Pants on Fire

It used to be that the news media included platoons of small, quiet mysterious people up the back of the newsroom or hiddeni in dusty offices full of reference books and magazines. These creatures were known as “fact-checkers”, and they would examine the detail of news stories to ensure an acceptable level of truth.

These days, most journalists are expected to check their own facts – it’s called “research”. Young reporters are taught to research as part of their role, and the research is now so much faster and easier with the internet, something not dreamed of when the role was first created, around a hundred years ago. There are still researchers within media organisations but rarely are there more than a handful, and smaller operations just can’t afford them.

Now, in the era when everyone outsources everything, some new companies are starting to spring to life. These companies offer a professional fact-checking service to anyone who wants to pay for it…and in recent weeks, plenty of people have been happy to pay experts to have facts checked.

In the age of the Internet and instant communication and open access, why is it necessary to have specialists check facts? Because it appears that people – particularly politicians, but also lobbyists and interest groups – may not always tell the truth, or may package the truth in order to obfuscate the meaning. That's before the news media has had a chance to add their spin. Not all do, but if you're not paying attention, it's hard to tell the difference between those who spin and those who report. For this reason, we need to check facts.

The perfect example in Australia was the Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace’s provocative statements that suggested that smoking cigarettes was healthier than pursuing a gay lifestyle. He even cited studies and statistics to support his argument. Crikey’s own Get Fact has looked at Mr Wallace’s “facts”  in considerable depth, and here’s their conclusion:
  So, while the gay population does appear to experience a disproportionate prevalence of negative health effects brought on by others, the evidence that gays die earlier than straights is dubious at best. Accordingly, we rate Wallace’s claims as mostly rubbish.

In the USA, it’s Convention Season, and although the Democratic Convention is continuing, their speakers’ speeches are being thoroughly checked. The  Republicans held their conference a couple of weeks ago. Their candidate for Vice President Paul Ryan, has been roundly criticized for all sorts of crimes against reality. In addition to his embarrassing lie about his best marathon time, Factcheck.org has identified several more inaccuracies in the speech during which he accepted the nomination to be Republican Candidate for Vice President under Mitt Romney.

TAMPA, Fla. — Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention contained several false claims and misleading statements. Delegates cheered as the vice presidential nominee:

• Accused President Obama’s health care law of funnelling money away from Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” In fact, Medicare’s chief actuary says the law “substantially improves” the system’s finances, and Ryan himself has embraced the same savings.

• Accused Obama of doing “exactly nothing” about recommendations of a bipartisan deficit commission — which Ryan himself helped scuttle.

• Claimed the American people were “cut out” of stimulus spending. Actually, more than a quarter of all stimulus dollars went for tax relief for workers.

• Faulted Obama for failing to deliver a 2008 campaign promise to keep a Wisconsin plant open. It closed less than a month before Obama took office.

• Blamed Obama for the loss of a AAA credit rating for the U.S. Actually, Standard & Poor’s blamed the downgrade on the uncompromising stands of both Republicans and Democrats.

• And when he wasn’t attacking Obama, Ryan was puffing up the record of his running mate, Mitt Romney, on taxes and unemployment.

FactCheck.org has also investigated Bill Clinton’s fact-laden speech from yesterday. Described by FactCheck.org as a fact-checker’s nightmare due to the sheer number of statistical and historical claims, they have nevertheless assessed the speech, and summarised it like this:
"Republicans will find plenty of Clinton’s scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out."


In Australia, we’re checking facts too. Here in Queensland, the new LNP Government’s Independent Audit of Queensland’s finances has been reviewed by Professor Bob Walker of the University of Sydney Business School, and found to be inadequate. Professor Walker is not a junior media staffer; he is an expert in the field. Steve Austin interviewed the Professor this morning.

This review should be of concern to all Queenslanders, as this report is the Government’s justification for the “essential” programme of cost-cutting, as well as being their answer to most questions.  If this review is correct, the LNP Government will have a hard time justifying the cuts they’re making to the public service, particularly today, when over 2700 jobs are being taken out of the Health Department.


In fairness, Professor Walker’s report was commissioned by Queensland Council of Trade Unions, and the report’s conclusions support the position most beneficial to the Trade Unions. Some listeners to Steve Austin’s interview this morning feel that because the results benefit the group that commissioned the report, the entire report lacks credibility. I find this criticism troublesome, as the Audit Report that was being investigated was commissioned by an LNP Government, and prepared by a former Coalition treasurer: the original Interim Report says what Premier Newman and his team need it to say in order to justify their criticism of the previous government.

If Professor Walker’s report is biased, so is Mr Costello’s audit.

But back to the USA for a moment, where the professional and amateur fact checkers are breaking records to score President Obama’s Acceptance Speech. With such a focus on fact-checking, several organisations are worth watching. For the best look at how American politicians are shaping up during the two months between now and election day, keep an eye on PolitiFact for broad coverage of who said what and who lied.

In Australia, there's not enough fact checking for my liking. Leigh Sales' interview with Tony Abbott proved that! But keep an eye on Crikey for their healthy cynicism and separation of fact from spin.

In any case, don’t believe everything you read on the internet, or see on television, unless it’s a live, real-time, unedited broadcast, but keep reading, keep watching and keep questioning.

Update: 9:00pm. President Obama's speech has been fact checked, and there are no major lies, although a few points could have benefitted from more information, clarification or context.

No Cure For Stupid

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me, and to be honest, for most of the women in Australia, for most of our LGBTI community, for all public servants across the three eastern states, for intelligent people everywhere, and for anyone who prefers winter to summer. With the exception of the last one – the end of winter – the rest of our group ennui is the result of the stupid things high profile people say, and the probability that they actually mean it, and the all-too-real likelihood that things will continue to get stupider.


Who are these sayers of stupid things? Both men and women are represented, private business owners and elected officials, conservative and leftie, although in fairness, the vast majority of the stupid has come from middle aged white male conservative politicians and lobbyists.

I’ve talked about some of these instances before, but they deserve to be revisited in the context of even more stupidity, so let’s take a stroll back to…

August 22

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was eviscerated by Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7:30 programme. This interview stirred up more media reaction than we’ve seen since the last time Tony Abbott was made to look foolish by a ranga at 7:30 on a weeknight on ABC. It beggars belief that the alternative Prime Minister of Australia would be allowed to go on tellie to be interviewed about the details of a report he hadn’t read.

