Something has been bugging me for quite some time in Australian politics. It seemed to me that most politicians, well above and beyond the average in the population, are very religious characters. Specifically mainly Christian, of course, with a large percentage of them seeming to be Catholic in particular. Is that my imagination?
I decided to do a little investigation using publicly available information. The result is the list and table below at the bottom of this post. As you can see, there are currently a lot of politicians whose religious affiliation I have so far not been able to determine. If you know a link with some answers for any of the politicians listed with an "unknown" faith below, please let me know in the comments. I might email some of them myself, if I find the time.
I once heard is said that religion is no longer an issue in Australian politics. It doesn't seem that way to me! Perhaps because for people who don't think religion is important, it's not generally widely known what a politician's religious affiliation is, but I can tell you from what I've seen amongst the very politically-aware, very politically-active Catholics in western Sydney with whom I'm personally acquainted, the religion of politicians and candidates is indeed a very big deal, and they are intimately aware of the religious affiliation of every politician in the state. They are also very active in getting all the member of their religious organisation, which might be quite a small fringe group, to write letters to members of parliament in an orchestrated manner to maximise its effect. This is a lesson everyone who needs their voice to be heard politically should learn because, unfortunately, the fact that some people do this and thus, by dint of sustained pressure, manage to bend political thought to their particular idiom, means that pretty much anyone who wants to be heard in the political needs to do the same to seem equally as pressing...
Now, I don't particularly want to dwell on Catholicism amongst politicians, but when you look at the top leadership in the Labor party in NSW as it was before the recent elections there, you can't help but see some similarities between leaders which are quite astounding really. Here's a little overview of the last 6 premiers of NSW (including the bookends of Liberal premiers):
The Premiers:
John Fahey: Liberal party. Roman Catholic.
Bob Carr: Labor party. I couldn't find a public statement directly by Carr, but this article, describes him as a "conscientious atheist" who "respects the moral teachings of the New Testament" and "considers the experience of the universe and decides there is no God". This explains why he was able to care about the environment, population control, embryonic stem-cell research, and over-development of the harbour. OK, so it doesn't explain the last, but for some reason these days being a religious zealot means being right-wing, and believing that the earth has no limits, and that god put it here for the use and abuse of humans.
Morris Iemma: Roman Catholic whose family is from Calabria. This is a pairing that you'll see more of below.
Nathan Rees: Roman Catholic, though he seemed to be moderate and somewhat sensible. Hence, he didn't last long.
Kristina Keneally: Roman Catholic. Here's a nice little quote from her wiki article:
"It was in fact her husband Ben who was more interested in a political career, relying on his friendship with Joe Tripodi. However, the party's affirmative action rules required a female candidate, so Keneally ran instead. In her inaugural speech she talked about her commitment to social justice, equal opportunity for women and her Roman Catholic faith."
In fact, she married into ALP royalty by meeting her husband at a World Youth Day, and did a Master of Arts in Religious Studies. You can't get much more Catholic than that. Note her connection to Joe Tripodi.
Barry O'Farrell: Liberal party and Roman Catholic.
The Powerbrokers:
Joe Tripodi: Roman Catholic of Calabrian descent. Labor powerbroker extraordinaire. With his many friends and paid for Labor party memberships, he and a small circle of others have been able to control Labor preselections for many years. With the control of preselections comes the power to stand over weak-minded, self-serving politicians whose only concern is ensuring they are preselected at the next election. If you think his behaviour is somewhat like the mafia in the his Calabrian homeland, you wouldn't be the first. Calabria is a beautiful part of Italy, but, according to leaked US cables, organised crime is so powerful there that, if it weren't part of Italy, it would be considered "a failed state".
Eddie Obeid: Lebanese Maronite Catholic. The Maronite Church is, as they say, "in full communion" with the Holy See of Rome.
