The MLC, David Clarke, has stacked Liberal Party branches and fixed pre selections across NSW in a bid to take control of the NSW Division of the Liberal Party. It is a bid that has been widely perceived as successful.

Clarke is seen as a spokesman and leader (at a political level) of Opus Dei, a lay Catholic organisation with goals analogous to Catholic Action, which was headed by Bob Santamaria and which split the ALP 60 years ago and kept it out of office for 16 years.

Clarke’s supporters in NSW formed a faction called the religious right, although members preferred to call their faction the “mainstream”. The faction’s policy is that of the Right to Life movement. It is opposed to abortion, to contraception, to research into the medical uses of stem cells and to providing aid to African groups endeavouring to combat the spread of AIDs through the use of condoms.

They are all policies that Tony Abbott pursued, administratively and without fanfare when he was health minister in the Howard government, and which, in the final washup, were identified as contributing to the defeat of the Howard government.

Concern that the NSW Liberals are running into the same problem has turned Clarke supporters who owe their positions to Clarke’s control of the numbers, into opponents. It has split the religious right into two camps – one camp calling itself the ‘right’ and the other comprising Clarke loyalists.

Clarke is the member for the ‘north-west metropolitan province’. He is being challenged by the chief executive of the Civil Contractors Federation David Elliott, who is backed by the NSW State president Nick Campbell and Clarke’s former lieutenant, Alex Hawke. The latter knocked off a sitting member with the backing of the religious right at the last federal election.

Their concern is that if the Liberal Party is seen as nothing more than a front for Opus Dei it will not succeed at the next State and Federal elections. The State leader Barry O’Farrell is determined to keep controversy out of the public arena, and so is Tony Abbott, who has written to State selectors calling for support for Clarke.

Abbott’s case is that if Clarke loses his pre selection the party will split and lose, at State and Federal level.

He is right. But for how long will the Liberals be able to paper over a split of these dimensions, and should they? It is not honest for the Liberals to put themselves forward as standing for traditional values when what they are offering is Right to Life.

Clarke’s people have offered a deal with the Left. They will swing their numbers behind Catherine Cusack, who is a prominent member of the moderate or “Left” faction, in return for support Clarke, who is on the far right of the social spectrum.

We have just added a bunch of photos from our very first Victorian Pride march. While we have marched in our yellow t-shirt uniforms at a few events and rallies, it was our first team effort. See all the photos here: Pride gallery

We had about 20 people at the beginning and about 30 by the end of the march.

The Greens, ALP and the Liberals all marched but I think we can safely say that we were the brightest and certainly the loudest. We carried placards outlining out policies and had a few very cute blow up hearts for the minors in our troop. One of our favourite placards was “Keep Religion Out of Politics” and we certainly got a great response from the 40,000 plus spectators.

I heard from one of the Liberal party marchers that they even got booed along the way. We had many people from the crowd yelling SEX at us and in a nice way!

We marshaled about 2 hours before we actually started marching and it was a pretty hot day to be hanging around. At the end of the march even the moisture of the temporary tattoos was welcome relief. Fortunately we also had a few large eskies on our stand with refreshments that saw us through the afternoon.

We talked to a wide range of people and tattooed many of them. I even got to sign one woman's back and write "even adults have small tits" which she had censored with gaffa tape. We finished up at around 8pm and headed off for a well-earned dinner and a few drinks.

Thank you to everyone who helped made the day such success and so much fun. I am already looking forward to the next march. We have big plans!

But before that we are planning our inaugural Sydney Mardi Gras Fair Day Sunday 21 Feb. If you would like to donate a couple of hours of your Sunday please get in touch This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

xxFiona

We had a great day yesterday at the Gay / Lesbian Midsumma Fair in Melbourne. It was my first Midsumma Fair and the atmosphere and the crowd were fabulous. People of all ages, shapes, sizes and sexual persuasions came along to picnic, check out the stalls and have fun. Melbourne provided its usual mix of summer weather one minute, winter the next but thankfully summer won out for the most of the day.

