The big question arising from Donald Trump’s electrifying address to Congress today is why don’t our leaders have his courage?

Whatever one’s view of Trump the man, the narcissist etc - 90 per cent of what he said is common sense.

How hard is it to get biological males out of girls’ and women’s sports?

Fix the cost-of-living crisis by “drill, baby drilling” and getting out of the Paris climate accords?

Even former Prime Minister Tony Abbot says Australia should do what Trump is doing and declare an “energy emergency”.

Ban child gender transition?

Trump’s not afraid to take on the noisy LGBTQI+ lobby but Peter Dutton is petrified of them.

Restore freedom of speech?

Trump has banished cancel culture – the sort that has Family First National Director Lyle Shelton embroiled in a five-year legal battle against two drag queens who have weaponised the law in the service of their hurt feelings.

“We are getting wokeness out of our schools, out of our military,” Trump said.

“Wokeness is trouble, we don’t want it.”

Hear, hear!

Sadly, both Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese are wedded to woke.

They are too scared to touch any of what Trump talked of today.

They are both going into this election pledged to net zero and forcing us to pay the Paris premium on our electricity.

Both refuse to change the Sex Discrimination Act to restore the definition of woman, leaving girls and women unsafe in their private spaces and sports.

For casual observers of politics, Trump’s war on woke might seem new.

But he’s simply implementing long-standing Family First policy.

Many of us thought the radical left was so ascendent that we may not see the tables turned in our life time.

But here we are on the right side of history.

Trump’s list of wasteful spending on US AID was comical.

“$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said about the landlocked 2-million-person country surrounded by South Africa.

“$8 million for making mice transgender — this is real,” Trump read.

“$1.5 billion for voter confidence in Liberia … $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City … $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia.”

The list went on.

Imagine what would be found if a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set up shop in Canberra.

Trump chronicled the end of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) programs and the teaching of critical race theory, which teaches children to hate America.

The woke mind virus, to use the phrase Elon Musk coined, has infected Australia equally.

Leadership in America is turning the tables on the radical left.

The Democrats sat indignantly. One held at sign saying “this is not normal”.

Weird from the same people who think taxpayers’ money should be spent on making mice transgender.

Democrat women wore pink in protest of Trump’ supposedly anti-women policies.

But 24 hours earlier they voted against getting males out of girls’ and women’s sports.

Nancy Pelosi looked like she was sucking on lemons.

Dutts and Albo are yet to get the message.

If you want common sense for Australia, vote 1 Family First.

On the red-hot debate about child gender clinics, Dutton can’t work out whether he’s Arthur or Martha.

Both Labor’s Mark Butler and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton showed how out of touch they are on Australia’s red-hot gender debate this week.

While Donald Trump gets on with getting males out of girls’ sports and de-funding the child gender clinics, our politicians can’t work out whether they are Arthur or Martha.

Butler, who is Anthony Albanese’s Health Minister, was asked about biological males playing in girls and women’s sports.

“This is not an issue in Australia,” he foolishly said.

Kirralie Smith of the women’s and girl’s rights advocacy group Binary was in court last Friday fighting an Apprehended Violence Order brought against her by a male soccer player who identifies as a woman and plays in a women’s team.

Butler is a fool.

Sadly Peter Dutton, whom conservatives hoped would be conservative, inexplicably said yesterday that any inquiry into the harm of children through LGBTIQA+ child gender bending clinics was a “conscience vote” for his MPs.

Family First’s message to Mr Dutton is that it should not be a conscience vote to read the riot act to LGBTIQA+ gender clinics injecting children with puberty blockers without parental consent.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, his actions in his first seven days in office to protect children from radical LGBTIQA+ gender ideology must be applauded.

An Executive Order issued last night cuts off taxpayer funding for sex change operations on children.

Family First has been highlighting this issue in Australia for years, with establishment political leaders either ignoring the harm or supporting it.

Trump’s Executive Order states:

“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilising a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the order says.

“This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

The order says children will “regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.”

“Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another…and it (the government) will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

Family First is fighting for laws which ban sex change operations for minors, something which is Labor policy.

Similarly, Peter Dutton said last week he will do nothing to restore to Australia’s public policy the truth that there are only two genders, leaving girls, women and children vulnerable.

Read the executive order from the White House.

Senior Coalition figures continue to double down on their commitment to radical LGBTIQA+ ideology.

The latest was Senator Dave Sharma, who on Sunday night told the Danica & James show on Sky news that the Coalition would not amend the Sex Discrimination Act to restore the biological reality of two genders in Australian Law.

In 2013 both Labor and the Coalition amended the SDA to allow biological males to identify was women and vice versa and for it to be illegal to discriminate against someone based on their new gender.

Last week Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to say the US federal government now only recognised two genders.

Sharma told Danica and James he believed in protecting girls and women’s sports but would not support amending the SDA, which means it would remain illegal to protect girls from the encroachment of males in their sport.

Sadly Peter Dutton also said last week the Coalition had no plans to restore the definition of biological gender to law, leaving mainstream Australians and women’s groups gobsmacked.

Here’s the transcript of the interview with Dave Sharma:

JAMES MACPHERSON: I've got a very tricky question for you that politicians right around our country have been struggling with all week. I want to see how you go. The official policy of the US government is now that there are only two genders, male and female. So, I wanted to ask you, as a high-profile Liberal Party Senator three questions. How many genders are there? What are they? And will that be reflected in government policy should you win the election?

SENATOR SHARMA: Well, in my view, there are two genders, male and female. And in my view, the policy on this is settled. I mean, we've got our guidelines on this in the Australian government go back to 2013 when the Sex Discrimination Act was amended. My view is if it's not broke, don't try and fix it. I think, uh, you know, I'm watching what they're doing in the US with interest, but I don't have any proposals to change how we go about this in Australia.

