to speak according to what we believe in biblical sexuality. So that’s going to be an issue that’s going to affect all Christians and the Christian Church more broadly.
“But then there are other issues I think many Christians are concerned about in terms of the social breakdown and the connections of harm to society through things like online pornography and social media, the rise of hate and antisemitism. I think there’s implications there for immigration. So there’s such a broad range of issues there. So what we’ve done is we’ve asked the major parties questions, we gave them 18 questions in relation to many of those issues I just mentioned and more, and we’ve just received the answers back in the last week. So we’ll be putting them up on our website and giving Christians the ability to really weigh up the answers of the major party.”
I will come back to your questionnaire, but this seems to me to be an election that is focused on “the economy stupid.” So how will these other issues break through into the campaign?
“The economy will always dominate the election because people are concerned about the cost of living and how things will affect their back pocket. But, I think the issues of immigration will play into it because of the implications on housing and the cost of living for the everyday Australian.
“But what we want Christians to be focused on is bigger picture issues that are going to really threaten the cohesiveness of our future society. And I think those are matters of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
“[While] I don’t think they’re going to get much mainline traction during the lead up to the election simply because I think the majority of Australians are concerned about the economy and cost of living. But still, I think we have opportunity to target a message to Christians through the way that we market our message that might not resonate with Australians that don’t go to church, but will certainly target Christians in churches that are concerned about issues that they aren’t necessarily talking about on the nightly news.”
But given the very messy end of the Morrison government, can we blame politicians for shying away from what they call culture war issues?
“Yeah, well, I don’t think we can blame politicians for shying away from that at this point because they are still very divisive. And I think we have an opportunity as ACL and many Christians across the nation to really show the harms of how woke has cost the economy, the harm it’s doing to children, the ideology and education. So we see the coalition government leaning slightly into that, but not making it a dominant message.
“But I think soon after the election that we’ll have the opportunity to push harder and to actually make this more of an issue. My prediction is these are going to be the key issues in the 2028 election that the evidence is going to rise to such an extent that none of the major parties can ignore it. And that’s certainly what we’ll be working to do to make it more of an issue. But at this point, if Christians can really understand the way that religious freedom is being targeted by the federal government, then they’ll be able to see clearly where their vote should go.”
To follow up on that, what are the specific attacks on religious freedom you are talking about?
“So, as you know, Scott Morrison put forward a religious discrimination bill that didn’t end up getting through the parliament. Labor said that they would pass a religious discrimination bill if they had the Coalition’s support. Now, the draft bill that Labor put up, which was a secret bill, although they revealed it to a couple of the Coalition members just so that they could negotiate, was far from a bill that would actually protect religious freedom. In fact, it would’ve compromised [religious freedom]; it would’ve taken it backwards. So, the coalition refused to accept it.
“The coalition put on the table what the faith leaders wanted in a bill, and the Albanese government rejected that. So it stalled, and we don’t have protection from religious discrimination. Mind you, it’s the only area of discrimination that we don’t have protection in our nation. So they’ve got protections over disability, sex, gender, race, but religious protection of religious discrimination is the one that’s missing.
“So it’s about time that a government moved to protect faith groups from religious discrimination and we just don’t have it at this point. I think the lack of protections is a key issue, but also in the latest version of the hate crimes bill that the government put forward, there are some really vague interpretations. [The bill takes] vilification to a low threshold that it does threaten people of faith and also those who just have a different ideological viewpoint to perhaps the prevailing ideology of the day. [It creates] a risk in saying things that could be taken as an offence to perhaps the trans community or perhaps a drag queen or something like that, that then could attract a criminal penalty for saying something that’s offensive to somebody else by the government, then labelling that as a hate crime.
So that’s also a limit of free speech that should not only concern the Christian community, but anybody who wants to speak freely about against the harms of these ideologies that are being pushed through society.”
:
One of the reasons for the breakdown of the Morrison Government’s bill was internal divisions in Liberal party, particularly on the issue of whether faith schools should be able to discriminate against transgender children. And is that something that you think Christian schools should be able to discriminate against because ACL took a very strong stand in that negotiation?
“I think the issue here is the language. Discriminat[ing] isn’t something that Christians do. Christians are caring if a young person is struggling with their gender identity or with their sexuality, a Christian school is actually the best place for them to be to actually help them navigate those difficult emotions and struggles that they’re having.
“But I think that more to the point on religious freedom and protection from discrimination is the ability to hire staff and keep staff that are Christians and Christians in the way that the school interprets that to be. And if a school believes in the biblical view of sexuality, because we acknowledge that some Christian schools don’t, but the ones that do should be able to hire and even fire according to their Christian ethos because it’s the staff that really set the example of what a Christian is to their students. And that’s not just the school chaplain or the special religious education teacher, that’s all stuff. And that’s what’s under threat with the religious discrimination bill that Labor drafted was that they thought that being a Christian was only relevant to certain positions and not to the entire staff community. And so it’s not the freedom to discriminate, it’s the freedom to uphold your Christian ethos.”
Well, let me push back on students. Are there classes of students such as a student that identifies as transgender and wants to manifest that at school that a Christian school should say, we don’t want you here?
“Well, there’s no examples of that happening within the Christian school community. And I’m in a lot of the forums with Christian schools, and that’s certainly not the message that they want to send to kids that are struggling.”
