- the Bible says to be wary of half truths - like calling Family First "a party with a primary focus on looking out for families".I think he is right. The majority of policies do not represent the average Australian family. Rather a Christian, Pentecostal-Fundamentalist understanding of family values.
It is still a party focussed on "right wing Christian" values - not "Australian Family" values.
In Australia, based on 2006 ABS statistics, there are 5,219,165 families - meaning the majority of Australians live in some kind of family community.
So polling of what families want should [generally] reflect what Australians want - you should never see a case where the vast majority of Australians disagree with what "families" want.
If you do see this, you see a party with another agenda.
On abortion - polling shows that the vast majority of Australians (families included) support abortion rights. Family First opposes abortion of all forms. (Polling in support of Family First's policy is as little as 7%!)
On mandatory internet filtering - despite all polling showing the majority of Australians do not support support a filter, plus experts proving that it will not [as Family First claims] improve "child protection" (due to the fact that it will be impossible to effectively and accurately manage censorship of over 10 BILLION webpages and 234 million websites, and the filter will not affect Usenet, BitTorrents, IRC etc)....
...Still, Family First still supports an infeasible, unpopular, unmanageable, expensive (tens-of-millions of dollars) policy.
There are other examples (e.g. Climate Change), but you see my point: Family First is still, fundamentally, a political party representing the Christian "Right" - not putting families first.
It would be nice to have a party supporting family values (one with wider appeal) - but we're still looking at a Christian party in sheep's clothing.
The question for me then is :: Is the name "Family First" misleading and really just a branding ploy? (Pentecostal church love branding "Hillsong, Careforce etc etc) Would it be more honest just to call it "Christian Party" or "Christian Values Party". I also find the "Family" in the name discriminatory. I have just as many friends inside and outside the Church that are single. How are they represented?