LEIGH SALES: I'm going on the facts that Marius Kloppers said today when he was directly asked if the decision on Olympic Dam was affected by Australia's tax situation and I'm going on the facts that are outlined in their results statement that they've issued. Have you actually read BHP's statements?

TONY ABBOTT: No, but I've also got again the statement of Jacques Nasser, who says, "While we're still evaluating the impact of the carbon tax, but it just makes it more difficult."

LEIGH SALES: But hang on, no, no, you haven't read their statements today, but you're commenting about what they've announced today and how the Federal Government's to blame for that.

August 23
Characteristically, Andrew Bolt had a unique perspective on that interview. Mr Bolt saw what the rest of us could not: Leigh Sales’ disgraceful disrespect, her shrill tones, sighs, eye rolls, accusations… The list of emotionally loaded descriptors rolls on as he refers to ABC journalists who are actually asking questions and expecting answers from the Leader of the Opposition as:

ANDREW BOLT: “…a recent in-house obsession of a small coterie of ABC Leftists.”

August 28
Meanwhile, in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, the newly announced Republican running mate Paul Ryan had a bit of a moment and fudged his marathon time by over an hour. It’s become a big deal because it was so easy to disprove, but it wasn’t alone in straying from reality. Ryan’s entire Convention speech has been scrutinized by armies of fact checkers and has found to be somewhat inventive. Now, it’s the marathon lie and the fact-checkers’ lists of inaccuracies that are the focus of Ryan’s world. How could he disregard the fact that as Republican VP Candidate, every breath is the subject of international attention?

The 42-year-old congressman has a reputation for telling "hard truths" about the US government's yawning fiscal deficit but his speech to last week's Republican convention was criticised for accuracy by independent fact checkers.

He accused President Barack Obama of failing to honour a campaign pledge to keep a Wisconsin car-making factory open. In fact, Mr Obama had made no such promise and the factory closed in December 2008 - a month before he took office.

August 30
Back to Tony Abbott and Leigh Sales and a new character in this comedy: Enter Grahame Morris, political strategist, commentator, and speech writer. On ABC702 in Sydney, another accomplished ABC journalist Linda Mottram was asking Mr Morris about the Leigh Sales interview, and in his response, amongst other things, he called Ms Sales a cow. Later, he apologised – but why did he say it in the first place? He’s had plenty of experience in front of a camera or open microphone. As for the apology, how’s this?


      “Poor little sensitive souls," he said, having been told of the feedback.

Asked whether he would have made the comment if Sales had been a male interviewer, Mr Morris said: "That's silly. It's a phrase I have used a million times that somebody can be a real cow when they want to be. Look, I apologise.”

August 30
Gina Rinehart has all the social and communication skills of an angry orang-utan. She put them on display yesterday for the world to see – and the world took notice. She may be unimaginably rich, cultured, softly spoken, articulate, but she’s also in the Homer Simpson class of insensitive. In a column she wrote for Australian Resources Magazine, she advised that anyone can become a millionaire if they work hard.

"If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain,” Rinehart wrote. “Do something to make more money yourself -- spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.”

Good advice from Our Gina, who has clearly worked very hard indeed after taking control of Hancock, and has been incredibly successful. When Mrs Rinehart took control of her father's company, she inherited a $75 million dollar head start. You and I can work as hard as we’re capable of working, but few of us are capable of earning that $75m from a scratch start, but once you've got that, it gets easier. 
 
August 31

Alan Jones’ incendiary comments about the women “destroying the joint” aren’t confined to Australia any more. The Guardian (UK) has reported the story, too. Jones’ remarkably misogynistic comment has become an internet meme and a rallying cry for women (and men) all over Australia. There’s a petition to boycott 2GB’s advertisers, reminiscent of the very successful petition to boycott 2DAY-FM’s advertisers in response to yet another Kyle Sandilands offence. #Destroythejoint trended on twitter on and off for over 24 hours, and now has its own Facebook page and there’s already a range of T-shirts and accessories carrying the phrase.

What’s that old saying? You can have as many opinions as you like, but you can’t have your own facts? Someone needs to tell Alan Jones. Not content with putting the shock in shock jock, he’s still in denial about climate change, and is working with Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate to undermine it. He has even drafted a letter that his listeners can use as the template for a letter of complaint to the Mayor, which includes the following:

“We were talking about the hoax that is the carbon dioxide tax and he was calling on councils to boycott it. Basically he said he's going to do everything he can to make sure his Council won't pay the tax.”

August 31

Meanwhile, back in Republican American, Clint Eastwood took twelve minutes to deliver a five minute speech which was supposed to support Mitt Romney, but was far more effective as a plea for senior citizens with mental health issues. He spent the bulk of the time berating an imaginary President Obama – in other words, talking at an empty chair. In fact, this shouldn’t be here. It’s not stupid; it’s art.

CLINT EASTWOOD (to an empty chair): “So anyway, we're going to have -- we're going to have to have a little chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these promises -- I wondered about when the -- what do you want me to tell Romney... I can't tell him to do that. I can't tell him to do that to himself. You're crazy, you're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden.”

September 5


It’s Gina again, back for another bite of the Attention-Seeker Cherry, and another opportunity to insult the thousands of people who work very hard to keep her in the style to which they would like to become accustomed. Apparently Australia is just too expensive and companies don’t want to invest here…which is why yesterday’s Annual Growth figures were head and shoulders and a few curly chest hairs above every other comparable country.

It seems that Ms Rinehart’s life would be immeasurably better if Australians were paid less – and then she stated that it was cheaper to do business in Africa, where she can exploit the underclasses for $2/day.

"Furthermore, Africans want to work and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day,'' Ms Rinehart says in the video. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future.''

Newsflash for Mrs Rinehart: they worry us, too. It’s a disgrace that she believes that paying workers so little because she can get away with it is at all acceptable. Shouldn't we be working to bring African employment standards up, not push ours down?

Always

There’s no one stupid thing that Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has said. There’s a gazillion. His becoming this year’s George W Bush. My personal favourite was his gleeful statement on Day 100 of his Premiership that he’d had fun. Woohoo! Delighted that he enjoyed threatening the jobs of every public sector worker in Queenslalnd; thrilled that he relished cutting vital programmes for Queensland’s most vulnerable; gratified that he’s prioritised the Gambling Industry and his former best mate Clive’s interests over those of the rest of Queensland.

