Fred launches kooky survey in Bradfield

By
Ben Raue
-
33

Fred Nile has sent out a strange survey to voters in Bradfield, asking them whether they support or oppose a series of statements, many strongly weighted towards Nile’s positions. These include:

  • “Jesus Christ is the Son of God”
  • “We should do what the Greenies want and let any foreigner in”
  • “Australia needs a ten-year moratorium on Muslim immigration, which is the official policy of the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)”
  • “The Federal Government should have the power to deport any Muslim”

Nile then follows up with asking voters which of a select group of politicians “have earned my respect”, including Rudd and some of his ministers, senior federal Liberals and senior state politicians, as well as Nile himself, Gordon Moyes, Bob Brown, Robert Brown (the Shooters Party MP), Barnaby Joyce and Steve Fielding.

It’s difficult to work out how this is supposed to help the CDP campaign in the by-election, beyond some fairly obvious push-polling. I don’t expect many voters will bother to respond to such a survey, and it seems like a bizarre use of resources.

The full survey below the fold.

Click to enlarge

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33 COMMENTS

  1. Wouldn’t it be funny if a whole heap of respondents just ticked Gordon Moyes as the politician who’d earned their respect.

  2. The survey is also online here: http://votingchristian.net/survey.htm

    It adds some questions about where and when respondents wight be voting. I guess it never claims to be an anonymous survey.

    There’s also a PowerPoint document (not exactly web-savvy) containing images of all the candidates. If you download it, and remove the cropping mask on the image of the third candidate it reveals the rest of the photo where he is actually big-game fishing whilst holding a can of beer. Joseph Pender is listed there as a student, but probably more correctly should be listed as “high-school student” I think he’s even wearing his school uniform in that photo.

  3. More to the point, something needs to happen in this country to prevent RACIST MORONS from spreading anti-Muslim and anti-refugee propaganda (or push-polls) as the above. Where the hell is the AEC to step in and remove such vile bigotry from our ‘democratic’ processes?

  4. There have been attempts in the past to push “truth in advertising” laws for elections which would require parties to tell the truth, which would cover some of what Fred says in his survey, but they are generally considered to be impossible to implement. The AEC takes care of the conduct of the election but they don’t really have a role in monitoring what candidates say.

  5. ‘Truth in advertising’ laws are mainly about stopping false statements about other parties/candidates, so wouldn’t stop the anti-muslim rhetoric.

    The One Nation candidate may be escaping being crucified by the media, but these guys certainly should be.

  6. I’m not really sure what answer he’s looking for in the question about the 4G mobiles?

    Is Fred Nile suddenly a tech nerd, or does he support people getting ripped off by phone companies? Maybe he wants us to write more letters. In God’s language of course, English.

  9. I would say that he’s probably trying to get the attention of voters who might otherwise not know what his party stands for and/or the difference between the Christian Democrats and the other parties on various issues. It’s a publicity stunt to grab the attention of voters

    I hope he’s not going to use the results of this survey to attempt to draw any “conclusions”. If he does, he will be called on it because of the leading questions and he won’t look good

    But the “tick the politicians you like” box is confusing. Why is he mixing state politicians with federal politicians? Why Nathan Rees and John Della Bosca and no Barry O’Farrell? Why Steve Fielding and not Nick Xenephon? What’s his selection criteria for the politicians that are included?

  11. What a moron. My favourite one is “Each year the minimum legal age for smoking should be raised by one year.”

    Yes Fred, every single year.

    And “We should follow the Greenies’ plan of ending sheep and cattle grazing”

    WTF? What a pathetic little ego stroke.

  12. “The Federal Government should have the power to deport any Muslim”

    What the hell? To where? What if they weren’t born overseas? What a disgusting bigot. He will be so confused if he ends up in hell.

  14. Dear Reverend Nile,

    I refer to your advertisement in a North Shore newspaper and the online ‘survey’ – http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB229WD5LT8XL – that it promoted. I thought I should point out a number of issues in the survey that may interest you.

    Question 2 states that “We should do what the Greenies want and just let any foreigner in.” This is blatant misrepresentation of ‘Greenie’ policy, which at no point, either in rhetoric or actuality, advocates letting ‘any foreigner in.’

    Question 3 states that “Immigration policy should give preference to persecuted Christians.” As you may know, or could perhaps find from legal advise, setting immigration criteria based upon something such as religion is discriminatory and illegal under Australian law. Further, nations that have used this bigoted criteria have found that people simply say that they are whatever religion that is required for immigration and continue to practice their own religion or, indeed, no religion at all.

    Question 7 states that “Australia should employ the Fijian Navy to intercept illegal immigrants.” Now, while I realise that your bid for the Senate failed and as such you may not have a firm grasp on Federal issues, I am able to advise you that since 2006 Fiji has been a military dictatorship that has continually pushed back elections, dismissed the judicial system and abused human rights. Despite you clearly low opinion of asylum seekers, I trust that you would not want to fund a military dictatorship to ‘intercept’ said asylum seekers. On a side not, Reverend, people found to be refugees are not ‘illegal’, indeed, they are excercising their legal right to seek asylum under the UN Convention for Refugees that Australia is a signatory to, but we’ll leave that for the moment.

