The religious Right cannot hijack values

Historically, Australians have maintained a healthy separation between church and state. In the 1890s, our founding fathers debated whether or not the federation should have any established religion. They wisely decided, having observed the European precedents, that we should not.

Constitutional separation aside, Australians have always maintained a healthy scepticism about politicians, of whichever persuasion, invoking God, the church or the Bible as their temporal authority.

Instead we have evolved in this country a healthy political culture in which political ideas and policy proposals are debated primarily in secular terms.

America is somewhat different on this score. Despite the formal separation of church and state devised by Thomas Jefferson, some American politicians have tended to wear religion on their sleeves in a way that does not sit comfortably with most Australians.

The none-too-subtle subtext in certain parts of the American political system is that the proclamation of personal religious faith of itself is a qualification for public political office.

Recently, however, something appears to be changing in the way in which the Australian political Right in this country is now dealing with a significant section of organised Christianity: Peter Costello's very public pre-election appearance at Hillsong, the largest Pentecostal church in this country; a Liberal MP launching his election campaign in Perth, with John Howard present, publicly declaring that people should vote for Howard on the basis that he was a Christian; and now a Prime Minister using this year's end of session valedictory address in Parliament publicly to extol the superiority of Christianity itself.

To this should be added the Coalition's national preference deal with Family First at the last election. Family First, established by the former national director of the Assemblies of God, together with other AOG leaders, allocated preferences to the Coalition in 102 of 104 House of Representatives electorates that it contested. This national preference decision by Family First resulted in bringing about Coalition wins in four and perhaps more critical marginal seats.

Is there anything inherently wrong with the leaders of a religious denomination deciding to establish a political party? Of course not. That is their democratic right. Just as it is their democratic right to allocate preferences to whomever they choose.

But in all of this, the Coalition's none-too-subtle political message is that if you are a Christian concerned about "family values" and "moral values" then the Coalition is now the natural party for you. Labor has not the slightest intention of allowing this unfolding Coalition strategy to go uncontested.

The reason for this is because it is based on the false proposition that somehow God has become the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Liberal Party.

Jesus has not suddenly become the member for Bethlehem South, the National Party member for Nazareth West or even the Family First member for Jerusalem Central. Any attempt, dog-whistled or otherwise, by any political party to imply that "God is on their side" is as historically illiterate as it is biblically dubious.

First, neither the Liberal Party nor the Labor Party has ever purported to be a "Christian" party. That does not mean that Christians were not involved in the formation of the two main parties of Australian politics. There were many. But both parties were established as broad-based, secular parties designed to operate in a democratic and secular state - a state containing within it a large number of belief systems, both religious and non-religious.