The Sex Party stall was extremely popular and looked great thanks to the design and decorative trimmings of Calvista's Dean Beck. We had seven very enthusiastic volunteers at different times throughout the day plus Fiona and myself. Luckily there were four of us to cover the slower morning and early afternoon and five to seven of us for the peak 2-6pm period. At times people were three deep at the stall. Our Vote 1 Sex temporary tattoos were a hit and of course our Sex Party T shirts stood out. Lots of people wanted to engage with us to learn more about the Sex Party and its platforms/policies. OK, so we were engaging with what should be a core constituency, but they need a message rev up and reminder too. I was somewhat surprised that a lot of people hadn't previously heard about us. We had a great location directly opposite the main open-air bar zone. The Sex Party banners and name were clearly visible, even from 40 metres away on the far side of the bar area.

The Libs, ALP and Greens all had rather drab looking stalls by comparison! All staffed by workers who were somewhat lethargic and in need of a good Sex Party! Fiona and I visited their stalls and had a chat. The ALP gave us strong encouragement to contest the VIC state elections. Fiona and I made time to walk around the whole Fair area checking out the various stalls and talking to people about the Sex Party.

We signed up new members and collected email addresses from people who were keen to get some follow up via a guessing competition to win toy and product hampers - kindly donated by Calvista.

We are now all geared up and getting excited about taking part in Melbourne's Pride March.

Link To Photo Gallery

Your comments that we should bring back Bible Classes in schools may not have caused much comment; they may have slipped underneath the radar of most people, but some of us did notice. We cannot help but applaud your efforts at promoting scholarship and learning. We do, however, have a few questions as to some of the finer detail.

I'm sure you won't mind clarifying these few, small issues; in your position you must have had plenty of need to expand on sweeping statements. Before you label my questions as nit-picking, or brush them aside as making fun of you and your beliefs, I am genuinely interested in knowing your answers – it is the reason that I have included, where I can, the correct references. I also sit writing with a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to hand.

The first question I have is: Whose Bible? In the circumstances and being a Roman Catholic, you would defer to Clerical Authority? As a Catholic, I am sure you are aware that the Bible was, for a long time, on the list of Roman Catholic Church's banned books, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – presumably to prevent people reading the wrong things, or to stop them questioning any contradictions or non-sensical passages, or from reading any passage which did not further the church's authority.

In fact, William Tynedale was executed in 1536 for heresy, much to do with him having the temerity to translate of the Bible from Greek to English. Can we be sure that children are taught the right version? There are any number of versions, which contain errors, typos, even intentional mistakes by typesetters, such as the “Wicked Bible” of 1631, where the seventh commandment (Exodus 20:14) is written “Thou shalt commit adultery”. Can we be sure which version of the Bible is the “correct” one? 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 says “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. That they all might be damned...” Although, obviously, different versions of the Bible word this differently – but the message is the same – believe the an intentional deception, be damned for all eternity.

Secondly is that, for any person, reading the Bible, let alone studying it, is an ambitious undertaking. Given the years of scholarship that it takes to read, much less understand it, should Bible classes be mandatory for all people, no matter their age or beliefs? Or is there something to what the Jesuits say about teaching children?

Will we require students to learn all of it, or just selected bits? Who, then, would decide which bits? If the whole Bible, how much time do you propose should be dedicated out of the limited school week?

Should we teach the Bible in Latin rather than English? Or Ancient Greek, the language that the older versions of the Bible would have been written in, which was the language of scholars at the time? Would the time required to learn these languages be included as part of the classes, or would additional time be required?

My third question is about the content of the classes: what about the Bible would be taught? Would it be taught as Allegory, Reality, or Propaganda? Would it be taught within its historical context?

Is your intent for the Bible to be taught as fact? What if what is written in the Bible contradicts reality? After all, it took the Roman Catholic Church several centuries to fully acknowledge that Galileo was right, although there is no word yet on their treatment of Giordano Bruno. Admittedly, they did accept Charles Darwin much quicker, and the fact that evolutionary and geological timescales require vastly almost a million times more than Bishop Ussher calculated from biblical lineages.