In an interview with The Courier-Mail, Mr Newman said his first 100 days in office, had been "a lot of fun in most cases, and very, very rewarding to get on with what we'd said we'd do, particularly on the cost-of-living stuff".

But I am trying to limit myself to stupidity that’s occurred within the last fifteen days, so here goes: just today, Premier Newman made a complete arse of himself with this:

"The biggest thing we need to do, ladies and gentlemen, is create jobs," he told the assembled audience.

"Shelter, food, a job are the critical ingredients to advance all people, those are the things that give people dignity and self-respect.

"Those are the things that this Government is committed to."

Go tell it to the Public Servants whose jobs you're about to cut, and the former contractors and staffers who've already been shown the door. This government is committed to nothing except paying down the now infamous debt.  And Forever

Astonishingly, Jim Wallace head of the Australian Christian Lobby, gets the gong for the stupidest of all these absurd proclamations that I’ve heard recently, and that’s saying a lot. Just yesterday, he declared that smoking was healthier than the kind of lifestyle that gay marriage would bring. The statement was made during a debate with Christine Milne on same sex marriage. The number of ways in which this statement is entirely preposterous is higher than I can count.

Mr Wallace, an intelligent man and accomplished leader, tried to compare decrease in life expectancy between smokers and gay men. Gay men, he says, have higher rates of risky behaviour and suicide, and hence life expectancy is reduced by up to 20 years, compared with 10 years for smokers. Well, if your survey data on gay mortality came from San Francisco during the early years of the AIDs crisis, that’d be right. In September 2012, it’s irrelevant.

“We have to accept the unfortunate levels of suicide, the unfortunate levels of excessive drug use (are) because of the nature of the lifestyle.

“I am very sorry for that. My heart goes out to these people. But it is a fact.”

  I’d like to encourage Mr Wallace to consider the role that his organisation’s relentless isolation and condemnation of the LGBTI community has contributed. In a confounding case of wit, he described gay activism as “bullying”. How would he categorise his own behaviour towards the LGBTI public?

Today, Prime Minister Gillard finally got on board, and has cancelled her plans to speak at the ACL’s conference, and described Mr Wallace’s comments as “unacceptable.” Mr Wallace argued that he’d been misquoted. Misunderstood. The ACL has issued a release.

 
The Last Word

Lyle Shelton (@LyleShelton) of the ACL spent time last night energetically tweeting the rousing words of Bishop Anthony Fisher of Parramatta Diocese. Bishop Fisher is the one who announced his arrival in Parramatta by proclaiming that "Godlessness and secularity caused Naziism, Stalinism, mass murders and abortion..." Last night, Mr Shelton tweeted that the Bishop had said:

The sexual revolution has already damaged marriage. We should hold onto what is good and rebuild. – Bishop Fisher

In the midst of all of that, Mr Shelton tweeted this popular quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.

When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean – Humpty Dumpty #marriage

Mr Shelton has tagged the tweet #marriage, so with due respect, no. Marriage does not mean what you choose it to mean for anyone except yourself. I get to choose what marriage means to me; Ross gets to choose what it means for him. Mandy gets to choose what it means for her. The rest of it is just ignorance and hatred.

Okay, I'm done for now. If you'd like to add to my list of stupid things, please do! Click the Comments link below, and rant away. 

Newmania: Free Gift With Purchase

Don’t you love freebies? It's so rare to get anything for free these days, so when something comes along, you should get excited. I particularly love those promotions where if you buy something, you get a freebie. Cosmetics companies love to do it: Spend $75 and we’ll give you a bunch of sample sized potions and unguents and lipsticks to try for free. Or some big box retailers will give away a year’s supply of cleaning products if you buy a dishwasher, or a pair of luxury towels if you buy a front loader. That's what I'm talking about - those little extras that build brand loyalty.

I like to think of the new LNP Government of Newmania a bit like that. We voted them in, we 'bought' their policies, and along with all sorts of politically accessible generalisations around cutting the cost of living and ending public sector waste. In fact, the whole deal was neatly documented in a list that’s available in convenient PDF format. But here's the surprise: we’ve received an abundance of extras, things we weren’t expecting, all tied up and looking “gifty” for the Greater Good of Newmania.

Not entirely unexpected was the Grand Reshuffle at the top of the Public Service Tree. New appointees in the Newmanian Public Service include several former colleagues and friends from his days as Lord Mayor of Brislantis, plus well-known members of the Liberal Party. I'm not 100% sure if those gifts were for the electorate or for the folks who got the new jobs, but at least someone is getting something, and that's good, right?



In addition to some lovely new jobs for friends, King Campbell has been particularly kind to his friends at the Australian Christian Lobby. There was always the possibility that changes would be made to the Civil Partnerships legislation, but King Campbell took it over the top when he not only outlawed state-sanctioned ceremonies, and then admitted that decision was to appease his Christian friends who’d been offended that the Civil Partnership ceremony mimicked marriage. That's a rarity. With free gifts, you usually get what you get. The ACL got almost everything they asked for. They must be very special friends indeed.

He didn’t stop there though, he also changed the name to Registered Relationships, which might not sound like much until you ask the love of your life to “co-register” and realise you said something similar last week when you registered your car, your dog or your Twitter username. Clearly King Campbell is not a romantic, despite all the public pre-election smoochies with his Consort Lisa.

The cherry on top of the Christian Gift Bonanza was the prospect of banning access to surrogate pregnancies, not just for LGBTI, but also for singles, and for defactos who’ve been shacked up for less than two years.I hope Wendy Francis isn’t expecting anything else for Christmas! There’s not much else King Campbell can give her, unless he joins the Salvation Army.



As for the rest of us, well, we lost out on this one. It's a shame King Campbell had to steal from our LGBTI friends to give to the ACL. It doesn't seem fair: I already have more rights than they do, but King Campbell stole some of them away? We'll have to accept that Newmania is broke, so perhaps King Campbell is really the Robin Hood of Giftiness. He steals from the poor to give to the noisy, irrational minority. I know I didn't vote for that, so it must be a special gift.

The goodies keep on coming, though. The Unions must be rubbing their hands together with joyous abandon at the thought of all the rare and exceptional opportunities King Campbell has given them! Imagine all that lovely lovely money that the unions won’t be able to pass onto the Labor Party unless their membership has okayed it via a ballot. Labor potentially misses out and the unions may suffer, but hey, Newmania is cold, stony broke. This might be one of those special imaginary presents that really isn't anything but a lot of hot air and distraction...like those little cardboard boxes full of positive vibes, for the friend who has everything.