JAMES MACPHERSON: So the coalition won't embrace the pro women's rights movement and push back against trans ideology?

SENATOR SHARMA: I think our priorities are addressing, you know, people's cost of living, uh, you know, power bills, grocery prices, electricity prices. I mean, fundamentally we think the most important duty of our government is to keep people safe, give them an opportunity to get ahead and that's what we'll be focused on.

JAMES MACPHERSON: Just before I let you go, I've got to push back slightly because there'd be a lot of ladies watching saying, well, our priority is the safety of our daughters, fairness in girls sport. Is that not a priority for at least half the population?

SENATOR SHARMA: Oh, I think, I think those are important issues. Uh, I think, you know, making sure that, you know, women are safe, whether they're playing sport or they're in correctional facilities or, uh, anywhere else is an important consideration. And I think we always need to make sure we keep that first and foremost, that people's freedom to identify how they want to in terms of their gender does not impinge upon the rights and safety of others. Now, that's always going to be a live issue, but I don't think we need to be headlining a policy area on this when I think Australia's under so many other pressures.

Sadly Labor, the Greens and the Coalition are on a unity ticket when it comes to defending the lie about gender that is baked into the Sex Discrimination Act.

Family First’s Senate team of Katie Lush (Qld), Lyle Shelton (NSW), Bernie Finn (Vic) and Christopher Brohier (SA) is fighting for a return to commonsense on gender.

Family First welcomes Vice-President JD Vance’s powerful pro-life speech at last week’s March for Life in Washington DC.

He made a compelling case for protecting unborn babies—something no establishment Australian political leader dares to do.

“We march to proclaim and live out the sacred truth that every single child is a miracle and a gift from God,” Vance declared. 

Speaking as a father, he described the awe of welcoming new life: “Each time Usha and I welcomed our own children into the world, we saw firsthand the indescribable beauty of new life.”

Yet, this joy comes with responsibility. “It is our responsibility to cherish and to protect it.”

Vance stressed that protecting life is about more than opposing abortion—it’s about fostering a pro-family culture.

“The task of our movement is to protect innocent life. It’s to defend the unborn, and it’s also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible.”  

But he warned that Western societies are failing in this duty.

“Our society has failed to recognise the obligation that one generation has to another is a core part of living in a society to begin with.”

He condemned the rise of radical individualism, where family life is seen as a burden rather than a blessing.

Instead, Vance called for policies that make it easier to have and raise children.

“I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country. And I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”  

To achieve this, he said government must do more: “It is the task of our government to make it easier for young mums and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world, and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are.”

Family First agrees, which is why we support policies such as income splitting for tax purposes to give mothers, or fathers, a real choice when it comes to caring for their own children at home.

Vance’s leadership exposes the cowardice of Australian politicians on the issue of pro-family and pro-life policy.

While he boldly defends unborn life, leaders here either stay silent or actively protect our radical abortion-to-birth laws. 

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has even gagged his MPs from discussing Australia’s extreme abortion laws, ensuring the issue remains unchallenged.

This is despite Australia being one of the few nations in the world that permits abortion right up to birth.

Labor is all in on abortion-to-birth and wants to expand access to it, even though it is readily available and subsidised by pro-life Australians through their compulsory Medicare Levy. 

Vance reminded us of a truth too many in politics refuse to acknowledge: “It is a blessing to know the truth, and the truth is that unborn life is worthy of protection.” 

He cut through the euphemisms that dehumanise the unborn: “That picture on an ultrasound, that is a picture of a baby with hopes and dreams and potential to come.”

Above all, Vance called on pro-lifers to embrace their mission with optimism.

“It is a joy and a blessing to fight for the unborn, to work for the unborn, and to march for life.”  

Family First echoes this joy and stands with Vance in calling for a society that cherishes life. 

Australian politicians must stop silencing debate and start advocating for policies that support life and family.

As Vance said: “We are joyful to march for life. We are joyful to know that that picture on an ultrasound, that is a picture of a baby with hopes and dreams and potential to come.”

MEDIA RELEASE

Family First calls on Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton to fight for the overturning of convictions against Australia’s convicted pro-life advocates Kathy Clubb and Graeme Preston.

This follow’s Donald Trump's decision this week to pardon 23 pro-life advocates who were unjustly convicted under the US’s so-called Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Trump’s commendable action underscores the importance of safeguarding the rights of citizens advocating for the sanctity of life.

President Trump emphasised the peaceful nature of these protests, stating, "They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people."

He further described the group as "peaceful protesters" who were unjustly penalised for their advocacy.

This development prompts us to reflect on similar situations within Australia, particularly the cases of pro-life advocates Kathy Clubb and Graham Preston.

Both were convicted under laws prohibiting protests within exclusion zones around abortion mills.

In 2016, Clubb was arrested for attempting to hand a pamphlet to a couple outside a Melbourne clinic, while Preston faced charges for protesting within the exclusion zone of a Hobart clinic in 2014 and 2015.

Their appeals to the High Court were dismissed, with the court ruling that the laws served a legitimate purpose and outweighed concerns about freedom of speech within the zones.

This decision has been criticised for its implications on free speech and the ability to offer assistance to women considering abortion.

Pro-life leaders have denounced the ruling, stating it has grave implications for freedom of speech in Australia as well as the safety of women and children.

Family First agrees.

In light of President Trump's recent pardons, Family First calls upon Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to advocate for the overturning of the convictions of Kathy Clubb and Graham Preston.

Their peaceful pro-life advocacy should not be criminalised, and their actions were driven by a genuine concern for both unborn children and their mothers.