aesmael: (Electric Waves)
    "Family First deny harassing abortion clinic patients"

Democrats Leader Lyn Allison says security guards at the East Melbourne clinic have told her protesters often yell at women entering the clinic and follow them down the street.

She says she wants to see buffer zones that distance protesters from the entrance to abortion clinics.

"It does show the extent to which the far right will go to limit women's access to reproductive health services and outside there today are members of the Family First Party," she said.

Family First member Dave Foster was campaigning against abortion at the front of the clinic today and he denies the protesters harass women.

"We've been here 15 years and at no stage has there ever been a charge laid, nor has there ever been any evidence other than hearsay presented that would... incriminate us in anyway at all, and certainly we do not call women murderers," he said.



Addendum: I am listening right now to a report that Liberal Party members have been expelled for passing out flyers claiming to be from an Islamic organisation and urging people to vote for Labor.
aesmael: (Electric Waves)
    I have been remiss in following through on my stated intentions. Well, the actual elections are in a little less than a week and it is a busy week for me. I will cover as many as I can. Time to finish looking at the Family First policies I missed last time.
Warning: Contents Hazardous to Families )
aesmael: (sudden sailor)
    This afternoon I found this anonymous comment on my post listing Australia's major political parties:
Family First

Why not check out the Family First website. You may be pleasantly surprised. I certainly was.

    I was going to go in alphabetical order but what the hey. Family First is up first.
    Their 'who we are' page not surprisingly emphasises their claim to represent families. The phrase "FAMILY FIRST is independent represents commonsense, mainstream values and ordinary Australian families" is repeated twice on the page, so it looks to me like they think it important.
    Perhaps it is the bias I have picked up from their minor media coverage so far, but to me this looks like the kind of thing I see in US politics which is coded social conservatism specifically including homophobic policies.
    Further down the page we have in their list of beliefs: "That people must accept personal responsibility as well as community obligations". The people I most commonly see lines about personal responsibility are, again, social conservatives and specifically anti-abortionists, so this line also makes me suspicious.
    Finally we have their belief that something must be done to reduce what they call the "crippling number of marriage and relationship breakdowns". I happen to disagree with the idea that people should be expected to mate for life. If they wish to, fine. If they do not, also fine. Although I believe resources should be available in the way of, for example, counselling, should people wish it, I do not believe there is necessarily a problem if many marriages end in divorce. I certainly do not believe it is the government's place to step in and specifically encourage monogamous lifetime marriage (which you may note, dear reader, is what I have assumed they are referring to) above other romantic relationships.
    The rest of what they say on that page looks okay to me, although I may change my mind depending on what precisely they mean to do about it. Someone else better versed in political language may find things I missed or mistook too.

The long list of policies )


    And now I am growing too tired to continue. The rest will have to wait for another day.

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aesmael

May 2022

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