It's also a fairly convenient way of kicking your opposition while they're down. Not so much a gift as a declaration of war, then?

Yet as every good gift giver knows, you have to find little treats for yourself along the way. Congratulations King Campbell, you got some new toys to play with.






Hmmm. I don't think King Campbell understands this Spirit of Giving business at all. He promised us all sorts of things - lower cost of living, less waste, accountability, dignity, grace, humility, and we haven't received any of those yet. His Free Gifts with Purchase aren't all they're cracked up to be either...unless you're a very special friend or have a good imagination.

Sometimes, it's not the thought that counts, and it's not the gift either. Sometimes you just want to get what you paid for.

Census 2011: It's Made of People

For some, it’s that annoying intrusion one night every five years. For others, it’s a boring set of numbers that waste my taxpayer dollars. For a very special group of geeks and weirdos, the release of new Census data is like statistics Christmas. The “are-these-numbers-still-accurate-enough” insecurity of the last couple of years is wiped away in an instant, replaced with the delicious bouquets of fresh numbers, new knowledge, insights and awareness of things only guessed at.

Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the data from the 2011 Census, and for the geeks and weirdos like me, the mysterious sets of numbers all fit together to build up multi-dimensional pictures of what Australia looked like on that one night in August, 2011. These beautiful new numbers are already ten months out of date, but this is the best that we can do, at least until the brave new world of micro-chipped humans emerges. Then, the chips will report back to Control every eight seconds, confirming where we are, what we’re doing, and who we’re doing it with. Personally, I look forward to that day; it will ensure the responses are accurate. No more writing “Jedi Knight” in the field where you should’ve written Lapsed Anglican. The Census Chip will know all. 

Mwahahahahaha! Just kidding. Probably.

But until that glorious day, we have shiny new figures that have been released today, and armed with these, we can do all sorts of brilliant things. By counting everyone, all at the same time, we can see how many of what sort of people live where, so that we can ensure governments and councils provide the right facilities in the right places. 

The beauty of the Census is not in raw numbers or processed statistics or colourful graphs for powerpoint presentations; it’s about people.

For example, we might not want to build a retirement home in a new outer suburb that’s full of young families or university students. Equally, we wouldn’t build a new infants school in a small rural town where the population was declining and most of the people were over 45. Councils and Governments love this data; it helps them to plan.

My favourite part of the Census isn’t the who, when and where questions. I love the way a series of numbers can provide such a rich view of our culture and heritage. 

Religion is one of the hot topics in Australia right now. Can the Census shed light on the state of Australia as a religious nation? 

We hear far too regularly from the Stop-The-Boats brigade that we must be alert to ‘Creeping Sharia’, the insidious (and imaginary) infiltration into Australia of the traditional Islamic justice system. Since the release of the Census figures today, I can report that the Muslim population in Australia is indeed on the rise. In fact Islam bounces into 4th place in the religion countdown. Is this Creeping Sharia business a real threat to our way of life?

The Census says its unlikely. Compare the 2.2% that identified as Muslims with the 22.3% of Australians who stated that they have no religion at all, or the 61% of Australians who identified as Christian, and you’ll recognise how truly insignificant Islam is as a religious force in Australia. It’s not even the fastest growing religion in Australia: Islam grew by 69%, but Hinduism grew by 189%, and I'm not hearing rumours about 'Creeping Dharma'.

Meanwhile, the Australian Christian Lobby has already released a statement asserting that Christianity is not on the decline in Australia. According to the Census, the number of Australians who answered as Christians has dropped from 68% ten years ago, to 61% now. That is a decline, yet its not necessarily other religions stealing our Christian souls, no! In the same period of time, the people reporting “No Religion” increased by the same amount: 7%.
Of course, we cannot conclude that 7% of Australians who were Christians in 2001 have lost their faith in the ten years since then, but there's no doubt that the population has less Christians and more atheists.

The ACL's Lyle Shelton puts this 7% increase down to an "aggressive" campaign by an atheist group convincing Christians to tick No Religion. Unsurprisingly, that's not quite what happened. There was a campaign, but it's purpose was to promote honesty - and sanity - by discouraging people from writing "Jedi Knight" on their census form as their religion. It might sound ridiculous, but thousands and thousands of people worldwide have done it, and it reduces the accuracy of the data. In the 2001 Census, around 70,000 Australians reported Jedi as their religion, but only 55,000 in 2006. 

Remember, today's gift basket of statistical bonbons is just the first release in a series of data releases from the 2011 Census. There's so much more...

Go! Have a browse through the Census data. It's all about us. 

Sticks & Stones

Ooooo-Aaaah.

The Australian Christian Lobby issued a media release earlier this week, claiming that it was unhappy with the way the Greens and gay activists were using strong language in their battle with the ACL over equal rights. Apparently the ACL don't take kindly to being called 'haters' and 'extremists'. 

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace claimed to be both hurt and deeply offended by being referred to as a 'gay hater':

“I and the ACL do not hate anyone, let alone same-sex attracted people. Using pejoratives like ‘haters’ and ‘extremists’ to describe ACL is tantamount to intimidation tactics designed to cause us and others to stand aside from the debate,” Mr Wallace said.

I won't call Mr Wallace and his colleagues names. I'll suggest, quietly and with all due respect, that they're a bunch of self-aggrandising sooky-lalas with a narrow agenda and a fringe perspective. 

Better?

Has Mr Wallace considered how the LGBT community, single people and their supporters feel when accused of gross child abuse if they choose surrogacy as a means to parenthood? I can tell Mr Wallace right now that being accused of gross child abuse leaves "hater" in the shade, yet, on June 1st, the ACL issues this media release,
headlined "Single and same-sex surrogacy a gross abuse against of the rights of the child".

It was a carefully worded release, short on facts, designed to evoke the kind of imagery associated with pedophilia and the Roman Catholic Church. Mr Wallace says they run their campaigns without resorting to words of hate. Who needs words when you can evoke those images?

As discussed previously, the ACL hasn't offered any examples of this gross child abuse they're linking to gay (and single) parents,  or even a source from which they get their definition of what a child's rights might be. The rights of the child remain a convenient distraction for the ACL. 