Do you mean for the Bible to be read as an instruction guide for life and law? Does this mean the end of Throwing Shrimps on the Barbie (Leviticus 11:9-12, Deuteronomy 14:9-10)? Admittedly, the end of poly-cotton blends wouldn't a bad thing (Leviticus 19:19), although some clergy may find it unacceptable to be banned from their profession for having bad eyesight (Leviticus 21:16 – 23). And let's not mention that whole menstruation bit (Leviticus 15:19-30 to start with), capital punishment for disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Exodus 21:15-17), or many other passages that permit slavery, genocide, and many practices most people nowadays would find abhorrent? Perhaps some of your colleagues in both the Upper and Lower Houses might be particularly affected if Biblical punishments were brought back in, such as for adultery. After all, even Matthew 5:27-30 is quite explicit that even casting a wayward eye is adultery, that someone doing so should pluck out their offending wandering eye, or cut off the hand which causes them to sin.

Would the purpose of Bible classes to be to teach Logic and Argument? Much of the Bible does seem to be filled with logical errors, such as Argument From Authority (the “I'm in charge, therefore I'm always right” error), or contain logic so twisted it is often completely circular. Contradictions abound, many passages require quite complex Apologetics in order to make them even vaguely possible, and things that are described do not necessarily reflect archaeology or historical records from other peoples. Will errancy and editorialisation in the Bible be taught, or the fact that parts of the Bible were not written until centuries after the purported events?

Would the Bible be taught in as part of Comparative Theology – the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Apocrypha, Koran, Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Book of Mormon, the literal armada of works by L.Ron Hubbard, any of the books of the Discordia, the Satanic Bible? Plenty of people believe these to be Received Truth. Would these be dismissed purely on the grounds that they are not the Bible?

Which brings me to my fourth question: I'm curious as to what you mean by Australia being a land of Christian values. Does this mean the whole Bible (such as the Leviticus examples above), or just the New Testament bits? What is a Christian point-of-view, anyway? After all, Luke 14:26 clearly states that you have to hate your parents, wife, children, and your own life in order to follow Jesus Christ. Matthew 10:34-35 is even more explicit: “Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance with his father...”, repeated in Luke 12:52-54. Even divorce is acceptable in Christ's teachings, according to Matthew 19:28-29.

Did you mean, maybe, that you want children, and indeed all people, to learn the value of such things as Charity, Respect, Understanding, Justice, Patience, even the Golden Rule from Matthew 7:12 “Do unto others as your would have them do unto you”? Should we teach these things because some believe that eternal pain and punishment awaits us if we don't, teaching them out of fear? Should we not teach that those are values are good things to learn, in and of themselves, irrespective of punishment or reward in an afterlife in which some do not believe?

Some might applaud your beliefs – the more cynical saying that it is unquestioning faith, belief, and obedience that allows people to march with a smile on their face, even to their deaths – or, just as likely, to the deaths of anyone who disagrees. Are you holding your position because you have Received Truth, because you have been told is it true, or because you believe it to be true? If your beliefs are reality, then I'm sure that they would withstand being examined, and would not be affected by my questions.

I look forward to your response. Yours quite sincerely,

Simon Jester

In the famous Casablanca Circus Tent, a small void of illusion, carnival, social-inversion and anti-hierarchical splendour, I joined other artists from the UK, Sweden, Germany and Seattle, celebrating an art form that has been renowned for its anti-establishment disdain for social rules and cultural convention, and its plight to transgress patriarchal, social and governmental regulation of female sexuality.