    Question 8 states that “Australia needs no more Muslim schools and no more mosques.” I refer you to my response to question 3 and add that anti-discrimination laws are applied both to citizens and residents of Australia and potential immigrants. Thus, any proposal to quash development applications for a school or place of worship based on the religion would be rightly condemned by Australia’s judicial system.

    Question 9 states that “The Federal Government should have the power to deport any Muslim.” Now this one is beyond stupid. What if they were born in Australia, as well over 50% of Australian Muslims are? Are you seriously saying that Australian citizenship should be revoked based on religion. That doesn’t sound very Christian to me, Reverend.

    Question 10 states that “Climate changes are natural and are not threatening to destroy the world.” All I can do is refer you to any credible scientific organisation on earth. The CSIRO, UNESCO, US Environmental Agency and EU Environmental Agency are good places to start.

    Question 13 states that “We should follow the Greenies’ plan of ending sheep and cattle grazing.” I refer you to my response to Question 2, and point out, again, that this is not in Green Party policy, though naturally should you find it I am happy to be corrected.

    Thank you for taking the time to read my email. I would appreciate a response to my concerns at your earliest convenience.

    Kind regards

    Hamish Coffee (resident of NSW)

  15. Nile’s groups are crazier than One Nation but they have never received the media attention. Here we have a party campaigning agaisnt the religious freedom of a significant group of Australians, will we hear a word on this from those who complain that a bill of rights is a threat to religious freedom?

  17. I just did the survey putting in all the answers I figured they don’t want to hear. My vieiw is that sites like this should be used against the people who create them

  18. Great find Ben. I note that this is authorised by M Darby. Could this be Michael Darby, father of Douglas Darby who was expelled from the Christian democratic party following a host of racist and anti-Muslim emails?

    Like father, like son it seems.

  19. It almost certainly is. Michael Darby is Fred Nile’s right-hand man now and campaign manager for Bradfield. Sounds like he was the brains behind the nine-candidate strategy.

  23. Regardless of whether you agree with the statements or not, I’m not sure it’s push polling as much as simply a (somewhat effective) strategy in garnering controversy and publicity. Remember, the CDP only received 1.74% of vote in Bradfield in 2007, compared to the Greens 11.26%. I can’t imagine they have a substantial war chest for their campaign.

    If you’re really outraged, perhaps you may want to look into whether the site nor and flyer comply with electoral regulations. I think you’ll find neither are properly authorized.

  25. I’ve got a CDP leaflet from the last election here (ie Paul Green’s Senate campaign), and it’s focus is on muslim immigration as well. Perhaps they have something of an obsession with surveys, because it quotes the results of polls from the Sunday programme and the Daily Telegraph which allegedly show broad community support for their anti-muslim policies.

    They then call on “the next government to implement a social impact study on Sharia Law and Muslims in Australia. Whilst performing this task, the CDP policy of a 10-year moratorium then gives the 340,000 Muslims already living in Australia the opportunity to show that they obey Australian laws and embrace the Australian way of life.”

    Then there’s this bit: ‘CDP believes that it’s every nations’ sovereign right to choose whom crosses into their boarders. [sic]”

    And Paul gets endorsements from both Fred and Gordon.

  26. Dear Fred,

    I just received your flyer in the Bradfield electorate, and if it is genuine, then Fred Nile is either a loopy or a Fascist!

    Your subversive vilification of Muslims is right up there with the Nazi persecution of the Jews!

    I always thought Fred Nile was comical, now I think that he’s downright dangerous.

    Sorry, I won’t fill out your bigoted form, I think I’ll just tell Fred Nile how I feel about him by saying “Get fucked”!

    What drugs are you people taking?

    Regards,
    Mick

  27. Once again Fred Nile is forcing me to ask myself, ‘is this a joke?’

    The guy should be out on the footpath selling pencils from a cup and wearing a sandwich board.

  28. WE NEED A BILL OF RIGHTS!!!
    This was persecutary and disgusting!!!!!! I hope its actually a hoax!!!
    revolting man!

  29. I think you can answer “Yes” and “No” to a question at the same time. I’m not sure if it worked but you can have checked, so it looks like they used check boxes instead of radio buttons.

  31. This is beyond idiocy. Fred Nile has reached an all new low. This man should be kicked out so to end his ego-tripping god-complex.

    Hi andrew, thanks for the link. I joined and sent it out to all my Christian friends. Might receive some hate mail but meh.

    How dare he step out of line like this?! I wish I lived in Bradfield just so I could tick Gordon Moyes lol. Check out Moyes’ website. Even I, a conservative’s ultimate nemesis, love how he is in tune with real life. His humility and Christ-like way astounds me even if I don’t like Family First or agree with all his views. He handled his expulsion wonderfully compared with Fred’s venomous propoganda smear campaign against him!

    The pastor at my recently former church ran in CDP. She’s a very vocal supporter of them. I, for one, will never vote for CDP, her or Fred.

    kme, the T-shirt idea’s not too bad actually…

  32. Fred Nile purports to represent Christians by virtue of the name of his party, The Christian Democrats. Well I am a Christian and nothing he has ever said represent what I believe, maintain or value in social, political or even theological terms. When he speaks let him speak for himself and himself alone. That way there can be no misunderstanding about this.

Comments are closed.