This week's press release suggests that the ACL aren't too fond of being called extremists either. Well, I guess if their policy (singular) to repress gay rights wasn't so unpopular and so extreme, they wouldn't have to wear the title. According to the release, Mr Wallace and his team of non-haters don't hate people who are "same-sex-attracted". 

I challenge Mr Wallace on that. There has been exactly no evidence that I can find of any engagement with or compassion to the LGBT community by the ACL. None. Instead, there has been a wall of anti-gay commentary and persistent lobbying against anything that could bring this segment of our a step closer to equality.

Why? For the sake of the children, of course...except that there's no evidence of that either. 

Speaking of children, the vitriol directed at ACL's Wendy Francis following her high profile campaign against the Rip & Roll Safe Sex billboards is indefensible. No excuses.

Having said that, the ACL and their followers need to accept that every time they issue a media release, send a tweet or appear on media speaking out against rights for the LGBT community, there will be a response. Just as the ACL doesn't like being called 'haters', gays don't like being labelled abnormal, perverted, deviant, sick, or dangerous. The ACL has no right to be playing the victim card.

Still, if Mr Wallace wants to lose the "hater" tag, how about exercising some Christian love and acceptance by putting some of his, and the ACL's resources towards promoting an LGBT cause. They could choose any gay cause that doesn't conflict with their restrictive, anti-gay agenda: how about a campaign to address homophobia in public schools? Or a campaign to secure funding for the Queensland Association of Healthy Communities? 

If the ACL can't - or won't - find a pro-gay cause that it can support, then the homophobia and gay-hater labels are likely to stick...as they should.

As for the Greens and gay activists using words like 'hater' and 'extremist' to intimidate, Mr Wallace knows better than that. He's a retired soldier, a former commander of the SAS Regiment. This won't be the first time in his life that he's been told to "Harden up, Princess." I'll also encourage him to enjoy a nice big cup of reality; words aren't all that intimidating out here in the real world, and Brigadier Jim Wallace (Ret) knows it.

It's well past time that the ACL accepted that they aren't the victims in this battle, and they don't control the moral high ground. There is no moral high ground in a war to sideline, to undermine, to marginalise your fellow humans to preserve your own superiority.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. - His Holiness Dalai Lama

Jim Wallace's Very Bad Week

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Ghandi

I wouldn't want to be Jim Wallace this week. I wouldn't want to be Jim Wallace any day, but this week must've been spectacularly hard. This week, his moral crusade - the Australian Christian Lobby - is under attack on all fronts.

It was this week's surprise announcement that Sunrise was teaming up with Marie Claire and GetUp! in support of same sex marriage that triggered their latest campaign. The ACL, with their broad fiction linking the existence of homosexuality to endangering the welfare of children, jumped up and down and tried to convince their supporters to email-bomb Sunrise and it's advertisers. 

The ACL even approached ACMA (the Australian Communication and Media Authority) complaining that a "news and current affairs" programme should not be allowed to support a position. I guess they haven't seen The Bolt Report or listened to 2GB lately.

Sunrise saw the gathering controversy ahead of time, and invited Jim Wallace to debate Dr Kerryn Phelps on the show. Jim's nightmare continued. In fairness, the ACL's supporters felt he did a good job in hostile circumstances. I don't know that I'd categorise the environment as hostile - well, not until Mr Wallace compared the gay rights movement to Nazi Propaganda Meister Josef Goebbels. 

In that few moments, and with a national audience, he transformed the ACL from an annoying lobby group with rich, conservative friends in high places, to the an organised group of crazy extremists who represent the minority view.

The Australian published an editorial this morning in which Greg Callaghan commented:

In 2012 it is no longer acceptable to suggest that gay people are abnormal or unnatural, as the ACL regularly does, by separating us from "normal" heterosexuals in their nomenclature. Even columnist Andrew Bolt, a very vocal opponent of gay marriage, never descends to this, writing recently that "it offends me to hear someone say gays and lesbians are not normal".

The Fairfax press was also on the story today. 

Canon Richard Tutin from Queensland Churches Together, a body which represents 12 Christian churches including Catholics and Anglicans, said people from different churches were frustrated by the ACL.

"They totally have an agenda," he said.

"They're more interested in upholding a very, very traditional view of marriage and that's derived in their eyes from scripture and societal practice."

I hear you wondering if the ACL knows just how far it has travelled from the mainstream. The answer is that they believe they are speaking for the majority, and that those in favour of same sex marriage are a noisy minority with an evil agenda - hence Mr Wallace's reference to Goebbels. Statistically, the opposite is true. 

In February 2012, a Galaxy Poll reported 62% of voters supported gay marriage. So there it is - only 38% of Aussies agree with the ACL's position on same sex marriage...and I'd bet far fewer than that would have approved of Mr Wallace's Nazi inference. In fact, the ACL's position on gay marriage is more aligned with the fundamental Moslem position than with many Christian groups.

But remember that the ACL is a lobby group, not a church. Sure, they'd love for you to join their supporters, but their primary focus is in influencing our governments, whether that's by getting their candidates elected, or by influencing those already in parliament. For that, they need money.

Doug Pollard's blog is shining a light on the ACL executive: who are they, what are their backgrounds, and who funds them. This information isn't nearly as easy to find as it should be, given the ACL's status as a political lobby group, but Doug has learned that Goldings, a Queensland construction company, contributed in the order of six figures to ACL. Gloria Jeans, the coffee chain previously associated with Hillsong, has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACL.

Jim Wallace and the other members of the ACL team probably won't be surprised to hear that there's talk on Twitter of boycotting Gloria Jeans stores to protest their support of the ACL.

Yeah,  it's been a bad week for the ACL: a frontal assault in the form on the Sunrise "I Do" campaign, Mr Wallace's cringeworthy appearance on the debate, the offensive Nazi reference, an opinion piece against them in a national newspaper, a news story in Fairfax publications about other Christians distancing themselves from the ACL, bloggers digging into their activities (including this one) and now murmurs of a boycott of one of their key donors? 

Their war might be against gays and gay rights, but the ACL should consider choosing their battles. Taking on a national television show, a magazine and experienced activist group and the weight of public opinion armed with nothing but a website and Jim Wallace was not their finest moment. 