From its historical flourish during the Long Depression of the 1870-90s and Great Depression of the 1920s- 30s, burlesque emerged as a mode of erotic performance that was profoundly political. The lavish decadence and extravagance of burlesque in a time of extreme poverty and disillusion acted to mimic, mock, ridicule and show up bourgeois. In the prohibitionist era of the 1920s with its restrictive social mores about nudity and ‘vice’, the act of taking one’s clothes off in public was highly political. Burlesque performances were often executed with bawdy humour, sexual innuendo and sharp edged wit to challenge conventions about decency, equality, and regulation. Certainly, my favourite thing about burlesque is its ability to overthrow, undermine, resist and contest the representation of female sexuality and her body in society.

I had the pleasure in Amsterdam of performing a kind of drag king trapeze act. I emerged a cocky, arrogant man singing to the lustful and suave tunes of Leonard Cohen with a cigar, top hat, cane, suspenders and very fetching caramel handlebar moustache! I winked and flirted my way about stage until my music suddenly burst into Christina Aguilera, promptly causing me to rip of my suit pants (thank you, Velcro!) and my other masculine paraphernalia. But when I went to remove off my moustache, I decided that I enjoyed being a frilly, corseted, stockinged, shimmering dame complete with hairy armpits and a luscious tash (it was Movember, after all!) And when I proceeded to my trapeze, rose stem in mouth, pink rose petals falling from my blouse as I hung above the audience, of course it was just my luck that my fanny tickler stayed intact while my pasties fell slowly to the floor, my breasts thus queering the performance even further (I had in fact, been introduced to the stage as male!).

For someone who advocates loudly to end the plethora of rules, expectations and stigmas that continue to oppress the female body and her sexuality (including how she appears and behaves) I have certainly had my fair share of occupational mishaps that have, remarkably, only served to further reinforce my point. Only for me would my pasties miraculously fall off during the middle of a specifically no-nudity show (but then, why was it ok for the male performers to expose their nipples but not mine?). Only for me would my shoe accidently fall off during the Miss Pole Dance Australia heats in which competitors were required to wear high heels (a rule I had protested vehemently against!). And only I would be enjoying an R Rated show so much that I completely forgot to take off my g string! (Didn’t I mention people should stop regulating female sexual display?)

Performing in Amsterdam reiterated for me the ways in which the stage has long been and can still be a catalyst for social revolution and critique. Performance can expose and challenge normative ideas about gender, class, beauty, the ‘acceptable’ and the ‘grotesque.’ On my trip not only was I able to meet other activists, lovers and artists interested in spreading love around the world from upside down, and creating a new iconography through which to express and celebrate our perversities, idiosyncrasies, hopes and desires, but I was also able to explore the delights of Amsterdam’s iconic red light district and sex museum. The enormous dildos, intricate vibrators and other wonderful toys unashamedly displayed in shop front windows (next to H+M and other mainstream fashion outlets) only served to remind me of Australia’s political conservatism when it comes to sexuality, where one might only see a discreetly titled doorway and a narrow flight of stairs, where there remain state prohibitions on selling X rated material, where abortion remains in the Crimes Act, where children receive inadequate sex education, and where the government proposes to filter access to the internet.

It is sometimes easy to forget that we live in a cosy little bubble outside which there remains such fear and stigma about eroticism, sex and gender. If you care about these issues, if you have ever wanted to pour icing all over your body, paint yourself in glow paint, bath in a giant champagne class or take your clothes off to Beethoven without fear of stigma or ridicule, then get involved with the Australian Sex Party!

The Australian Sex Party Candidate for the Bradfield by-election Zahra Stardust, aka Marianna Leishman, has won the Open Pairs category of the Australian Pole Dance Championship in Melbourne with her doubles partner Stacey.

The inaugural Australian Pole Dance Championship is the first competition of its kind to offer a men’s category, which Ms Stardust says ‘provides a long-awaited place for Australia’s talented male pole dancers to demonstrate their strength, artistry and skill, and rebut stereotypes that pole dancing only ever occurs in the context of female performers and male audiences.’ The Championship offered four divisions, including both men’s and women’s categories, a pure pole division, a couples division and an artistic freestyle division, and aimed to give voice to the varied styles of pole dancing occurring around Australia, from the circus kind to the dance-based, fitness-oriented and striptease styles of pole. Ms Stardust said that these categories ‘afford greater creative licence to all performers to express themselves on the pole the way they choose.’

