Election 2022: Australian Christian Lobby to take on ‘rebel’ Liberal MPs

The Australian Christian Lobby is launching a campaign that could unseat key Liberal rebels who crossed the floor to support Labor in killing off the ­religious freedom bill.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Martyn Iles. Picture: AAP

The Australian Christian Lobby is launching a campaign that could unseat key Liberal rebels who crossed the floor to support Labor in killing off the government’s ­attempt to legislate greater protections for religious freedom.

ACL managing director Martyn Iles said the MPs who crossed the floor had tried to compromise Christian schooling and endangered the ability of faith-based educators to teach in accordance with their ethos.

He told The Australian the campaign would target the Tasmanian seat of Bass held by Bridget Archer on 0.4 per cent, the Sydney seat of Reid held by Fiona Martin on 3.2 per cent and the eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth held by Dave Sharma on 1.3 per cent. “I think some of these seats will come down to very narrow margins,” Mr Iles said.

He said legislation of new religious freedom protections was a key election promise that had been dishonoured by the Liberal rebels, who included Trent Zimmerman in the safe seat of North Sydney and Katie Allen in the seat of Higgins in Victoria on a margin of 3.7 per cent. The ACL campaign will also target Mayo in South Australia held by independent Rebekha Sharkie.

“A promise is a promise. And the fact that you have rebel MPs prepared to undermine it, I think it shows that, in sections of the government, there is a belief they don’t have to worry about what they would call the base, their core constituency,” Mr Iles said.

He said social conservatives and people of faith were increasingly prepared to switch their vote to Labor or minor parties out of frustration at the government.

“The mood, I must say, among these constituencies is very much that they need to break the cycle of being taken for granted,” he said. “If that means they have to cast a vote which makes them uncomfortable in the short term but (creates) a longer-term opportunity for a Coalition to reflect and rebuild – I am encountering many people happy to do that.”

The ACL will deploy a “volunteer army” of 7700 to help promote its campaign, to feature on billboards, flyers, robocalls and social media. Over the past three years, it has developed a campaign infrastructure and has 24,906 financial donors and 259,000 members in total.

“We’re taking a big-picture view. It goes beyond this election,” Mr Iles said. “What we are doing is about changing the calculus in political campaigns to elevate issues … of importance to social conservatives and people of faith.”

In February, Mr Sharma, Ms Archer, Dr Allen, Dr Martin and Mr Zimmerman crossed the floor to vote for changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, backed by Ms Sharkie and Labor, which would prevent religious schools from discriminating against gay and transgender students.