The ACL Agenda

This morning, Sunrise hosted a short debate on same sex marriage. The participants were Dr Kerryn Phelps, a married lesbian, and Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Time constraints, and a lack of debate structure hampered the ability of either side to land a killer argument, although each had a theme. For Dr Phelps, it's all about equality. For the ACL, it's all about the children...and something entirely inappropriate about Nazis, but let's concentrate on his focus: children.

Mr Wallace failed to make any explanation as to why same sex marriage had anything to do with children, other than to suggest that all marriage is about children. That, Mr Wallace, is bollocks.

There was a graph floating around on Twitter yesterday, showing the disproportionate focus of the ACL on homosexuality. The graph illustrated that the number of anti-gay press releases and self-reported media mentions from January-June outnumbers the sum of press releases and mentions for all other topics. (I'm unsure who put this together, but whoever you are, thank you.) I'd go so far as to suggest that a large chunk of the ACL press releases and media mentions about homosexuality also make mention of children, children's rights, and protecting the children from the dangerous influences of gay people. 

So, let's take Wendy Francis's suggestion, and think of the children.

According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, children – defined as a human under the age  of 18 - have rights. The Convention of the Rights of the Child include these four core principles:

·         The right to survival and development;
·         Respect for the best interests of the child as a primary consideration;
·         The right of all children to express their views freely on all matters affecting them; and
·         The right of all children to enjoy all the rights of the CRC without discrimination of any kind.

According to a media release from Jim Wallace just last week, single and same-sex surrogacy is a gross abuse against the rights of the child.

Jim Wallace and his ACL are so completely disengaged from the real world that they themselves are the danger, as we saw during Jim's semi-coherent debate appearance this morning. Jim's a former Army Officer - he should know better than to liken his "enemies" to Nazis. But he did pivot back to his point, that it's all about children.

In fact, the ACL has an entire programme called ForKidSake dedicated to serving the best interests of Australian children.

Each of the three key recommendations from the ACL's ForKidSake campaign comes from a research project commissioned by the ACL and conducted by Professor Patrick Parkinson, professor of law at Sydney University. There is a handy link from the ForKidSake section of the ACL website to Professor Parkinson’s 126 page report, yet the ACL website includes only the summary that the ACL wants you to see. Their cherry-picked summary makes for annoying reading: it includes “Some of the research findings”, and “some significant recommendations”. Any half-awake reader would know that it was incomplete. 

"Some of the recommendations" might be good enough for the ACL, but the rest of us demand the complete picture. I have read the three recommendations published on the ACL Website, and I have read the 14 Recommendations in Professor Parkinson' Report, and I suggest that you do too. This is a solid and inclusive piece of work which emphasises the importance of family and community as they relate to the development of children, and suggests an overall responsibility is at the Federal Government level, cascading through levels of government into the community.

The report does not, however, define the ideal family. It does not exclude non-traditional families, single parent families, blended families, mixed-race families, polygamous families, 1960s hippy communes, extended families or families that include same sex parents. Equally, it doesn't shy away from exploring the higher proportion of problems encountered by children in non-traditional family structures.

I suspect the reason that Professor Parkinson has neither detailed the ideal family structure nor discussed the ACL-suggested dangers of non-traditional families is because the research doesn’t support the notion that every traditional nuclear family is better for the children that any other option. 

In fact, the Report accepts the existence and legitimacy of LGBT groups within the community as early as Recommendation 1(c).

To encourage Parents and Citizens’ Associations, community organisations such as Rotary or Lions Clubs, churches, other faith-based communities, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse organisations, gay and lesbian organisations and any other interested group to offer relationship education programs free of charge in their local community or in workplaces, or in universities, utilising trained volunteer educators, or educators paid on a sessional basis.

So sustained is the ACL's campaign against gay marriage and gay parenting, we wonder if, in ACL-World, it is better to have a perfect Mum plus Dad plus two-point-whatever kids (biological offspring of the aforementioned Mum and Dad), even if Mum drinks a bottle of vodka before breakfast, even if Dad feeds his entire income through the pokies every payday, even if the home hides domestic violence, emotional abuse, incest and worse, than to have two parents of the same sex. Yes, this is gross exaggeration, yet there are no asterisks in the ACL literature.

Still, according to last week's press release from Jim Wallace, gay parenting (and single parenting) resulting from surrogacy would be gross abuse against the rights of the child.

That kind of homophobic nonsense is simply not true, and Professor Parkinson's report did not suggest that it was.

Mr Wallace’s statement last week said:

“Evidence heard at recent enquiries and a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria into donor conception and surrogacy has shown it is harmful to children to be deliberately severed from their biological mother or father.”

This argument suggests that all surrogacy is equally detrimental to the child, due to the severing of connection to a biological parent. It's not just gays and singles. Heterosexual couples who use a surrogate face the same risks and dangers that Jim Wallace links to single and gay parents. Is that what the ACL really thinks? Professor Parkinson noted the separation as an issue in his report, yet again, did not mention gay parents specifically.

And what is this about severing relationships in the specific context of surrogacy? That’s an assumption by Mr Wallace. The non-custodial biological parent may be a treasured  member of an extended family, which would surely align with Professor Parkinson’s recommendations. 

Given the ACL's objection to abortion, where does it stand on adoption? Adoption forces separation between a child and it's biological parents. Wouldn't that be risking harm to he child? Maybe the ACL would prefer that all pregnant women just shut up and keep their babies? What if the mother is single? The ACL won't like that! The entire argument is so circular, so nonsensical, that the only solution that would be acceptable to the ACL would be for no-one to ever be pregnant outside the structure of traditional hetero-sexual monogamous marriage.

This does not reflect the reality we live in.

The ACL is an all-or-nothing political lobby groyp. Their mantra is "Won't Someone Think Of The Children?" Good question, because I can't see where the ACL places children first. It looks to me as though the ACL is using children as a convenient smokescreen to disguise their real purpose: the anti-gay agenda. 

Rainbows Over Sunrise

It's common knowledge now that Sunrise has teamed with Marie Claire and GetUp! in support of Same Sex Marriage. It's almost as well known that Australian Christian Lobby is exploding in a small fiery ball of self-righteous homophobia at the thought of a major television show supporting something they spend their entire lives fighting against.

Good on them, I say! We don't hear nearly enough from Jim Wallace, Lyle Shelton and Wendy Francis about how private, consenting relationships between two adults who happen to be of the same sex can do irrevocable ... something something ... Oh, won't somebody think of the children?

