The need for Family First was underscored by this week’s decision of Angus Taylor’s Liberals to wave through special favours for a radical LGBTQA+ political activist group so it can indoctrinate children into gender-fluid ideology at taxpayers’ expense.
Equality Australia, which fights for the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of gender-confused minors, is set to be given Deductible Gift Recipient status under special legislation agreed to by the Albanese Government and now effectively waved through by the Liberals.
Family First National Director Lyle Shelton said a Senate committee report handed down yesterday recommended that Parliament pass the legislation granting the activist organisation special tax privileges. The Liberals did not object.
“Equality Australia has already been rejected by regulators, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court as a Public Benevolent Institution,” Mr Shelton said.
“Instead of accepting those rulings, Equality Australia lobbied Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh to change the law to give them what the courts would not.”
“How can the lobbying of Equality Australia, be categorised in the same way as the work of the RSPCA, Crimestoppers and Kidsafe as this bill will do”, Mr Shelton asked.
“The ATO indicates that this special treatment is only applied “in exceptional circumstances”, the Assistant Treasurer and now the Liberals need to explain what “exceptional circumstances” justify Equality Australia being given this special treatment”.
Mr Shelton said the committee’s recommendation effectively made Equality Australia “more equal than other political lobby groups” by granting it a taxpayer-subsidised fundraising advantage.
“What is deeply concerning is that the Liberals did not object in their dissenting comments and now appear ready to wave this special legislation through the Senate,” he said.
“If Equality Australia is granted tax-deductible status, then the Australian Christian Lobby and other political lobbyists should also be granted the same status.”
Mr Shelton said Equality Australia was not a charity helping the poor or disadvantaged but a political activist group campaigning to reshape Australian law and culture.
“Equality Australia campaigns for so-called ‘gender affirming care’ for children — puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgeries that permanently damage young bodies. This is experimental gender conversion therapy which is now banned in the UK, Nordic countries and much of the US, ” he said.
“Equality Australia also runs legal cases against the religious freedom of Christian schools, seeking to force them to comply with radical rainbow ideology in hiring decisions, girls’ sport and the accommodation of biological males who identify as girls in girls’ private spaces at school.”
Mr Shelton also renewed Family First’s call for Governor General Sam Mostyn to resign as patron of Equality Australia.
“It is inappropriate for the Governor-General to serve as patron of a partisan political activist organisation — especially one now receiving special legislative treatment from the government,” he said.
“The office of Governor-General should be above politics.”
Mr Shelton said the episode demonstrated that Angus Taylor and the Liberal Party were not serious about protecting children from harmful experimental gender medicine or defending the rights of faith-based schools.
“If the Liberals were serious about protecting children from gender ideology and defending the religious freedom of Christian schools, they would oppose this legislation,” he said.
“Instead, they are waving it through.”
Mr Shelton said the situation highlighted why Family First’s voice in Australian politics was urgently needed.
“Tax-deductible status is a public subsidy,” he said.
“Australians should not be forced to bankroll a radical political movement that seeks to indoctrinate children and dismantle the freedoms of parents, churches and Christian schools.”
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