I could go into the details of more of the cabinet ministers, but the Labor government in NSW is history. DO NOT FEAR! We will hear more of characters such as Tripodi and Obeid! Also, this is not a Labor-only problem by any means as you can see from the above liist. So there you have it, out of NSW' six most recent premiers, 5 have not just been Christian but Roman Catholic. How's THAT for variety of thought!
The main point I see in all this is that, even if you put aside the endless stream of gaffes and links to crime, etc, in the NSW Labor party, the fact that there was a tightly-knit inner-circle in the government of powerbrokers bringing in more people who agree with them, and who support them meant that NSW was doomed to bad government and bad decisions. EVEN IF THEY HAD HAD GOOD INTENTIONS! I don't doubt that some of them might have had good intentions at one stage or another, but without a plurality of ideas, the only effect could be stultification and insular, non-consultative decision making. If you surround yourself with people who are always "on your side" you won't get good decisions, or innovative thinking.
As it turned out, several of these people clearly seem to have had the interests of themselves and their friends in mind during most of their decision making. Without a variety of views, and a spread of power, bad decisions and self-interested people could not be excised, and so the whole party had to suffer. And, far, far worse than that - the whole STATE had to suffer. In the future I will write more about how to help ensure the powerbase of our government is more varied, vibrant and balanced.
For today, I wish to turn my attention to the narrowing of viewpoints within the top members of the two main parties in the federal government. This has been done before in this Sydney Morning Herald article, but here is an updated and expanded version. Below I have listed the religious affiliation of federal MPs who have a named position in parliament (ministers, shadow ministers, leader of the house, etc), in alphabetical order:
Tony Abbott: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Leader of the Opposition. At one stage was training to be a Priest.
Anthony Albanese: Roman Catholic (non-practicing) . Labor. Leader of the House and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.
Kevin Andrews: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services.
Bob Baldwin: UNKNOWN. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Tourism and Shadow Minister Regional Development.
Bruce Billson: UNKNOWN. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs.
Bronwyn Bishop: Presbyterian. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Seniors and Shadow Special Minister of State. Logic isn't her strongsuit, so perhaps religion is? Member of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship and climate-science denier.
Julie Bishop: Anglican. Liberal. Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Shadow Minister for Trade.
Chris Bowen: Atheist. Labor. Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. One of only three out of thirty federal ministers surveyed about their religion to respond as atheist. That's 10%. The percentage in the general population is about 20%.
David Bradbury: Unknown, but educated at a Catholic school. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer.
Jamie Briggs: Unknown, but educated at a Catholic school. Liberal. Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee. Essentially a career politician.
Anna Burke: Unknown. Labor. Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives.
Tony Burke: Catholic. Labor. Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
Mark Butler: Unknown. Labor. Minister for Mental Health and Ageing.
Anthony Byrne: Unknown but educated at a Catholic School. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Parliamentary Secretary for Trade.
Darren Chester: Unknown. Nationals. Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport.
Jason Clare: Unknown. Labor. Minister for Defence Materiel.
John Cobb: Unknown but has seven children which leads me to suspect some deeply held religious belief. Nationals. Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security.
Julie Collins: Unknown. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services.
Greg Combet: Atheist. Labor. Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
Simon Crean: Christian. Labor. Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for the Arts.
Mark Dreyfus: Jewish. Labor. Cabinet Secretary and Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. No idea how active he is in his faith, but he has been a board member for the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council, so I guess we can assume it at least colours his approach to matters concerning Israel. Interestingly he was asked by the Victorian Labor Party to report on branch stacking and make recommendations. Perhaps being Jewish he was seen, to some extent, to be outside the factionalism? Does this indicate that factionalism is still often, to some extent, along religious lines too?
Peter Dutton: Unknown. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing.
Justine Elliot: Unknown. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Trade.
Kate Ellis: Unknown. Labor. Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare. Minister for the Status of Women.
Craig Emerson: Roman Catholic. Labor. Minister for Trade.
Martin Ferguson: Unknown but educated at a Catholic School. Labor. Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism.
