OPINION
“Shield the joyous” is a line from an Anglican version of the ancient office of Compline. Compline is a service that marks the end of the working day, with quiet prayer. And the “shield the joyous” line calls for God to protect the happy, for, like all human beings, they are vulnerable to loss or hubris.
Perhaps those of us Christians, not feeling joyful that the One Nation emerged as the stronger party of the Australian right on the weekend, should offer a prayer for those who are rejoicing that it did. Many of those are Christians, our brothers and sisters. Because hubris beckons.
Scanning the SA results shows a fractured right. Other alternative right-wing parties, such as Family First have been crushed, just like the Liberals. The dream of a “Christian party” may have died at the hands of One Nation.
The official results at time of writing (March 27):
| Party | Vote |
|---|---|
| Labor | 37.6 |
| One Nation | 22.4 |
| Liberal | 19.5 |
| Greens | 10.0 |
| Family First | 1.6 |
| Legalise Cannabis | 0.9 |
| Aust Family | 0.8 |
| Independents | 5.9 |
That fractured right should worry conservatives.
Let’s ask the question: which one is the DLP? The DLP, Democratic Labour Party, which split from the ALP in the mid-fifties, effectively kept the coalition in power until it wastime for Gough Whitlam.
And if it doesn’t?
Will disunity on the right have the same effect? Will disaffected Liberals back Labor or Teals? Some analysts believe that Labor leaked some votes in SA but also got some Liberal supporters into the malinauskas camp.
Hubris beckons as we just said.
There appears to be room for only one insurgent party on the centre right of Australian politics. Sometimes that is centrist – Lefty liberals formed the Liberal movement in SA, then the Australian Democrats had a place in the sun, and in SA again, Nick Xenophon’s no Pokies or SA Best.
Sometimes the Insurgency is on the right – the 1998 breakout of One Nation in Queensland, the National’s Joh for PM push, and the cureent second coming of One Nation.
But only one insurgency at a time.
The centre right and right party poltics of Australian politics is going to be more interesting than the left in the next few years.
The split among Christians
But the One Nation surge is not only a split in the centre right and right in Australia it is a split among Christians.
This is a good point to remind readers of Premier Peter Malinauskas victory speech comment that One nation’ ”s “significant result at the ballot box” at the SA election deserves “recognition and credit.”
So in the same spirit, this
The best information on how Christians vote is dated, from the 2016 National Church Life Survey, church attenders surveyed for their voting preferences in lower house federal elections revealed Labor 24 per cent, Liberal/National 41 per cent, Greens 2 per cent, Family First or Australian Christians or Christian Democratic Party 7 per cent, and Other party or independents 2 per cent. 12 per cent shifted votes from time to time, and 12 per cent did not answer.
The coalition was the political home for most Christians, whether Catholic, Uniting or Pentecostal.
That home has now split.
One possible index to how many of the coalition Christians might shift to One Nation is how many will be attracted to the climate scepticism of One Nation. In that same 2016 NCLS survey, church attenders were asked what measures Australia should take in response to Climate change. 48 per cent of church attendees told NCLS Research they believe Australia should “take steps now even if costly”. Another 38 per cent said Australia should “take gradual steps low in cost”. Only 14 per cent said Australia should take “no steps until sure it is a problem”. Those figures leave plenty of room for aCVhristians to at lease match the general community support for One nation.
The skew towards the coalition among Christians in the past – meaning Christians were more likely to vote conservative than the general community – is likely to be replicated in the One Nation Surge. If we have one-fifth of the general community voting for One Nation, we are certain to have a higher proportion among Christians.
All of a sudden we have a bigger political split among Christians.
This means we do need to see each other as united in Christ, sisters and brothers of each other. Thus, reality is eternal and more significant than our political allegiances.We need to act as though our unity in the Spirit is real;
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Uniparty and monoculture
Anyone else note the irony of the children at many schools wearing orange for Harmony Day, then the next day people wearing orange to hand out how-to-votes for the SA election?
There’s a tension there that might be centred on two words
• Uniparty – the One Nation trope that Labor and Liberal are so similar they are basically one party.
• Multicultural – an aspect of Australian society that One Nation is critical of. We should all be like them.
So in the field of politics, One Nation argues for difference; we need a range of choices so we can choose them, and reject the Uniparty alternative.
But in society, One Nation argues that Australia should be a mono culture, whether Judeo-Christian, sometimes called “Anglo-Celtic” by some commenters.
The desire to live in a society influenceJudeo-Christian ethos is a mix of nostalgia, a simple slogan and also a genuine recognition of the core benefits from the Western foundation – the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the free market and a social safety net. For which we thank figures as disparate as Edmund Burke, Bismarck, the Chartists and suffragettes, and Wilberforce. And locally, Bertie Boyce, the rector of Redfern and Catherine Spence.
Whether the voters of One Nation like it or not, and they are entitled to their opinion, the once British and Irish stock that invaded Australia has been diluted. Arguing for a white Australia is now an argument for social division, not unity. But support for, say, the organs of democracy is not race-based in modern Australia and a wide range of political opinion will back it.
So we are multicultural simply on account of where we come from – “we are one, but we are many and from all the lands of Earth we come.” The task is to sing with one voice. But with harmonies, not just one note.
The split in Australia’s right of centre will present challenges for Christians. Some will want to identify a party as the most Christian party, although this thinking occurs on the left as well as the right.
It is worth remembering what then Archbishop Peter Jensen told the ABC’s Monica Attard: “Fortunately in Australia, it is perfectly possible, even across the range of options, to vote from faith and to vote differently. You cannot say to a Christian in Australia I think you must vote for such and such a person. It’s a matter of balance. You will work out which way you want to go.
“There are certain things about the genius of the Liberal Party which are very attractive to Christianity, there are certain things about the genius of the Labor Party that are very attractive to Christianity, because they both come from Christian sources.”
The task for Christians is “to live such good lives among the pagans”