Against common stereotypes of pole dancing, the pairs’ winning video game show featured the music of Mario cart, Pacman and Tetrus and a psychedelic, technicolour world in which their robotic characters malfunctioned and rebooted. Ms Stardust, who performed a French revolution narrative to Beethoven with Foxene the previous year and a voodoo ‘living dead doll’ theme to classical music and heavy metal in the finals of the solo category this year, said that ‘Australian pole dancing has become renowned for its execution of all things magic in combination with theatricality, artistry, flexibility, agility, technique and superhuman strength.’ She continued, ‘Patronised by an overwhelmingly female audience, pole dancing has been embraced for its fluid aesthetics and theatrical narratives along with its ability to engage audiences through the emotive language of dance.’

However, Ms Stardust used her win as an opportunity to speak about the number of competition rules, both domestically and internationally, that continue to be imposed upon pole dancers to reduce, regulate and police the types of female expression that are represented onstage. ‘Despite the plethora of imaginative demonstrations of what pole can be, competitions both within Australia and internationally continue to impose rules defining what pole dancing should look like, what types of pole can be represented onstage, which shades of pole are thereby allowed to emerge, and which brands of pole are publicly validated’, she said.

Further, Ms Stardust noted that many of the rules regulating pole dancing are largely inconsistent. On the one hand, it is now a requirement of Miss Pole Dance Australia for all competitors to wear ‘high heels’ (with further rules dictating the exact type of heels that are acceptable), reducing an ever expanding genre of performance into a particular and narrow mould of feminine and sensual pole display. On the other hand, the World Pole Dance Federation renounces any involvement with the sex industry and bans the winner from accepting any contracts that are erotic in nature, effectively reinforcing stigma against that same female sexual display that Miss Pole seeks to endorse.

Ms Stardust lamented that the high heel requirement imposed from 2009 will ‘severely limit the creative licence and mobility of the performers.’ While performers who involve Chinese pole tricks in their shows will no longer be able to rely on the soles of their feet against the pole, other performers may struggle to make high heels a relevant to their costuming and theme. Moreover, the rule will significantly disadvantage the more athletic pole styles, ‘try back flipping in 6 inch stripper heels!’ Performers who specialise in adagio, acrobalance, contemporary dance or gymnastic style shows will be less likely to perform their acrobatic floor combinations in stilettos.

Ms Stardust maintained that ‘if high heels are hardly a staple for competent pole tricks, hardly the sole marker of an entertaining show, hardly a core ingredient for female intelligibility, (and if anything, probably a danger rather than a preventative measure in terms of Occupational Health and Safety!) the requirement becomes an arbitrary one that confines the expanding sport to a narrow brand of pole performance and visual aesthetic- pole becomes varying degrees of one and the same. Stripper heels can certainly be extravagant, magnificent and wonderfully wicked, but they are certainly not the be all and end all of pole dancing to the extent that they should be codified, compulsory and enforced. And as for all us high heeled shoe fetishists, let us wear our six inch PVC heels out of choice, not obligation.’

While in Miss Pole Dace Australia high heels have become a requisite for pole recognition, on the other hand, perpetual runner up of the competition from 2005 - 2009 Suzie Q was prohibited from competing in the world championships because the World Pole Dance Federation, whose motto is ‘pure sport and art’, reject any association with the sex industry. If she chose to compete Suzie was asked to give up hosting mainstream lifestyle event Sexpo and told that the winner must decline any contracts or endorsements with any company that were erotic in nature. Ms Stardust commented, ‘While pole dancing has incredible things to offer the world in terms of its athleticism, strength flexibility and gravity-defying displays of artistic delight, and while this has made pole dancing particularly accessible to the mainstream, it is harmful when the fitness benefits of pole are promoted at the expense of stigmatising other types of pole dancing (including the high heeled or erotic versions), and by extension, stigmatising other types of women. In a world that continues to divide women into categories of Madonna or Whore, can pole not become an industry where women unite in solidarity to celebrate all kinds of female expression?’

