Strewth: Freedom isn’t free

Michaelia Cash has quietly placed the Religious Discrimination Bill back on the political coffee table.

Michaelia Cash.

Michaelia Cash has placed the Religious Discrimination Bill back on the political coffee table. After the faithful expressed frustration with Christian Porter’s failure to pass the 2019 election promise, the new Attorney-General has quietly started meeting with church groups. Remember when Scott Morrison said fixing laws that discriminated against LGBTI kids was his top priority? “I will be taking action to ensure amendments are introduced as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a non-state school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality,” the Messiah from the Shire preached on October 12, 2018, during the heady days of the Wentworth by-election and Philip Ruddock’s review. Cash’s department told Senate estimates last month that it had not conducted any consultations since January 2020, well before the pandemic apparently stalled progress on the two exposure drafts and Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry.

Thoughts and prayers

Freedom for Faith has met with Cash. The Christian legal think tank penned an open letter to federal politicians asking them to “make their position clear to all voters so that they can decide at the ballot box whether we should vote for them”. The FFF’s board – comprising professor Patrick Parkinson, Queensland Uni; professorMichael Quinlan, Notre Dame; associate professor Neil Foster, Newcastle Uni; lecturer Kim Bailey, Charles Sturt Uni; and Pastor Mark Edwards – has four demands: protection from discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity; the ability of faith groups to “shape” their membership, leadership and staffing; freedom of speech; and the right “without interference from the government of any state or territory to decide how we pray, who we pray for and for what we pray”. The group is organising a Religious Freedom Weekend, from this Friday, where priests will promote the need for new laws before the next election. The Australian Christian Lobby is asking all faiths to get involved, in its social media advertising: “Your help is needed to send a clear message to our leaders in Canberra that this legislation is urgently needed.” Be careful what you wish for …

Better the devil

Enter Brother Samael Demo-Gorgon (aka founder and former Sex Party candidate Robin Bristow). As the spiritual leader of the Noosa Temple of Satan – “Australia’s fastest-growing religion” – Bristow has signed up the Dark Lord to join FFF’s call to prayer. “While we disagree with you on the need for a religious discrimination bill, we think the Religious Freedom Weekend provides a great opportunity for Satanists and Christians to join together in support for religious freedom FOR ALL faiths,” Bristow wrote to the FFF. “Unlike you, we’ll even go a step further to say that all Australians have a right to freedom FROM religious.” Like an interventionist God, Annastacia Palaszczuk recently blocked the Beelzebub believers’ request to deliver religious instruction in Queensland, despite a petition supported by parents at four schools. “If religious freedom laws are eventually introduced by the Morrison government, we look forward to sharing with Christians in all the privileges that will be extended to us,” Bristow said. “With these laws, Satanists will be able to get on with the job of realising Satan’s great plans for the principalities of Noosa, Queensland and Australia.” Bristow told Strewth he would be asking all devil worshippers across Australia (including those within Melbourne’s 25km ring of fire) to light candles, put out pentagrams and spill some chicken blood to mark the occasion. If chicken blood isn’t readily available, Bristow advises beetroot juice would be a suitable substitute.

Crazy satanists 🤘😈 pic.twitter.com/u9v5rDnboa

— NoosaTempleOfSatan (@OfNoosa) May 29, 2021

I’d tap that

What’s your favourite part of the AFP’s app sting? That it introduced to our lexicon the concept of “criminal influencers”, those with clout in the underworld who peddled the not-so encrypted phones? “I’d love to see their posts: ‘Try and avoid a wool blend with your balaclava, it can get itchy and you don’t want distractions on a high pressure job,’ ” comedian Lehmo joked. Or perhaps it’s the fact that the 800 suspected sinners who have been arrested worldwide “paid a subscription of between $2000 and $4000” to use ANOM, according to AFP deputy commissioner Ian McCartney. That’s right, the masterminds were paying $US1700 every six months to the FBI, for the privilege of the police tapping their smartphones.

Freudian slip

“I don’t think Dan Andrews drove the sub that took Harold Holt to China,” Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas claimed, in response to the Liberal tin fall conspiracy theories. That said … both did vanish in the same seaside town of Portsea, so surely we can’t rule it out just yet.

Deep fake?

The Masked Singer

Andrew Lloyd Webber says Boris Johnson will have to arrest him if the British PM wants to stop his new musical Cinderella opening without social distancing later this month. Under current laws, West End theatres can operate at only 50 per cent capacity and rumour has it that Johnson may delay the June 21 easing of restrictions. “We are going to open come hell or high water,” Lloyd-Webber declared. “We will say: ‘Come to the theatre and arrest us.’ ” The composer insists he has seen scientific proof that theatres don’t spread Covid-19 and plans to sue if his six theatres – which cost $1.8m a month to keep closed – can’t fully reopen. “I’ve seen the science from the tests; don’t ask me how,” he said. “If the government ignore their own science, we have the mother of all legal cases against them. If Cinderella couldn’t open, we’d go, ‘Look, either we go to law about it or you’ll have to compensate us’.” His first musical in six years has a cast of 34, and he is relying on selling tickets for every single seat to recoup the $10m investment. “I don’t know Boris at all. He has shown no interest in getting in touch.” If only Sir Andrew hadn’t retired from the House of Lords in 2017, he could give his conservative peers a metaphorical slap in the face. Meanwhile in France, President Emmanuel Macron was literally slapped in the face by a man during a visit to southeastern France.

French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped across the face by a man during a trip to southeast France on Tuesday. Macron approached a barrier to shake hands with a man who slapped the 43-year-old across the face in the village of Tain-l´Hermitage in the Drome region. pic.twitter.com/tk8VYwMo5m

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) June 8, 2021

Sugar, sugar (tax)

Q: “You’re not going to try and tax chocolate too, are you?”

AMA president Omar Khorshid: “Only those drinks with absolutely no nutritional value. There is a lot of nutritional value in chocolate.”

“More than 2.4 billion litres of sugary drinks are consumed every year in Australia. That’s enough to fill 960 Olympic sized swimming pools,” AMA President, Dr Omar Khorshid said. The AMA called for a tax on sugary drinks to tackle chronic disease.

— AMA (NSW) (@AMA_NSW) June 9, 2021

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