I just got back from the “meet-the-candidates” session organied by the Australian Christian Lobby. It was one of the few opportunities that all Senate candidates have to have a public rant so there was a good turnout — Liberal, National, Labor, Green, Democrat, Family First, Christian Democrat, What Women Want, Climate Change Coalition, CEC, NCPP and several independents, including one grumpy old guy who hates blacks and Muslims. No Pauline.
We only had a few minutes to talk and then answered a few questions. I was honest, so my answers weren’t popular. Yes, we support gay marriage. No, I don’t want the government to censor TV. No, I don’t want to give you more handouts. No, I don’t want a national campaign for chaplins in schools.
I mentioned the “right of Genghis, left of Cheech & Chong”, which got a laugh. I also mentioned that the size of government in the economy has risen from about 5% to 40% in the last 100 years and tax has increased by 34% under the Liberals. Other LDP positions mentioned were competitive federalism, pro-immigration & euthanasia. There were no votes to be gained at a meeting of the ACL, but it was all very friendly and a good chance to go out and do the “political thing”.
November 13, 2007 at 1:58 am |
The Meet the Candidates forum organised by the same group in Springwood (Macquarie, NSW) that I went along to with Kirk was much the same (but with less parties represented). Still, it raises the profile of the party when we at least show up, and they have been nice enough to print our views in their glossy paper thing (including the famous comment, “The Australia Institute is a socialist organisation”
).
Glad to hear it went as well as it can given the way the questions would be stacked against you.
Slightly related, but not really: I scored 41 out of 100 on the Festival of Light questionnaire. A cracking performance, in my opinion.
http://polls.fol.org.au/survey/el/1005/q/19/view
November 13, 2007 at 7:39 am |
Yeah, I was nervous about attending my ACL thing, but it went OK. The format is pretty safe, and whilst they might not agree with your views, they are polite enough about it. Thanks to the LDP’s previous communication with the ACL, I was pretty well prepared with my answers – there weren’t any questions that weren’t already on their website:
http://www.australiavotes.org/policies/
That said, I happen to think it’s in Christian’s (and any religion’s) best interests to support a libertarian government. Not an easy sell though.
November 13, 2007 at 8:20 am |
I wouldn’t presume that nobody in the room will vote for us. If people think you are genuine then often they will vote for you just to keep debate alive. Libertarianism is not well understood but it is not generally hated. The important thing is to communicate our sincerity which I’m sure you would have done. In any case a lot of people in Christian groups don’t agree with the official position of their organisation.
Last Thursday I attended such an event in Bennelong with DavidL. I thought David did a terrific job of outlining libertarianism in a direct and practical way. My only regret was that I didn’t bring a flyer to hand out.
November 13, 2007 at 8:23 am |
p.s. Don’t forget that our lead candidate for the Victorian senate is a born again Christian. Many Christians are on our side of the public policy debate.
November 13, 2007 at 10:00 am |
just dropping in to wish you all the best etc.
November 13, 2007 at 11:19 am |
I’m planning on going to mine. I thought that by running strongly on our opposition to public funding of abortion, opposition to religious vilification laws and opposition to sexuality/gneder identity discrimination laws we could pick up a few votes.
November 13, 2007 at 11:34 am |
Nick – yeah, I mentioned most of those… I also mentioned our school voucher system in my opening speech.
The problem is that the format makes it difficult to explain your reasoning for many answers… it starts off with a 5 minute speech by each candidate, then they have questions submitted by audience (but asked by the moderators – no questions from the floor), and each candidate has 90 seconds in which to give their answer.
The questions picked by moderators are, coincidentally, a subset of the list in the previous link I provided, so knowing how you’d answer these is good preparation (and make sure you have notes in front of you)
November 13, 2007 at 11:46 am |
Those are all good issues… but personally I prefer to let people know exactly what we stand for, even the bits they’re not going to like. I’m in this game to promote ideas. I want people to have some idea of what “libertarian” means, irrespective of whether they like or hate the idea.
November 13, 2007 at 11:52 am |
John,
Yeah, of course. It’d be stupid (not to mention pathetic and dishonest) to give a Fred Nile speech – but we shouldn’t just acquiesce to the ‘left of Cheech and Chong’ talk, we do have a lot to offer to Christians as everyone here knows.
November 13, 2007 at 12:04 pm |
My forum will be on the 20th, but probably won’t be very crowded. I imagine that 4 out of the 6 candidates will rock up. Maybe 5.
November 13, 2007 at 12:11 pm |
“Those are all good issues… but personally I prefer to let people know exactly what we stand for, even the bits they’re not going to like.”
Well, I certainly didn’t skirt the issue there, lol… but you need to put both the positives AND negatives into context, and explain why our poisition on individual liberty and responsibility is better for them in the long run.
It’s perfectly reasonable to reach out to the Christian community in this manner – just as you recently did with the muslim community – though both are opposed to things such as gay marriage, abortions, etc…
November 13, 2007 at 12:12 pm |
“but personally I prefer to let people know exactly where we stand… I am in this game to promote ideas…
Well I think you were slightly less candid when talking to Amir, weren’t you?
November 13, 2007 at 12:21 pm |
No, and there was no reason to be less than candid — Amir is a libertarian. The LDP does believe in free speach and educational choice, which is what I told both the Muslims and the Christians.
November 13, 2007 at 1:56 pm |
[...] of my fellow candidates have already spoken at local fora organised by the ACL. John Humphreys reported that: We only had a few minutes to talk and then answered a few questions. I was honest, so my answers [...]
