Last month, I reported Tamil-Australian Assemblies of God Pastor and former Family First Senate Candidate Danny Nalliah telling an audience in the NSW Parliament that the Christian Right needed to take control of Australian politics.
Now The Oz reports that Nalliah is trying to start his political crusade by doing a secret anti-abortion deal with the Victorian Liberals. The story's headline describes Nalliah's ministry as “fanatics” and “a powerful Christian fundamentalist group ... advocat[ing] the destruction of mosques, casinos and bottle shops”.
Nalliah’s speech (as well as mine and questions) was recorded by one of his disciples here and initially distributed by an allied extremist group from Victoria calling itself Salt Shakers. The entire forum can be downloaded here.
A visit to the Salt Shakers website shows the group complaining about Victoria hosting a major multi-faith event in 2009 and claiming HIV is a gay disease. The organisation’s slogan is “Christian ethics in action”.
Nalliah’s organisation, Catch The Fire Ministries, already contains a Press Release in which Nalliah describes himself as a “Polemical Christian Leader. He refers to the need to “protect our Judeo-Christian Heritage in Victoria and wider Australia ”, and acknowledges that the Coalition and even Family First aren’t exactly God’s children.
“I am not stating that the Liberals, Nationals, Family First and CDP are perfect in practice, but we have to cast our vote to the party which is able to give us the best possible outcome to protect our Freedoms, Rights, and Christian Moral Values in our rapidly deteriorating pluralistic society where right is considered wrong and wrong is labeled right.”
Nalliah is no friend of pluralism of any kind. Nor is he a friend of any political force he deems to belong to the left. “Truly, the right of politics - Liberals, Nationals, Family First and CDP - are more willing to hear the Christian voice than the left -Labor, Greens, Democrats.”
Download and listen to the entire recording of the Fellowship of the Round Table Forum where Danny and I spoke. Witness Nalliah’s refusal to unconditionally condemn all acts of suicide terrorism and other violence perpetrated against civilians by the Tamil Tigers.
If Libs want to do deals by catching Nalliah's fire, they're bound to get their hands burnt.
© Irfan Yusuf 2006
