Family First Party

The Family First Party is a political party in Australia. Although officially a secular party, it does have close links to the Pentecostal movement, and its social policies generally mirror conservative Christian values (which are not to be confused with politically conservative values). The party was founded in South Australia in time to contest the 2002 state elections, when Andrew Evans became its first MP, winning a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council. In the October 2004 federal election it contested seats all over Australia, and its preferences assisted the re-election of a number of Liberal candidates. The party's leader is Steve Fielding, a Victorian elected to the Australian Senate in 2004.

Policies

A complete list of Family First's declared policies may be found on their websitehttp://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy.php; this section will concentrate on those policies that address controversial issues.

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Euthanasia

Family First is opposed to euthanasia, holding the view that "the duty of health carers is to promote health, relieve suffering and safeguard life". Instead, they favour palliative care.

Related Topics:
Euthanasia - Palliative care

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Drugs

Family First oppose harm reduction as a primary strategy for combating drug abuse, instead favouring prevention, rehabilitation, and avoidance.

Related Topics:
Harm reduction - Rehabilitation

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Gay rights

Family First believes the family is the most important social unit in society... Family grows out of heterosexual relationships between men and women. - Family First policy document, "The Family"http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/families061004.pdf.

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Family First's published policies prominently affirm the value of heterosexual relationships, but make little or no direct mention of homosexuality and gay rights issues. However, the party has expressed unfavourable views on homosexuality elsewhere. An example of which is their campaign to allow Christian schools to discriminate against job applicants based on religion and lifestyle choices.

Related Topics:
Heterosexual - Gay rights

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Andrea Mason, then the Party Leader, spoke against anti-discrimination efforts by the Greens and Democrats: "The Greens and Democrats policies aim to remove discrimination against what they term as LGBTI people... they want to see that transvestites and others have the right to teach our children" (Sydney Morning Herald, October 8 2004).

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Family First's uncompromising attitudes towards homosexuality were also demonstrated in their direction of preferences in the 2004 election. While Family First generally directed their preferences to the conservative Coalition ahead of Labor, they reversed this in the seats of Brisbane and Leichhardt because Ingrid Tall (Liberal candidate for Brisbane) is a lesbian, and Warren Entsch (Liberal for Leichhardt) supports gay marriage. Socially conservative Labor senator Jacinta Collins also received preferences from Family First. In contrast, Liberal MP Ross Cameron, who admitted to having an affair while his wife was pregnant, received Family First's preferences over Laborhttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/05/1096871859778.html.

Related Topics:
Ingrid Tall - Warren Entsch - Jacinta Collins

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Family First do not acknowledge families with same-sex partnerships (currently, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in Australia), stating their affirmation of marriage as "a union of a man and a woman" http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/families061004.pdf. However, they have also stated that "The party... believes that all co-dependents should not be discriminated against ? whether Homosexual or not." http://www.familyfirst.org.au/mr/ffptruth250904.pdf.

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Family First have not indicated whether they acknowledge gays who have children as a legitimate form of family; while it is evident that they consider homosexuality undesirable, it is not known to what extent this disapproval will be expressed in policy.

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In a

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Radio National interview, Andrew Evans said he stood for "Families, and family values". When asked to define what a family was, he said "Mums and Dads, Grandpas and Grandmas, boys and girls, heterosexual, and singles."

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Pornography

Family First advocate mandatory filtering of internet pornography at the Internet service provider (ISP) level, justifying this on child-protection grounds. They estimate that such a scheme would cost around $7 annually per user; "this may have the result of putting cost pressures on some of the smaller ISPs but there is arguably too many of these at the moment and adequate competition could be maintained with 30 ISPs rather than the hundreds in existence now"http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/ffp_pornography100904.pdf. However, advocates of freedom of information strongly objected as there is no surefire way to completely and only block pornography, suggesting that non-offensive sites may be filtered inadvertently.

Related Topics:
Internet pornography - Internet service provider - Freedom of information - Filtered

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"It is a national travesty that is so easily fixed if the Government and the opposition would exercise their moral will and pass legislation that requires Internet Service Providers (ISP?s) to provide a compulsory filtering of pornography on the Internet," said Andrea Mason in a media release on Wednesday, 25 August 2004.

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In support of such a policy, Family First claim that "A Newspoll study commissioned by The Australia Institute found: 93% of parents of teenagers would support automatic filtering of Internet pornography going into homes." However, the scheme proposed by Family First is a mandatory one, whereas the Australia Institute study referred to an optional scheme: "When asked whether they would support a system that automatically filtered out

Related Topics:
Newspoll - Australia Institute

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Internet pornography going into homes unless adult users asked otherwise, 93

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per cent of parents were in favour...." http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/DP53sum.pdf.

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Further, the same survey found that 75% of the same group felt the Federal government should be doing more about pornography on the Internet - 18% less than the 93% who favoured a filtering scheme. This indicates either that at least 18% of respondents changed their views on the desirability of government intervention in the course of the study - which would indicate push polling - or that the question did not in fact refer to government-imposed filtering. Without more information on the nature of the poll, its results must be viewed with some scepticism.

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War in Iraq

Family First believes that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was wrong because diplomatic avenues had not been exhausted, but that having participated in that invasion Australia is now obliged to protect Iraqis and Australians in Iraq through a military presence.http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/wariraq061004.pdf

Related Topics:
2003 - Iraq

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Indigenous Australians

Although Family First's policy on indigenous Australians does not specifically address the Stolen Generation, Mason (who is Aboriginal) has said: "I think there is a cobweb, there is a veil over our country... in terms of this unresolved issue... I think that there will be a significant change in the way we perceive ourselves and our relationships with each other when there is an apology made to the stolen generations." http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/11/1097406496255.html

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The party did hope to attract a large Aboriginal vote in South Australia where Andrea Mason was touted as possibly the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to parliament. Nevertheless, their decision to preference the Liberal party was criticised by Lowitja O'Donoghue, a supporter of Mason but fierce opponent of John Howard (because of his refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generation) and the Liberal party.

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