Whether forcibly requiring dancers to wear a specific kind of shoe, or condemning erotic kinds of pole dancing in favour of fitness brands of pole, both Miss Pole Dance Australia and the World Pole Dance Federation police the ways in which women can express their bodies and sexuality on stage, and ultimately putting limitations upon a genre that is ever expanding and vast, said Ms Stardust. She noted that this issue was illustrative of a need for further sex education about gender and sexual variance, identity and expression, and the need for more comprehensive anti-discrimination laws and respect for people working in the adult entertainment industry. ‘As much as many of us live in a beautiful rainbow bubble in which pole is perpetually celebrated, many of us still suffer varying degrees of stigma about our beloved activities.’ She added that in NSW it remained illegal to sell X rated films and that such antiquated attitudes to sex and gender issues as seen from major political parties contributed to stereotype and stigma, hindering open discussion about and steps towards equality, freedom and harm for all individuals.

Senator Conroy, RE: Internet Filter

I am writing this email to you to express to you how your actions have cost your government and any future governments that act like this, my vote and every vote from here on in.

It is obvious to me that the reason you insist on implementing the internet filter despite its total lack of ability to provide the sort of protection that the government claims it will, is because this is just a distraction from the real driving force behind implementing such a blatant violation of the rights of Australia's population.

My objection is not about what this filter is supposed to block, it is about the assumed right our democratically elected government thinks it has to just insert such an infringement on our rights to access the world wide web.

The placement of this filter on our internet sets up a very unwelcome precedent for the modification of the information available to us.

Once in place it is the perfect tool to erode the freedoms of the people to discuss and exchange ideas.

Once in place, we are on a slippery slope to the removal of the agreed governmental system and its replacement by any group who chooses to manipulate the flow of information, and removal of any ideas that that group does not agree with.

This is a dangerous path to walk down and it makes a mockery of the people who worked so hard to gain the rights we have today.

If you are worried about the children as you claim, then sink these funds into proper action to address the situation, more police to investigate the people who harm the children, much steeper penalties for those found guilty of such crimes etc, don't pretend to be implementing this filter "For the Children", everyone knows that’s just rubbish.

Using the fear of people not wanting to be outcast, by inferring that anyone who is opposed to this filter must therefore be a paedophile is the most disgusting and vile abuse of your position within this government and you ought to be ashamed to stand there and utter such pathetic rot.

That sort of disgusting behaviour is known as witch hunting, you assert that an objection to this filter infers a link to poor morals or crimes against children.

This is no better than saying that "when we weight this woman’s legs with stones and throw her into the river, she must drown to prove her innocence of this charge of being a witch, but if she survives, then this proves that she is guilty and we must burn her at the stake"

How pathetic that in 2009 you can hold a seat in government and utter such rubbish.

There is no such correlation between the objections and this behaviour, you are just witch hunting and you know it.

This will end your career very quickly.

The word "Mandatory" is not what we expect from an elected government in Australia.

This reeks to me of the start of something we saw in World War 2, which led to some of the biggest violations of human rights in known history.

You must be aware that prohibition of a pure world wide web will just force it underground, that’s what prohibition does, this means that any of the criminals that use the internet to their advantage will resort to the underground version of the internet and you will have lost the ability to observe their movements, and to be effective in any way to stop them. This would be the exact opposite of the result you are claiming to want.

We don't elect a government to dictate to us, we elect a government to represent us and to be just in its actions.

Once you start abusing rights, you lose the rights that protect you.

This government has a job to do, representing justice for the population that supports it. If they are not going to do the job they have, then they will be removed by the same population that put them there and replaced by a group that will.

Creating a situation where the information available to people can be prejudged and interfered with is not a matter taken lightly.

We as Australians will not allow you or anyone to further undermine our rights,

YOU WILL BE STOPPED!

Anthony Voevodin.