In truth, I'm in favour of looking after the children too, and I'd volunteer to babysit hoards of them before I'd let the folks from the ACL anywhere near one. There. I said it.

But back to today's ACL campaign, designed to ensure that the Governments - both State and Federal -  aren't influenced by anyone or anything other than the Christian Right, and perhaps Big Mining. That's fine; it's their job, and they do it well. Those skills should come in handy they try to talk their way through the Pearly Gates. Somehow, I think their greeting might not be what they expect.

Anyway, the ACL's website includes the following paragraphs, which I'll include here so you don't have to go there:  

That a TV current affairs show, let alone TV station, should take sides in such a highly contentious issue in the public square is disgraceful.  What it says for the respect they have for alternative opinion, even our values, is extremely disappointing and we need to register our disappointment.

This comes at a strategic time in the debate, so please spend a minute to fill out the Sunrise comments section at this link to make your comment, but please do it now 

You might:

Ask them what you are supposed to think this action means for their respect and even tolerance of your views and values on an issue that  goes to the very heart of family and the flourishing of children;

Ask why Sunrise has decided it’s a ‘human rights issue’ when the Australian Government has removed discrimination in 84 laws in 2008 and when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in March that same-sex marriage is not a human right

Register your disgust that the press, supposedly the neutral umpire and facilitator of public debate, should allow itself to be captured by the propaganda machine of the gay lobby; and

If you’re so convicted, you might advise them that you do not propose to watch the show again.

Also, please consider sending an email to Sunrise’s partners sharing your concerns about the television show. They include Purina, The Coffee Club, Accor Hotels, Myer and Jetstar.

Bully for the ACL,  who are without doubt the least Christian group of any Christian group this side of the Vatican. Remember though, they are not a Christian Church; they are a political lobby group, with all the Christian grace and generosity of spirit that you'd expect from a political lobby group. Their anti-gay stance is as steadfast as it is bewildering.

Meanwhile the rest of us are signing our petitions and sending letters of support to Sunrise and their advertisers. Thanks again to the ACL for including that list on their website, along with the helpful Sunrise Feedback link! Yes, we're that clever!

At the other end of the spectrum, the official GetUp Petition to thank Sunrise was closing in on 30,000 signatures at the time of writing this. Here's GetUp!'s blurb:  

Yesterday we announced that Sunrise are getting behind the campaign to stop marriage discrimination. This morning they woke up to a campaign backed by the Australian Christian Lobby denouncing their decision.

The Sunrise team went out on a limb and others who might be thinking about backing this campaign will be watching how this situation unfolds. Can you let the team know they have our support by adding your name to the thank you card on the left?

You know how I feel about the ACL's hate campaign against the LGBT community. Please take a look at the two perspectives above, and consider which one is deliberately divisive, which one is promoting fear and distrust, which one is more Christian.

The Big Step Backwards

News reports this morning confirm that Queensland Premier Campbell Newman will repeal the Civil Partnerships legislation passed just six months ago by the Bligh Government. This is no great surprise, as it was raised as a probability during the LNP campaign.

The timing is surprising. This morning's Sunday Mail has released a Galaxy Poll in which 50% of the population support gay marriage, and only 33% oppose it. Even amongst LNP voters, 42% support gay marriage and 44% oppose it. And don't forget that Premier Newman himself supports gay marriage, yet is willing to overturn this legislation to appease the noisy 42%.

But it doesn't end there. If you're gay in Queensland, there's more bad news this Sunday morning. It appears $2.6m in funding has been withdrawn from Queensland Association of Healthy Communities, according to various Twitter sources. Such funding would come from the Queensland Heath Department, yet there is no media statement announcing these funding changes.

There is, however, a newspaper report quoting Queensland's new Health Minister Lawrence Springborg stating that funding will be redirected a new AIDS Council. The Queensland Association of Healthy Communities was established in 1984 as the Qld AIDS Council. Mr Springborg believes that by lobbying for equal rights, the QAHC has strayed from its it's original charter as an advocate for gay men's health. God knows what the LNP is thinking; Speaker of the House Fiona Simpson still thinks homosexuality can be cured!

Nothing but this shameful victory will matter to Wendy Francis, head of the Queensland chapter of the Australian Christian Lobby. She'll be dancing up and down the aisle at church this morning. Ms Francis spearheaded the ACL's campaign to have the Rip N Roll posters removed from bus shelters, so that children wouldn't be corrupted by the idea of two adults choosing to take care of each other's health. The Rip N Roll campaign was funded, at least in part, by the Brisbane City Council, which was at the time headed by Campbell Newman.

Ms Francis is also vehemently opposed to civil unions, and was seen leaving Parliament House in tears the night that Andrew Fraser's Civil Partnerships bill was passed. Prior to the 2010 Federal election in which Ms Francis was standing for the Senate, she infamously tweeted

@Wendy4Senate Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse.

Remember back in February, prior to the Qld State Election, LNP Members including Campbell Newman addressed ACL meetings, hoping to sound far enough to the right to appeal to the extreme conservatives. It's no surprise, then, that the Newman Government is honouring commitments made to a tiny group of far right conservatives, against the beliefs of the majority of the population.

Is the Queensland Government's approach to "rainbow issues" to simply pretend they don't exist, or is the LNP trying to drive gays south, thereby making them someone else's problem?

More importantly, who is pulling the strings? Queensland voted overwhelmingly for a government lead by Campbell Newman, yet in repealing the Civil Partnerships legislation, Newman is ignoring the majority view, and acting against his own beliefs.  This might be what Bruce McIver, Wendy Francis and Fiona Simpson want,  but it's not what Queenslanders - or their Premier - want.

Add your voice to the chorus signing a petition in support of equal rights in Queensland.

One In Fifty

I've been trying for months to not write this rant. Today, on this blog, I concede defeat. 


I am a straight woman in a committed monogamous relationship with my straight male partner, Rob, who is divorced. We wear matching wedding bands on our wedding fingers. We refer to each other as husband and wife. We are as close to being married (or civilly partnershipped) as you can get, without being married. We have all of the legal protection that defacto couples have, but we are not married. We're not even engaged.


One day we'll do the deed. It won't involve a white frock that looks like a cross between a toilet roll cover and a pavlova. It won't be in a church, or involve religion. There will be spectacular finger food, an incredible cake (or two: we can't decide between lemon-coconut and Black Forest...and Mum will want a traditional fruit cake, so we should plan for three cakes) and tears of joy. It will be a very special day. 


