Gleanings Site

A couple of weeks ago, we launched our new website, christiangleanings.com. We believe that this new site will better help us in our mission of “equipping Australian Christians with the knowledge and tools necessary to live as a light and salt in the Australian social and political spheres.” The new site lets us do a variety of things that we simply couldn’t with this one. As a consequence, we will not be updating this site any more.

We had a surge in visitors in the first few days that the new site was up. Thanks to everyone who took the time to check out the new site. We’d like to continue to encourage you to take a look around, and we’d always love to hear your feedback. Please let us know what you think, and also feel free to use the Discuss → link below every item to provide us with feedback and discuss individual items.

For more on our site, check out the About page.

Child Abuse

The number of children requiring protection from abuse increased 10% in the past year, according to a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released Jan 20. The report, Child Protection Australia 2008-09 showed Aboriginal Children were eight times more likely to be on a care and protection order. There were 3717 investigations of child abuse in WA in 2008-09, of which 1523 were substantiated.

For report: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/35/10859.pdf

Prayer Attacked

The WA Greens is calling for the removal of the use of the Lord’s Prayer in the Upper House of the WA Parliament. It has made a submission to the parliamentary committee which is reviewing the rules of the House. The Greens want a minute silence instead.

For story: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/6706740/greens-threat-to-lords-prayer

Abbott Attacked

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has been under attack by anti-Christians for promoting religious education in schools and abstinence before marriage in a recent women’s magazine.

For article on Abbott and the Bible by Ben-Peter Terpstra: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2010/01/abbott-and-the-bible

Action: Saltshakers says that like him, or not, Mr Abbott needs to be encouraged to stand firm against the attacks from those who think God is dead or even never was. They are asking that people please write to him tony.abbott.mp@aph.gov.au and encourage him to stand firm on Christian principals, the read the Word and stay true to it as he serves the people of Australia.

Internet Filtering

While welcoming internet filtering of some extreme pornographic material by the Fed Govt, Saltshakers in their Feb 2010 newsletter, expressed concern with the process where pro-life websites could also be banned. A trial of the filtering programme last year also included a ban on the site of Abortion TV, a pro-life webpage that contained photographs of aborted babies. Saltshakers is concerned that websites could simply be banned because they were deemed unacceptable to the authorities or people administering the system. “We need to know who will be responsible, and what accountability/transparency there will be,” Saltshakers says.

Pride Parade

The organisers of the homosexual march in Perth are asking for comments as they investigate whether to continue the march.

Action: As reported in The Advocate (Feb 2010, pg 6), The Baptist Churches of WA is encouraging Christians to write a submission to the organisers of the homosexual annual march. The organisers are seeking public comment on the event. “I encourage churches to place submissions with Pride WA in regards to the Pride Parade as they have asked for public submissions. This is an opportunity for the local church Christians to submit their thoughts and opinions about the event,” Baptist Director of Ministries, Mark Wilson said.

For the Advocate article p6: http://www.theadvocate.tv/ADV0210.pdf

Comments can be emailed to pride@pridewa.asn.au

Bunbury Syringes

Bunbury has received WA Govt funding to provide needles in a fixed address, to help drug users inject themselves, according to a December report in the Bunbury Mail. The WA Substance Users Association has been operating a mobile service for several years in Bunbury but feels that a fixed site is needed. The Association says that a fixed site would hopefully create a springboard to expand throughout the South West and Great Southern.

For story and to leave comment: http://www.bunburymail.com.au/news/local/news/general/syringe-centre-in-bunbury/1693974.aspx

Advertising Complaints

The Advertising Standards Bureau, which is a body of advertisers that self-regulates industry codes that it has developed, has rejected 23 complaints received from the public in January against its members, including six complaints against the graffiti covered “Wicked” campervans. The website shows that no complaints were supported by the Bureau in January. This was a lower number of complaints than that rejected in the previous month. Last year the Bureau received 600 complaints of which 80 they said breached their industry code of ethics.

A Case Study: Wicked campers operates under the catchphrase “Pay with your soul not your wallet”

The vehicles are covered with graffiti slogans such as “Don’t assume I’m not cheap. Meaningless punishment, running around getting whacked off scooby snacks, Honk if you had it last night, I lost my virginity but I still have the box it came in.”

Defending the slogan “Honk if you had it last night” Wicked campers says:

“It does not say what it is. It is not our fault that some people may read into this in a rude manner. Children would not read it like this, so this makes it suitable for its intended audience. We apologise that we can not control where people’s minds take them, they read what they choose to read. I hope you can see that we have not breached any code of ethics with this slogan, we especially have not breached section 2.3”

Action: To lodge a complaint against an advert: http://www.adstandards.com.au/pages/page38.asp

To find out how the self regulation works and to look at what adverts are causing offence and why the bureau has rejected the complaints visit: http://www.adstandards.com.au/pages/casestudy_search.asp

Girl Sexualisation

Choicez Media has released a new DVD called “Beautiful”, which is targeted at young women. The DVD addressed the impact of sexualisation of girls. Choicez Media also has DVDs on the problems with pornography.

For more: http://www.choicez.com.au/index.shtml

ACL Twitters

ACL managing director Jim Wallace is now twittering. By following Jim you will receive tweets from the corridors of power and you will learn how the ACL team are bringing Christ’s influence into the Parliaments of our nation. You will also be able to help to make a bigger impact by responding quickly and by helping us spread the world. To follow Jim on twitter: https://twitter.com/JimWallaceACL