Teresa Gambaro: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance.
Peter Garrett: Non-denominational Christian. Labor. Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth.
Julia Gillard: Atheist. Labor. Prime Minister.
Gary Gray: Unknown. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia. Special Minister of State for the Public Service and Integrity. Special Minister of State.
Luke Hartsuyker: Unknown. Liberal. Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House. Shadow Minister for Regional Communications and Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport.
Joe Hockey: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Shadow Treasurer.
Greg Hunt: Anglican (unconfirmed) but educated at an Anglican School. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage. From the looks of his somewhat rabid support for spending tax-payer money on pumping religion into public schools, it's probably safe to assume he is still a firm adherent in some way.
Harry Jenkins: Unknown. Labor. Speaker, House of Representatives.
Michael Keenan: Unknown. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection.
Mike Kelly: Catholic. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
Catherine King: Catholic. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport and Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing.
Andrew Laming: Unknown. Liberal. Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health.
Sussan Ley: Unknown. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning and Shadow Minister for Employment Participation.
Ian Macfarlane: Unknown. Liberal National Party. Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources.
Jenny Macklin: Unknown. Labor. Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
Richard Marles: Unknown but educated at an Anglican school. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry and Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs.
Robert McClelland: Unknown. Labor. Attorney-General and Vice President of the Executive Council.
Sophie Mirabella: Greek Orthodox. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science.
Scott Morrison: Australian Christian Churches. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and Shadow Minister for Productivity and Population.
Brendan O'Connor: Unknown. Labor. Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Privacy and Freedom of Information and Minister for Justice.
Tanya Plibersek: Unknown. Labor.Minister for Social Inclusion and Minister for Human Services.
Christopher Pyne: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training and Manager of Opposition Business in the House. Strangely enough for someone so extremely religious and socially conservative, he is considered a member of the moderate faction of the Liberal party.
Don Randall: Christian. Liberal. Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government. I'm not sure of the details of his faith or denomination, but he obviously thinks believing in something supernatural (ie., unprovable) is very important.
Andrew Robb: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee and Shadow Minister for Finance, Deregulation and Debt Reduction.
Stuart Robert: Unknown. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel. I'll dig around more, but his social conservatism and views on handing out bibles at citizenship ceremonies seem to indicate a religious conviction. To be honest, there could be some serious debate about gay adoption to be had beyond the old left-wing/right-wing nonsense, but it seems to be much more reliable as a dog-whistle to either side of politics depending on the point-of-view expressed.
Nicola Roxon: Atheist. Labor. Minister for Health and Ageing.
Kevin Rudd: Anglican but raised Catholic. Labor. Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Bill Shorten: Unknown but educated at a jesuit Catholic school. Labor. Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services, Parliamentary Secretary for Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation.
Stephen Smith: Roman Catholic. Labor. Minister for Defence and Deputy Leader of the House.
Tony Smith: Unknown but educated at a Baptist school. Liberal. Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tax Reform.
Warren Snowdon: Catholic. Labor. Minister for Indigenous Health, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Centenary of ANZAC.
Andrew Southcott: Unknown but educated at an Anglican school. Liberal. Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare. Read the "About Saints" section. I found myself cringing for the sake of all the boys who go there...
Wayne Swan: Non-practicing Christian (his own description!). Labor. Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister. His equivocal response on the question of religion probably goes down a lot better with the highly religious voters in marginal electorates around Australia than any other non-religious response.
Warren Truss: Lutheran. Nationals. Leader of the Nationals and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. The link above has a speech he gave to the National Prayer Breakfast.
Malcolm Turnbull: Roman Catholic. Liberal. Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband. Also the leading member of a rare group in the community at large, but one that is over-represented in the political process (and probably always has been) - the super-wealthy.
