A Pox on both your Houses

The Victorian people have just gone through a gripping state election. At the time of writing the result is unknown - it could be a hung parliament such as we have in Tasmania and the Federal parliament; or it could be the Coalition by the smallest of margins.



Year 2010 will go down in our political history in the words of my daugther, a politics student at Murdoch University, as "The Year of Indecision".

What has happened to politics in our country?

Our parties seem to have become so concerned with gaining "the middle ground" that they have ditched their ideological drivers and read the electorate via the media polls. Now most voters find them indistinguishable from each other, other than by the old maxim - WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?

The end result of this at elections seems to be that people are still about equally divided on which party they want in government, rather than seeing one or other as overwhelmingly better equipped for our current times. Or are people so disillusioned by the political process that really what they are saying to our politicians is "A pox on both your houses."

What do you think?

Scientology is no more a church than psychotherapy is a religion

The Weekend Australian Magazine had an article in it this weekend claiming to have a "first-ever" report from a journalist who was allowed to undergo the basics of an AUDIT - the special kind of therapy that is at the heart of Scientology.

It was an illuminating article - at least to get an inside view of someone who was not a devotee.

Since its inception and incorporation in the USA in 1953, Scientology has never been far from controversy, which I guess is par for the course for anything a bit out of left field. What makes Ron L. Hubbard, science-fiction author, a religious guru?

The first big controversy came in 1957 when Scientology was granted in the USA the same tax-exempt status as a church. This required the IRS being satisfied that Scientology was a bona fides religion and enable its members to claim as tax-deductions all their contributions to the church, just as Episcopalians and Catholics and Muslims can do there.

Once it was established in Australia, the Church of Scientology sought similar tax-benefits here, although regular donations to a church are not tax-deductible in Australia. Some tax-benefits were obtained on the basis of the Australian Tax Office's acceptance of their claim to be a religion engaged in benevolent activities. There were misgivings in many quarters when this happened but nothing was done.

This year, an Independent Senator, urged on by reports to him from aggrieved former members of the Church, guided through the parliament a bill seeking a review of the tax-benefits offered to any religious bodies, requiring a "public-good" test to be established before tax-benefits could be obtained. While this is to be generally applied, the impetus for it related to the view that The Church of Scientology would not be able to demonstrate any "public benefit" and so would lose their privileges.

It is in this context that I make two observations about the Church of Scientology.

Firstly, the symbol they use for their church has hijacked the Christian symbol of the Cross. Ron Hubbard has never claimed to have started a Christian sect. In fact they are completely vague about the deity - people can make up their own minds. They claim it is an eight-pointed cross representing the 8 dynamics of Dianetics. If this were really the case, I think their symbol should have been much more like a compass.



To anyone with a slightly cynical mind - like me - it could be suggested that the use of a Christian-like symbol was a strategy designed to strengthen their case and public perception that they are a religion.

My second concern relates to what is actually involved in AUDITING. The rationale is that deep-seated memories of events in our past interfere with our capacity to function at our best, and the quest of Auditing is to identify and neutralise the power of those barriers. This sounds to me like a fairly high level of psychotherapy that requires a high level of competence to administer, yet it seems one can be trained as a counsellor using a simple on-line training course. The thing that worries me about this is that very often, when someone probes around in the deep recesses of another's mind quite unexpected things may arise that need high skill-levels to work with.

As an analogy, I suggest that if you go around lifting the rocks in people's lives, don't be surprised if you discover some worms. Sometimes these "worms" have no detrimental effect on a person's life, but once they are exposed they have to be dealt with.

I know that most Christian pastors, and others in the church, engage in counselling as an intrinsic part of their work, but in my nearly thirty years of experience as a pastor we generally deal with might lighter aspects of people's lives such as inter-personal relationships they are struggling with, or their relationship with God. Most trained pastors will be given basic training in pastoral care and counselling in the context of a ministerial degree - a bit more rigorous than a short on-line course.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What do you think?

