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The Family First Party is a minor political party in Australia. It receives its support from various Christian groups, predominantly Pentecostal ones. The party has its main support base in Adelaide and especially in the north-eastern suburban seat of Makin, where Family First Party preferences played a significant role in assisting the Liberal Party of Australia to win a close-fought battle at the 2004 election. The party's leader is Andrea Mason, who headed its Senate ticket in South Australia. The Family First Party has one elected representative: Andrew Evans, a member of the South Australian Legislative Council. They will also have one senator, Steve Fielding from Victoria, when the next Senate is inaugurated in 2005, and may win additional Senate seats in South Australia and Tasmania.

Although party leader Andrea Mason denies that Family First are a Christian party , party founder Andrew Evans was the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Australia for twenty years , and a large number of their candidates are pastors or members of Assemblies of God churches. In New South Wales, 11 of their 23 candidates for the 2004 legislative election are from a single Assemblies of God church, the Hawkesbury Church in Windsor.

2004 Federal election

The party agreed to share preferences with the Liberal-National Coalition at the 2004 election (but see below). This caused some controversy when, the day before the election, Queensland National senate candidate Barnaby Joyce publicly slammed the party, calling them "the lunatic Right", and stating that "these are not the sort of people you do preference deals with."

Joyce's comments came in response to an incident where a Family First supporter said that lesbians were "witches who should be burned at the stake" and an incident in which eggs were thrown at Greens supporters. Family First deny any involvement in egging the Green volunteers, and have disciplined the supporter responsible for the "witches" statement.

Family First did better than initially expected at the election, picking up 2.0 percent of the vote nationally, and outpolling the Australian Democrats by more than 70,000 votes. This resulted in an unexpected and controversial victory in Victoria, where candidate Steve Fielding was elected on preferences, despite being outpolled by the Australian Greens' David Risstrom by a ratio of more than four to one first-preference votes. The party also came close to picking up a second Senate seat in South Australia, with party leader Andrea Mason narrowly missing out. Their preference also assisted the performance of the governing Liberal Party of Australia in several seats, such as in the party's base, the highly marginal South Australian seat of Makin.

Sexual and religious attitudes

Joyce also pointed to a pamphlet published by the party's Victorian Senate candidate Danny Nalliah stating that, among other things, mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples were Satan's strongholds and that people should pray for their destruction. Mason, the party's leader, also struck out against the Greens, stating, that "The Greens and Democrats policies aim to remove discrimination against what they term as LGBTI people...they want to see that transvestites and others have the right to teach our children"(Sydney Morning Herald).

Family First's uncompromising attitudes towards homosexuality were also demonstrated in their direction of preferences in the 2004 election. While Family First directed their preferences to the conservative Coalition ahead of Labor, they reversed this in the seats of Brisbane and Leichhardt because Ingrid Tall (Liberal candidate for Brisbane) is a lesbian, and Warren Entsch (Liberal for Leichhardt) supports gay marriage. In contrast, a Liberal MP who admitted to having an affair while his wife was pregnant received Family First's preferences over Labor.

Family First do not acknowledge families with same-sex partnerships (currently, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized), stating their affirmation of "marriage as being a union of a man and a woman", and that "family grows out of heterosexual relationships between men and women".

According to a Radio National interview with Andrew Evans, Family First stands for "families, and family values". He defined families as being "Mums and Dads, Grandpas and Grandmas, boys and girls, heterosexual, and singles." When taken in conjunction with the common Christian belief that homosexual thoughts are just another temptation, while homosexual actions are a sin, this statement can be seen as saying the only people they don't represent are practicing homosexuals. How the Family First party reconcile the fact that some homosexuals are parents or grandparents of children through previous heterosexual relationships is unclear.

Similar Parties

The Christian Democratic Party has existed under various names since 1974, and was Australia's dominant Christian party for most of that time. It espouses policies very similar to those of Family First, and in the 2004 election the two parties directed preferences to one another.

Despite these similarities, the CDP has never had anywhere near the level of support Family First has managed to attract within a few years of its emergence. One possible reason for this is an Australian reluctance to mingle religion and politics; where Family First have striven to present themselves as a secular party, the CDP emphasises their Christian beliefs, and their leader Fred Nile is an ordained minister.

The other Christian party of note is the Democratic Labor Party, a Catholic party based in Melbourne. Also known as "the Movement", it was once Australia's fourth largest party, but now has minimal support. It was founded in 1954, and its collapse in the 1970s prompted the founding of the CDP. While it still does moderately well in Victorian senate polling, it is no longer a significant influence on national politics.

External links

• Family First Party website
• Family First policies
• Family First family policy (PDF)
• Paradise Community Church - birthplace of Family First
• ABC RN report
• The people behind Family First
• Crikey Media's Family First files
• One AoG member's view of party
• Anti-Andrew Evans site

• Australian political parties