Scott Morrison and politicians like him are what drives me every day in my work at the Family First Party.
Morrison gave his valedictory speech today having announced his resignation from Parliament after 17 years as the member for Cook, based in the Sutherland Shire south of Sydney.
Never afraid to talk about his personal Christian faith, Morrison called for the nation to return to its Judeo-Christian roots.
That is obviously a good and necessary thing if Australia is to find its way out of its current cultural and political mess.
“We stand on the values that built our successful, free society. All of these stem from the core principle of respect for individual human dignity, as does representative democracy and even a market-based capitalist economy. This is a uniquely Judaeo-Christian principle,” Morrison told Parliament today.
But Morrison had 17 years, including three as Prime Minister, to champion these values.
Time and time again he let down Christians and conservatives who thought his faith might translate into public and political advocacy for the values he now calls the nation back to.
Afterall, the left - whether they be Greens, Teals, Labor or the big leftist cohort of strangely named “moderates” in the Liberal party - argue their values with religious fervour every day.
This like-minded cross-party quad believes in the climate cult, that children’s gender takes on a mystical rather than biological dimension and that the sacrifice of unborn babies for the sexual liberation of men is a sacred ritual that must not be impeded.
Challenge any of the assumptions behind these modern Shibboleths in the parliament or in public debate and great wrath will descend upon the challenger.
That possibly explains why there is so little debate on these culture-defining issues. It explains Morrison’s silence and even acquiescence during his political career.
The biggest and most far-reaching social change that happened on Morrison’s watch was the redefinition of marriage which abolished in law the gender diversity requirement for society’s most important institution.
De-gendering marriage has massive consequences for children who are required to miss out on the love of a mother or a father, it has turbocharged the attack on children’s biological gender, trashed the ability to speak freely about gender and marriage and has all but destroyed religious freedom.
Yet apart from making a public statement in support of keeping the definition of marriage intact, Morrison then sat out of the three-month plebiscite campaign in 2017 leaving the fight to others.
As the most senior pro-marriage and openly Christian member of the then Turnbull government, he squibbed it.
In 2023 there was no guarantee that the Voice referendum could be won for the No case. In fact, the Yes case were the clear favourites for the same reason the Yes campaign in the marriage plebiscite was expected to win.
But that didn’t stop Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price standing up and putting everything on the line for what was right, even when Peter Dutton was unsure.
Courage begat courage and public advocacy convinced Australians that the elites were wrong.
The 2017 marriage campaign lacked such a political figure.
Morrison had shown courage as shadow immigration minister and then as immigration minister in stopping boats fuelled by deadly people smugglers.
Although as Paul Kelly writes in Triumph and Demise, the Coalition’s opposition to Julia Gillard’s Malaysia solution cost lives.
But Morrison couldn’t find the resolve to fight for the rights of children to know the love, wherever possible, of both their mother and father.
Protections for freedom of speech and religion could not be legislated when he was Prime Minister with five of Morrison’s own Liberals voting against his attempt to fix what was broken by the change to marriage law.
Now same-sex marriage activists like the Liberals’ Tim Wilson and NSW politician Alex Greenwich are pushing for commercial surrogacy so gay married men can rent women’s wombs and purchase babies.
If only Morrison had fought for Judeo-Christian values.
His speech today mentions the Judeo-Christian idea of human dignity.
Yet he put his prime ministerial signature on a letter supporting Australia’s abortion-to-birth laws, the ultimate afront to human dignity.
When former Nationals MP George Christensen was fighting to get a bill passed to require medical assistance to be rendered to babies born alive after botched abortions (yes folks, this really happens in Australia), Morrison wrote back fobbing him off to then Health Minister Greg Hunt.
But his letter contained a defence of abortion which so disgusted Christensen that he published it on social media.
In the letter Morrison sates that his Government supports “reproductive and sexual services”, euphemisms for killing unborn babies.
“We continue to work with states and territories on the availability of safe and legal abortion Australia-wide.”
Morrison then went on to brag about how proud he was that Australia’s overseas aid helps export abortion to women in poor countries.
When I re-posted the letter on my Facebook page, I received an angry phone call at 9pm one evening from Morrison’s cabinet colleague Stuart Robert.
I said that if the Prime Minister does not believe what is in his letter he should correct the record.
“That is not going to happen,” Robert said.
When Citipointe Christian College followed the recommendations of the Ruddock Commission into religious freedom and published its policy on marriage and gender so that girls could be protected from the encroachment in their sports and private spaces from males identifying as females at school, Morrison threw the college under the bus.
“I don’t support that,” he said on radio.
In the lead-up to the 2022 election Morrison had two strong female candidates, Katherine Deves and Senator Claire Chandler, fighting to save girls’ and women’s sports from males identifying as females demanding access to their sports.
Morrison when questioned said his government had no plans for a bill to save women’s sports.
The bus was getting quite a workout.
Silence in the face of evil is evil, Dietrich Bonheoffer famously said. I’m not sure where that puts acquiescence.
When Morrison gave his maiden speech he brilliantly said:
“Australia is not a secular country—it is a free country. This is a nation where you have the freedom to follow any belief system you choose.”
Sadly this is no longer true for those who refuse to bow to LGBTIQA+ ideology on gender and marriage.
Freedom must be fought for, it requires vigilance.
Seventeen years on Australia is less free, more secular and as a result less tolerant.
If Australia is to rediscover its Judeo-Christian values and undergo what is a necessary course correction, it will require courageous parliamentarians who will fight for the values with the same fervour we see from the Green/Teal/Labor/leftist Liberal quad.
It’s politicians like ScoMo that motivate Family First.
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