An Open Letter to my MPs about Marriage Equality

Dear Sir

I know that this week you will be considering legislation in parliament that seeks to overcome a very significant aspect of legal discrimination against gay people right across Australia and I would like you to consider supporting it.

I remember that the traditional political respose to previous requests by gay people to have their relationships recognised as marriage has been to say that "marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman" therefore gay relationships can never be regarded as marriage. But marriage, as a word, can mean whatever we choose it to mean, and it seems to me that all gay people are asking for is access to the same legal privileges as married couples - next of kin status and inheritance rights, most significantly, as well as general acceptance by the community that there relationship is just as committed and meaningful as any traditional marriage.

I know, as well, that there are some within the Christian community to which I belong, who argue that the recognition of gay relationships would represent a threat to marriage and the family, and perhaps you agree with them. For the life of me, I can't see any self-evident truth to that proposition. If someone could demonstrate an actual way in which the affirmation of the relationship of a gay couple diminishes or undermines the relationship of a straight couple I would be pleased to listen to it and consider it, but I have heard none.

I really don't know why so many in society choose to create barriers for the everyday life of gay and lesbian people. I know many in both secular and religious circles and the sexuality makes no difference to their capacity to contribute positively to our community. I am sure you also know many gay and lesbian people through your public life. Please give them the same consideration as you would any other citizen in this matter of equity and access.

Yours sincerely

Does the US electoral system make sense to anyone down-under?

Mid-term elections in the US are much talked about in the US and around the world, but I must say I find it really hard to fathom what it all means. I guess what really confuses us is that because the Exective is not drawn from members of Congress a President may be up against the two houses of Congress being in the hands of his political opponents.

I was reminded yesterday, as well, that because of the nature of the US Federation, Congressional elections are controlled by the rules of state legislatures. At least in Australia all our states have allowed a common approach and rules for federal elections.

The Tea Party, as they are want to be called - but I gather that really they are simply a faction within the Republican Party - has raised up a kind of political fundamentalism that has dragged the Republicans back towards the right so as to accentuate the policy and ideological differences between them and the Democrats. From where they stand the Democrats really do seem like Communists.

Commentators have suggested that this will greatly stymie Obama's presidency. But surely this situation is not foreign to US presidents. It seems to me to be an intrsinsic part of their political system and the place still ticks over.

I think that what Americans need to understand is that their country is recovering from the deepest recession their economy has experienced in over 60 years and no matter which party is in power it is going to take some time to recover from it. The Obama administration is not repsonsible for the policy settings that led to the GFC, but they have had to make the calls about how to minimise the impact of it. I wish them well - for all our sakes.

To Tax or not to Tax? A very taxing question

The alternative Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has landed himself in some trouble recently with his proposal to add layers of regulation and scrutiny that would prevent banks from gouging their customers in the many and various ways they are now so practiced at.

Not only was his proposal at odds with the general philosophical bent of the conservative right which is to de-regulate, it seemed that when Tony Abbott was asked about it he knew nothing of the proposal.

Within days, the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, has also made a proposal that most of his colleagues were unaware of, a proposal for a position that has consistently been regarded by analysts as unworkable - a flat rate of taxation for everyone earning between $25,000 and $180,000.

Perhaps this was just another example of Tony Abbott speaking off the cuff, and so his words are not to be regarded as policy - just an idea. It was certainly a further example of the opposition straying into the area of popularity-based policy, rather than with maintaining policies that are consistent with their basic economic framework.

These two stories have generated some questions for me, and I wonder what you think of them.

1. Would you be willing to trust our economy to these two most significant members of the party of alternative government? - I don't think I would.

2. How did Howard and Costello keep those who are now in opposition under control so far as the economic message was concerned? There are a lot of free wheels out there and who knows which direction they are going in.

3. In the same week, this lot resorted to complaining about the negative impact of higher utility prices on the cost of living when inflation figures came in lower than expected. Does the Federal Government have any control over these costs? Is there not an objective in raising the cost of these utilities - to reduce our consumption?

All in all, I feel in no way inclinded to the view that the current Liberal/National coalition has the credentials to be the alternative government of this Commonwealth.