Many of us on that list have campaigned boldly against offshore detention.

Thanks & congrats to the composers & signatories. We must continue to urge our leaders to embrace the wonderful teachings of Jesus. For all of my 75 years I have worshipped at one of the denominations represented in the signatories to this letter & have often been involved in interdenominational activites. I have intentionally tried to follow Jesus’ teachings for 62 years & been an ordained minister for 49 years. In our eagerness to continue to urge leaders in the present & the future, let us not rob ourselves of the opportunity rejoice/do cartwheels/celebrate all that occurred last weekend against all predictions: The major party elected was not the party whose federal platform (official policy list) included a ‘gender agenda’. This lengthy policy document included a few mentions of jobs (about which they talked a lot in the campaign) but over 140 mentions of gender (of which they mentioned nothing in the campaign). This revealed the same deceit as when in 2013 they federally funded the deceptively named ‘Safe Schools’ to be taught in our nation’s schools. This, too, was delberately introduced without fanfare. Such tactics may well have persuaded some voters to question their honesty/integrity. Sadly, the gender agenda was not the only science denying policy on the table at the election but it was the most flagrant denial of science. I am no scientist but was for a time a high school science teacher & my unusual route to that employment involved successfully studying at Sydney Uni 2 biological sciences & 3 medical sciences. The losing major party’s passionate embrace of this policy may have led many voters to question the logic & intelligence of that party. Sadly the gender agenda was not the only divisive policy presented at the election but it was easily the most divisive with its aim to pit children against parents, parents against teachers, faith-based against non-faith- based, etc. Needless to say there is nothing of this gender agenda in our text book The Bible. We must also celebrate that the party who won the election was not the party with the policy to nationalise free late term abortions in all government (initially) hospitals by threating to withold funding to hospitals who refused to offer it. This policy also threatened the employment of all practitioners with a conscience. This policy was certainly out of step with most or all major religions including our own. Sadly, no major party took a policy to this election to REDUCE our horrendous abortion rate but at least the major party which won was the only major party with no policy to increase it.
We must also celebrate the fact that the immediate threat to faith based schools & freedom of religion has at least been delayed. The losing major party tried to curb faith based schools just before the election &, when that failed, promised to complete that job immediately after the election. Had such a restriction (& no doubt similar restrictions in faith based hospitals) been enacted, faith based schools would have been faced with the difficult decision to close their doors or break the law. By all means let us be diligent for the present & the future while also celebrating all we have , at least temporarily, been rescued from last weekend.