Party | Total "Big Wigs" | Catholic(% of known) | Other Christian | Non-Christian Religious | Atheist | Unknown with Christian Education | Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Liberals | 27 | 7 (41%) | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 10 |
Labor | 32 | 7 (35%) | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
I left the Nationals out because there are only 3 in the sorts of positions that warranted inclusion in this list, and 2 are unknown. Their leader, Warren Truss, is a devout Lutheran.
For a brief analysis, I will deal only with the politicians for which religious affiliation has been ascertained so far. I also won't be assuming a certain faith now based on the politician's schooling.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistic's census stats, as of 2006, approximately 64% of the population is nominally Christian. Using the "known" values above, that percentage for senior politicians from both sides is 67%, with 14/17 = 82% for the Liberals and 11/20 = 55% for Labor. The Liberal party figure is absolutely astonishing to me. It is literally a step back in time to the early 70's in terms of being out of step with the population. The census value for Catholicism is roughly 25% in 2006. For the politicians the overall figure is 38%, with 7/17 =41 % for the Liberals and 7/20 = 35% for Labor. These figures are astonishing too if you expect your government to be in any way representative of its population, in order to fairly represent it.
If that were the case, we would expect to see 7 non-religious party members spread evenly throughout both sides of politics. Instead we see 4 atheists, all on the Labor party.
I think the main point is that the political parties lack variety in their leadership and party hierarchy. Hence you get results like both sides supporting every war Australia has followed America into in the last 10 years. Didn't they even want to try to differentiate themselves?
I don't want to analyse the figures too much for now though because too many of the values are unknown. Readers of this blog: Please help fill in the blanks! Knowledge is power :-)
People talk about needing to get more women into politics because it's out of sync with the general population. Very true. But then, so is the percentage of Christians in the Liberal party, Catholics in both parties, and very rich people in both parties. And thanks to the miracle of branch stacking, we also saw in NSW (until recently) an ethnic thread in the state's leadership that was out of step with the general population. So what should we do? Set targets for all sorts of things, based on the percentage of people with that affiliation/race/gender in the population?
Well, of course not. But for politicians to be required to state very clearly on their website their religious affiliation, their business associations, their wealth, and what their experience of the real world is, we might all be able to make more informed choices.
For a brief analysis, I will deal only with the politicians for which religious affiliation has been ascertained so far. I also won't be assuming a certain faith now based on the politician's schooling.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistic's census stats, as of 2006, approximately 64% of the population is nominally Christian. Using the "known" values above, that percentage for senior politicians from both sides is 67%, with 14/17 = 82% for the Liberals and 11/20 = 55% for Labor. The Liberal party figure is absolutely astonishing to me. It is literally a step back in time to the early 70's in terms of being out of step with the population. The census value for Catholicism is roughly 25% in 2006. For the politicians the overall figure is 38%, with 7/17 =41 % for the Liberals and 7/20 = 35% for Labor. These figures are astonishing too if you expect your government to be in any way representative of its population, in order to fairly represent it.
If that were the case, we would expect to see 7 non-religious party members spread evenly throughout both sides of politics. Instead we see 4 atheists, all on the Labor party.
I think the main point is that the political parties lack variety in their leadership and party hierarchy. Hence you get results like both sides supporting every war Australia has followed America into in the last 10 years. Didn't they even want to try to differentiate themselves?
I don't want to analyse the figures too much for now though because too many of the values are unknown. Readers of this blog: Please help fill in the blanks! Knowledge is power :-)
People talk about needing to get more women into politics because it's out of sync with the general population. Very true. But then, so is the percentage of Christians in the Liberal party, Catholics in both parties, and very rich people in both parties. And thanks to the miracle of branch stacking, we also saw in NSW (until recently) an ethnic thread in the state's leadership that was out of step with the general population. So what should we do? Set targets for all sorts of things, based on the percentage of people with that affiliation/race/gender in the population?
Well, of course not. But for politicians to be required to state very clearly on their website their religious affiliation, their business associations, their wealth, and what their experience of the real world is, we might all be able to make more informed choices.
