Christians vow show of force at next federal election

The Australian Christian Lobby says the PM risks the election if he doesn’t include a platform to uphold religious freedoms.

The new head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Martyn Iles. Picture: Kym Smith

Christians are being abandoned by both major parties, the new head of Australia’s peak Christian lobby says as he vows to hold Malcolm Turnbull to his pledge to protect religious freedoms following the No campaign’s defeat in the same-sex marriage postal survey.

In his first interview since taking over as managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby in February, Martyn Iles said the Prime Minister must take a platform to uphold religious freedoms to the next election or risk alienating hundreds of thousands of believers and triggering a grassroots campaign that could tip the balance against the government.

The 29-year-old lawyer and former small-business owner said the ACL had learnt from its experience in the gay marriage campaign and will shift to a permanent campaign footing to ­advance religious freedoms in a deliberate attempt to mimic the tactics of progressive activists over the past decade.

Mr Iles’s vision was to transform the ACL into a genuine grassroots movement and ­expand its support base from 120,000 to about 250,000 in the next couple of years.

He said the ACL would “fill the niche that had been left by the ­desertion of major parties from Judeo-Christian social and cultural values”. “While the church is slowly ­diminishing in terms of ­absolute numbers, it is true that what’s left is a very highly galvanised base of Australians with conviction who increasingly feel like they don’t have a natural home in politics because they see the values which they hold dear are not clearly ­represented with conviction, certainly by the major parties,’’ he said.

Mr Iles, who took over from Lyle Shelton, said his immediate target was the review of religious freedoms being chaired by former Liberal attorney-general Philip Ruddock. He said it must address concerns that Christians’ views on marriage could ­expose them and leave them vulnerable to discrimination or legal action.

“If the solution proposed by the government is a quick-fix ­solution or is inadequate then ACL and other groups stand ready to campaign vigorously in strategic seats that could change the outcome of the federal election in 2019,” Mr Iles said. “The government has an obligation to make sure that the beliefs of millions of Australians are not unlawful, because it is a fact that right now traditional beliefs on the question of marriage and therefore associated issues like family, gender and sexuality are contrary to what the law says.’’

Mr Iles said the ACL would ­remain non-party partisan and campaign on a set of core issues to influence policy and election ­results, but noted a key factor would be to secure Labor agreement to commit to the defence of religious freedoms going into the next federal poll.

Of the 17 electorates that ­returned No votes in November’s survey, 12 were in western Sydney, nine of which were held by Labor MPs. “It’s very simple for Labor. They’re in serious trouble in their heartland in western Sydney if they don’t make a serious commitment on religious freedom,” Mr Iles saif. “The problem, I think, for Labor is it will be very difficult for them to have robust religious freedom protections when that is not in their current policy platform, whereas a lot of so-called rainbow agenda items are in their policy platform.

“They are going to be very much hamstrung or they will make promises they can’t keep.’’