Given the questionnaire you mentioned before and your 18 questions: will that amount to endorsing particular parties?
The comparison will be quite clear in terms of how well the parties aligned with Christian values according to their answer. So we will give some context to each of the parties’ answers so that the Christian is well-informed as to what that means because we know that politicians and parties can use weasel words, they can make something sound different to what the reality is. And so because we’re in the game, we understand what they’re trying to do or how they could be trying to manipulate with words, we will provide an analysis under those answers to ensure that the Christian voter understands what the implications of their policy position is.
I found it disturbing at a Queensland election that ACL questionnaire supported One Nation Nation. I’m wondering what you do about that.
“I’m not aware of which electorate or circumstance you’re talking about. We never support a party or a candidate in that way, but we will certainly weigh up the policies and then if one party is coming out better with all of their policy positions, then we’ll make that kind of analysis clear. But because we are nonpartisan, we won’t on a whole promote one party above another, but we will provide an analysis of the positions and if that ends up being summarised in a way that shows that one party is actually or one candidate stands out above the rest, then we’ll make that known to the constituency.”
What sort of sway do you think ACL has among Christians at present?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Well, I think the credibility is being rebuilt, particularly after Martin’s departure. And what I’m really hoping, sorry, through this election is that because our resources will be very well researched, well nuanced, provide really great summaries of where the parties stand, that that will help to grow our influence in being able to really support the local church because that’s what we want to do. We don’t want to tell the local church what to do, but we want to support them with really excellent resources that can help the people in their church to be really good stewards of their vote and take their democratic responsibility seriously. And that’s why the resource needs to be well-researched, non-party partisan, but very clear in terms of where the parties stand on the issues that are of concern.”
There may be some Christians who are still confused by Martyn Isles leaving ACL and by implication your appointment, what do you think ACL is doing better and what do you want to focus on as ACL into this election and beyond?
“When I was appointed, I was really focused on how we can create an organisation that is politically effective. I think that’s the bottom line. We want to have influence in parliaments and legislation to protect the church, advance religious freedom, and advocate for those who are vulnerable and don’t have a voice for themselves. So when I stepped into this role, we didn’t have state directors or territory directors representing each state and territory, and I thought that that was a lack. And, so I quickly moved to appoint a state and territory director in every state and territory so that they could build relationships in their state parliaments, they could get their head around the key pieces of legislation and go in and effectively advocate. And since we’ve been moving in that direction, we have had direct influence on a number of pieces of legislation, watering down certain dangerous pieces that would’ve been detrimental for the Christian community.
” And that all happens through relationship. That doesn’t happen by standing outside with placards, although we do too that at times to help the Christian community to make a stand if that’s what it takes. But the real change happens when you’re going into parliaments, and you’re building relationships, and you’re getting your head around the policy, and you’re having those discussions with those that make the decisions to influence its direction. I think we’ve been a lot more effective since we’ve been doing that. That’s what we used to do back when Jim Wallace and Lyle Shelton where were [in my] position; that was our strategy to go in and make relationships and affect public policy. And so I feel that with my appointment, I’m bringing back to that point where we’re really focused on political effectiveness.”
There was criticism I heard from ACL insiders about the change in direction under Martyn. But under Jim Wallace, looking back to Jim Wallace, he undoubtedly was very effective dealing with both sides of the parliament. You can look at the effect he had on the Gillard government, for example, and the delay to the marriage debate. Surely it’s much harder now in a more polarised environment. Is that a fair call?
“That is a fair call. However, I have made it a strong focus that we build our influence in Labor. And since we have been focusing our efforts that way, we have seen more doors open on the Labor side and having conversations about what we mean by religious freedom and what we mean by the fact that we are not looking to discriminate. I think with some Labor members, they paint us with that brush and Equality Australia and the lobby groups on that side have pushed that agenda.
“However, that’s not what Christians are seeking to do, but it does take sitting down and having those conversations to actually explain what we mean when we want protection from religious discrimination and we want more freedom. And I find those conversations really do go a long way in influencing even the conversations that are had in the party rooms.
“And so there are some really good members on the Labor side and we just continue to build relationship with them and even around election times, try to find candidates on both sides that hold to Christian values and to make that known throughout the Christian constituency no matter if they’re Labor or Liberal. And I think that focus helps us then to take it back to what it used to be in terms of having that influence on both sides. You’re right, I think it has lessened, but I feel like at this point we are rebuilding it.
Well, let me help you reach out to Labor and ask you this question. What does Labor do better than the coalition?
“We supported the labour government’s move to ban social media for under 16-year-olds. That is something ACL supported, even though it wasn’t something that many free speech advocates were concerned that would limit freedoms when you place a social media ban. However, with the amount of damage that social media access has had to young people, I thought it was a good move from the Labor government.
“The Labor government have also furthered age verification for pornography since they’re empowered. [Minister for Communications] Michelle Rowland is quite a passionate advocate for internet safety for young people. And so I think their reforms in those areas to help young people have actually progressed more so than they did under a coalition government.”
Any final comments?
“I think I mentioned it briefly, but just in terms of the ACL [we] really want to serve the church. We are not the church, but we are a resource that can really help the church to be informed when it comes to political issues. And if, under my leadership, I can rebuild the trust and the relationship with the church to be able to serve them more effectively and listen to them, then I would be really happy.
This interview was lightly edited for grammar, brevity and repetition.