November 13, 2007 at 2:57 pm |
I don’t like to associate myself or the ideology I believe in with the Christian mob. Mostly because of the truly sad role religion plays in the home of Libertarianism, the USA.
However, I’m very pleased to see that Australian Christians are far more civil and rational then some of their American brothers and sisters of the faith.
November 13, 2007 at 3:46 pm |
I will be doing mine tomorrow (Wednesday) night. All the above comments are useful.
Only about 5 minutes is allowed so I will need to make every word count.
November 13, 2007 at 5:30 pm |
“I don’t like to associate myself or the ideology I believe in with the Christian mob.”
I understand… but religion and libertarianism are not mutually exclusive. Regarding Jacque’s post (in his blog):
On the gay marriage issue, I mentioned that we would not oppose it, but also talked about anti-vilification and sex discrimination laws. I did this not to soothe them or to “soften the blow” – but because I know these are real concerns that they have: they are genuinely worried that ministers might be forced to conduct gay marriages, or that christian schools will be forced to employ gays, etc…
And this is where you have a chance to sell libertarianism as a philosophy – by pointing out that the real danger is in government intervention in personal decisions. Though they may like some sorts of intervention (eg, banning gay marriage), once they accept that involvement they abdicate their right to make choices for themselves – and it won’t be the only sort of intervention they receive.
It’s a hard sell… but some people are open to it.
November 13, 2007 at 5:32 pm |
Guys, there’ll probably be a double dissolution within a couple of years. Apart from the chance that Terje might get elected, think of this as a rehearsal.
November 13, 2007 at 5:45 pm |
More to the point David, I think unless Terje is elected there will be a double dissolution.
It’s win-win either way
But definitely a good rehearsal. Either way we’ll poll better nation-wide next election. Either because it’s a double dissolution or because we’ve had a Senator. That means we need more polish and more of us to be on the ball and knowing what we’re on about.
November 13, 2007 at 5:54 pm |
Boris – Amir is not a fool. He’s a pretty intelligent guy. He visits catallaxy pretty often so he knows what libertarians think, regardless of how John may have chosen particular words for that interview.
November 13, 2007 at 6:44 pm |
One thing that I did intend to say at my forum was that we would have more credibility than the CDP/FF in some areas. People who wouldn’t listen to an argument against sexuality discrimination laws from Steve Fielding/Fred Nile because they think that he’s an unprincipled bigot would listen to us, because we’re pro-gay marriage and at the same time have a principled objection to religious vilification laws, etc.
November 13, 2007 at 7:28 pm |
I didn’t bother going to mine. I didn’t think the chances of free drinks and loose women were much good so I stayed home and watched TV instead.
November 14, 2007 at 10:55 am |
I would hope that every candidate for the LDP would treat their candidacy not just as a way of putting out ‘the message’ cold and hard.
Anyone can have the harm principle put in their face, but I would hope that our goal is not to have everyone know what libertarianism is, and disagree, but to increase the number of people who do agree.
To do that we need to relate this message to what they believe in, and our liberty message DOES have a place even in forums such as those put on by the ACL.
Perhaps I have a mainstream political bias in terms of how to go about these things but to those like Nick, I would say good work and keep it up. That is how you win support.
November 14, 2007 at 4:20 pm |
Yobbo,
Re free drinks and loose women…
Let me just say that you find some of the very BEST of women in church. Keepers.
November 14, 2007 at 5:53 pm |
Hey guys,
I’m a Christian and I first heard of the party through the ACL glossy survey thing that was published. I became interested in you guys. I was actually disappointed that there was no candidate for your party at the Launceston (Bass), because I would have like to have met them. I also think that a lot of Christians would have been impressed with some of your policies.
I probably won’t vote for LDP this time around but I have studied your website and found that most of what I believe is not compromised your parties policies.
I think that I would probably be more comfortable with (and even drawn to) Libertarianism if there were more recognition of the way that exercising individual freedom affects others.
There are so many things that Libertarians believe that I also believe.
Most Christians believe that God has given us all free-will. They also want freedom to practice their religion and to speak freely about it, which is something a Libertarian government would offer more than any major party. I for one am sometimes afraid that Australia is heading towards a police-state and Libertarianism (as I understand it anyway) would at least put a stop to this.
I really wish that there were a greater variety of choice when voting, and I would love to see more referendums about important policies.
Thanks for being having the conviction to stand for government, and for not shunning the ACL. This was the first time I have encountered this line of thought and I am certainly going to be reading more about it.
All the best with the election guys.
Nick
November 14, 2007 at 6:16 pm |
Hi Nick, I’m actually the LDP candidate for Bass. But unfortunately I’m also a Uni student based currently in Melbourne. I’m from Launnie originally (northern suburbs) and my “home address” is still there with my Mum but due to exams I just haven’t been able to make it down.
The main point of this campaign is to raise awareness about the libertarian message and it seems that we have been doing that job if people like yourself are learning about it. Next election if I decide to stand for Bass again it would be great to have support from people like yourself.
I’m glad that you agree with what we stand for. The way I see it is “If you let the government take away someone else’s freedom, what’s to stop them taking your freedom.” The current government might be very good on the Christian front, but how did Christianity go over with the communists?
Despite being secular myself I’m all for Christians that value free-will. I think Christianity has one of the better records on that front compared to other religions (even if some like Fred Nile seem to forget it).
If you change your mind come election day I’m second last on the ballot. Remember that by voting for a minor party you deny the major parties of your $2.10 of public funding.
Best Wishes,
-Shem