It will be a privilege to marry Rob. I know he feels the same way about me. 


But we've agreed that until every single adult in Australia has the right to enjoy that same privilege, we won't either. Estimates suggest that at least 2% of the world's population is gay. That's one in fifty people. 


In this country, not all single adults can marry the person they love. If Irene and Anne want to marry, they can't. If Adrian and Enrique want to marry, they can't. Penny and Sophie can be parents, but they can't be married. And Rob and I can. 


So I ask myself, what is so special about Rob and I that we have this privileged existence where we can partake of an ancient ritual of legal and spiritual coupledom, when the same ritual is denied our friends. What have we done to make us more deserving?


Lyle Shelton,  Chief of Staff of the Australian Christian Lobby, husband of Wendy "Won't Somebody Think Of The Children" Francis and lapsed journalist, has been stirring the pot on Twitter today. He's tweeting the Senate hearings on marriage equality.  According to Mr Shelton, aside from the obvious reason that homosexuality is against his God's law, his argument against redefining marriage to include same sex marriage is that it places one of society's feet on a banana peel. 


The ACL believes that from gay marriage, it'd be just another short lurch to the left and we'd be legalising polygamy. What does he think will happen next? Rev-heads marrying their cars? Geeks marrying their iPads? Foot Fetishists marrying their Jimmy Choos? 

Twitter identity Can_Do_Campbell was quick to point out that where polygamy exists, it tends to be within a religious structure like the FLDS.  Mr Shelton responded that it wasn't part of Christianity; it's only mentioned in the Old Testament. Does that mean we can toss out Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the talking snake, the burning bush? 


Okay - just checking.


Despite some determined questioning - and just a little provocation, and isolated abuse - Mr Shelton failed to respond to questions about why legalising same sex marriage would have any impact on his life. In other words, what does it have to do with him? 


This basic disconnect accounts for much of the tension between religion and secularism. The religious lobby - any religious lobby - sees it as their responsibility, their divine purpose, to spread the word of their Gospel and thereby save the world. In order for religious zealots to fulfil their purpose, they must ensure that everyone follows the rules set down by their God.


Those who believe in a different God, or in no God at all, are therefore required to reject their own beliefs and follow the teachings of a God they don't believe in. How is that fair? In the case against marriage equality, it's literally using one inequality (their perception of their superior beliefs, and their right to impose those beliefs on others) to enforce another inequality.


It's not for me. Lyle Shelton and his colleagues will never convince me that I am more entitled, more deserving, more special than my friend Irene, a gay teacher, counsellor, mentor and generous friend for over thirty years. Or my cousin Adrian, one of the sweetest, most sensitive and smartest people I know. Or Senator Penny Wong, a brilliant young Australian and role model for all of us.


When Rob and I marry, I hope Irene and Anne and Adrian and Enrique will be there to celebrate with us...and I hope we'll be on their guest lists too. Until then, we have one more battle to win, and many more cake-related decisions to make.


Twitter: @Can_Do_Campbell @LyleShelton

According to Bob

According to Katter’s Australian Party website this morning, all is well in the world of the Katterite.

“WITH a flurry of policies and more than a few rhetorical flourishes, Katter's Australian Party says it has arrived as Queensland's third political force.” You can hear Bob’s distinctive voice trying to will truth into his words.
Another paragraph on, and we learn that yesterday was the Katter Party’s official campaign launch in Townsville.
Huh? Really? Gee, they kept that quiet! Bob Katter’s distinctive voice fades…

That’s not to say that Katter and his motley crew of conservative politicians were absent from the news yesterday. After all, James Packer donated a quarter of a million to the KAP! Still, even that factoid was almost lost in all the hullaballoo about their now-infamous homophobic television ad. Aside from a pretty impressive twitter-storm last night and again this morning, the advertisement has managed to isolate Katter’s position on civil unions and gay rights. Unsurprisingly, he's agin' it.

But let’s look at the thinking behind the ad. What was it trying to achieve?

1. It was positioning Katter’s Mob on the opposite side of the argument to the ALP and the Greens.

2. It was illustrating that Campbell Newman’s own views are at odds with his party’s views.

3. It was trying to appeal to conservative values voters who may otherwise have supported Newman (in Ashgrove, where Katter’s Mob has no candidate).

4. It was trying to appeal to conservative values voters in National Party heartland who would usually support the LNP.

In summary, the ad was trying to convince us that if we are really and truly against legalising any kind of same-sex union, the only party to go to is Katter’s Australian Party.

But what’s that, I hear you say?

You’re right! Wouldn’t that be splitting the conservative vote? As reported in every newspaper in Queensland during the past six months, Katter’s Australian Party has the ability to split the conservative vote on values issues, and while the LNP policy on civil unions lines up with Katter’s policy, their leader’s personal view doesn’t. Campbell Newman continues to battle the ALP over issues of trust and credibility, and the KAP advertisement couldn’t have come at a worse time for the him and the LNP.

So here comes the fight. This morning, the Katter party came to town – to Ashgrove, to be precise – and joined forces with the Greens. *Gasp*

Surprisingly, they do have one policy in common, and it’s around Coal Seam Gas. The ALP and the LNP seem to favour digging the resources out of the ground at almost any cost. The Greens and the KAP want them left well enough alone. Their reasons are very different, but they want the same result – an immediate halt to CSG exploration. It’s worth noting that a Newspoll published in February found that CSG support in Queensland was split: one third supported it, one third opposed it, and one third were undecided. Campbell Newman blamed Anna Bligh’s government for the low support.

The LNP supports the Coal Seam Gas industry. According to the LNP website, "An LNP Government will continue to support the expansion of a sustainable CSG industry in Queensland. We recognise and welcome the huge contribution that a CSG industry will make to the State's economy, including the injection of $60 billion in capital investment, and creation of 18,000 new jobs for Queenslanders in developing an export LNG industry."

In contrast, the KAP’s website has a comprehensive statement on their CSG policy, which starts with Implement a 12 month moratorium on all proposed and new Coal Seam Gas projects and ensuring mining companies put up a “make good” bond at the beginning of the project.
 

Could Anna Bligh and the ALP actually sneak up the middle and steal this election from Campbell Newman?

I doubt it. It would take a miscalculation of biblical proportions, but you never know. On recent form, Bob Katter might just be the man to win this election for Labor.

Or I could be nuts.