Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page i Bookhouse (Simon) ‘God is working for the Liberal Party and this fine, disturbing book arrives just in time to tell us how. Marion Maddox’s world is the political territory that lies neglected beneath the secular radar of this country. God Under Howard breaks the codes and tracks the Bible Belt strategies John Howard has brought from the US to advance his cause. The result is an eye-opening exploration of the real politics of Australia.’ David Marr ‘Marion Maddox rightly says, “We do Australia’s soul no service by forcing religion out of visible public life into unanalysed undercurrents”. She brings us a convincing and disturbing picture of the capacity of John Howard, and some of his friends, to co-opt God for their own political agenda. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that, when mainstream church leaders try to enter the discussion and reclaim the God they represent, Howard in effect tells them to “stop meddling” while at the same time taking advantage of what he sees as their capacity to deliver cheap welfare. This is an academically responsible but very readable book—one which should alert us all to significant dimensions of political cunning.’ Dorothy McRae-McMahon Retired Uniting Church Minister and Co-editor of the South Sydney Herald ‘There is no doubt that your childhood religious instruction underwrites your attitudes and prejudices for much of the rest of your life, but I am staggered at how these values can easily get lost in public life. Marion Maddox has attempted to do the impossible in spelling out the complicated place of religion in Australian politics today.’ Professor John Hewson Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page ii Bookhouse (Simon) By the same author For God and Country: Religious dynamics in Australian federal politics (2001) Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page iii Bookhouse (Simon) God Under Howard How the religious right has hijacked Australian politics Marion Maddox Allen & Unwin Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page iv Bookhouse (Simon) First published in 2005 Copyright © Marion Maddox 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Maddox, Marion. God under Howard : how the religious right has hijacked Australian politics. 1st ed. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 1 74114 568 6. 1. Religion and politics - Australia. 2. Church and state - Australia. 3. Religious right - Australia. 4. Australia - Politics and government - Religious aspects. I. Title. 322.10994 Set in 10.5/13.74 pt Sabon by Bookhouse, Sydney Printed by Griffin Press, Adelaide 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page v Bookhouse (Simon) To Shirley Maddox and Robert Maddox, models of thoughtful faith and generous politics Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page vi Bookhouse (Simon) Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page vii Bookhouse (Simon) Contents Contents Contents Preface and acknowledgements ix Chapter 1 Sunday morning at Earlwood Methodist 1 PART ONE WHITE PICKET FENCE Chapter 2 Bypassing Lazarus 29 Chapter 3 The politics of death 49 Chapter 4 Mothers and fathers 71 PART TWO RACE TO THE TOP Chapter 5 Secret politicians’ business 109 Chapter 6 Crossing the floor 140 Chapter 7 People like that 166 PART THREE MARKET VALUES Chapter 8 Think tanks 195 Chapter 9 Church, state and charity 228 Chapter 10 God under Howard 260 vii Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page viii Bookhouse (Simon) viii CONTENTS Epilogue Reclaiming Australia’s soul 295 Timeline of major events 320 Notes 325 Index 365 Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page ix Bookhouse (Simon) Preface and acknowledgements God Under Howard Preface and acknowledgements God Under Howard is the result of long cooking with contri- butions from many people. That there was an untold story in Australia’s negotiations between religion and politics, and that our collective poor understanding of those negotiations was working against the interests of the most marginalised in Australia, first came home to me in 1995. Having grown up in Sydney, I moved to Adelaide in 1989, married, and came to feel partly like a South Australian. On leave in Sydney from my job as a re- ligious studies academic, I became fascinated by the unfolding drama of Hindmarsh Island. Religious traditions were being dragged through first a scorching trial by media and, eventually, the full blaze of a Royal Commission. As the story progressed, it became increasingly obvious that among the many shortcom- ings the saga revealed was a woeful lack of understanding about religion on the part of media, lawyers and the public. As specu- lations about the supposed content of a secret-sacred tradition swirled through the stifling Adelaide media world and then were taken as fact and subjected to empirical tests in the Royal ix Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page x Bookhouse (Simon) x GOD UNDER HOWARD Commission, I began to reflect on how secular Australia’s inability to deal with religion on its own terms was producing, or at least making space for, substantial political consequences. My husband Michael Symons, who is, among many things a former investigative journalist turned professional writer, had been growing increasingly aghast at the blatantly ideological coverage the issue was receiving in virtually all mainstream media. He suggested we collaborate on a book about the saga. The litigious atmosphere which was by then threatening any publication containing the words ‘Hindmarsh Island’ meant the book was never published; but the process of writing it stimulated the reflections on religion-politics intersections which has fed my academic work ever since. It also produced some still unreported dimensions of the way a minority religious tradition became an icon of the strange ‘Us and Them’ politics that eventually cata- pulted Howard to power. Some of those revelations are in chapter five of this book. My debt to Michael in the collaborative research that uncovered them is apparent in the footnotes which draw on interviews he conducted with key players. Michael is also a visible presence in chapter four, which talks about our experiences of juggling work and family in a society increasingly remoulded in the image of Howard social conser- vatism. Less visible to the reader, but immeasurable to me, is Michael’s contribution to the entire book through our ongoing conversation over a decade, through his thoughtful comments on the text (and tireless Googling of Dominionist websites), through his willingness to fit his own writing around the role of home-based carer for the past five years so that I could pursue my career, and through providing, along with our children Dorothy and Lawrence, my living reminder of ‘family values’ (if not always the ones often associated with that term). After the Hindmarsh Island research, the next stage in the book’s fermentation was a two-year stint at the University of Adelaide. By then, I was well into a PhD in political philosophy, and relished the opportunity to immerse myself in a more nuts- Bh0946M-PressProofs.QX5 1/12/04 4:02 PM Page xi Bookhouse (Simon) PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi and-bolts view of Australian politics than had been possible in religious studies. Nevertheless, it isn’t every politics department that would hire a religious studies academic to fill a casual vacancy in Australian politics and, without the Adelaide depart- ment’s interdisciplinary broadmindedness, I might never have had the opportunity to develop my gut feeling about religion’s function as a mostly invisible but often powerful undercurrent in Australian politics. Conversations with colleagues there continued long after my contract wound up. I particularly thank Carol Bacchi, Carol Johnson and Jenny Stock for their ongoing friendship, encouragement and coaching on the finer points of Australian politics. In 1999–2000, I was the fortunate recipient of the Australian Parliamentary Fellowship, based in Parliament House, Canberra. The unparalleled research resources of the Parliamentary Library, and the generous access I was given by present and past Members and Senators, resulted in my first book, For God and Country: Religious dynamics in Australian federal politics, published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library in 2001. In the process of writing it, I became interested in the increasingly organised efforts of an American-style religious right to gain a foothold in Australia’s historically much more secular demo- cratic institutions. God Under Howard develops that theme in new directions. In mid-2000, my family and I moved to New Zealand so I could take up a position in religious studies at Victoria Univer- sity, Wellington. I joined a department with a high profile in the developing understanding of religion-politics connections in Australasia, and a very supportive environment to continue my Australian research.