Dear Friends and Family in Christ,

The live webcast of Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd was a tremendous  breakthrough in raising up Christian moral values across our nation! Below are media articles from The Australian, Herald Sun, Age, and Sydney Morning Herald.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Ps. Danny of Catch the Fire Ministries who was present at the forum in Canberra, stated, “It was a fantastic event and clearly indicated Prime Minister John Howard’s defined stand for Christian values. On the other hand, I was very unhappy with the side-stepping responses that Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd gave, especially when questioned regarding Labor’s plans for the introduction of federal racial and religious vilification laws.” 

We applaud the Australian Christian Lobby for organizing such a history making event!

 You can view the videos from this link -  http://www.acl.org.au/national/browse.stw?article_id=16243

Overall we thank our God who reigns over the government for this new and exciting season in His unfolding destiny for our nation of Australia!
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Howard’s Net Porn Crusade – The Australian – by Dennis Shanahan and Jill Rowbotham | August 10, 2007

JOHN Howard is going to spend $189 million “cleaning up the internet” for Australian families, blocking pornography, upgrading the search for chatroom sex predators and cutting off terror sites.

John Howard, on screen, addresses the Hillsong church congregation in Sydney yesterday. He has promised to crack down on internet porn
Every Australian family will be provided with a free internet filter and the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source.

Communications and Australian Federal Police resources will be boosted immediately to expand checks on internet chat rooms to detect child predators, and privacy laws masking sex offenders on the net will be altered.

The Prime Minister unveiled his new net commandments last night on a webcast to more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the country.

Mr Howard and Kevin Rudd delivered addresses on the 2007 election campaign to 770 Christian churches of all denominations.

The political leaders agreed to speak for 20 minutes and answer questions from church leaders at the National Press Club in Canberra as part of the Australian Christian Lobby’s campaign to get Christians to make their vote count.

Both leaders attend church and have appealed to Christian voters to support them.

Last night, as Mr Howard talked about Christianity and family values, he revealed the government plan to upgrade the protection for families from internet pornography, violence and sexual predators.

As well as practical tools to help families put internet pornography beyond the reach of children, the Government will form partnerships with leading computer providers in upgraded steps to block porn sites and detect predators using popular websites such as MySpace and Facebook to contact children.

Of the $189 million, $43million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the AFP and establish a working group to find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators.

A “black list” drawn up by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which covers Australia-based pornographic and terror sites, will be expanded internationally after consultation with the Attorney-General.

The AMCA will also receive 14 additional internet regulators.

A seven-day-a-week hotline will be established to help parents put filters on their home computers. All families will receive the filters and they will be sent to public libraries.

Mr Howard said last night the address to the churches was an ideal opportunity to deal with family and community concerns about internet pornography and cyber-stalking.

The package announced last night follows a $117million crackdown on cyber smut announced last year by Communications Minister Helen Coonan, which promised parents free software to prevent children downloading pornography and other offensive material on home computers. The plan also promised to rollout “child-friendly” filtering programs to all internet terminals in libraries across Australia.

“We will be checking to examine just which parts of the announcement are new and which parts are a re-announcement,” a spokesman for the Opposition Leader said last night.

Mr Rudd could not trump the multi-million-dollar internet safety package but he hammered home his social justice agenda, calling for Australians to have “hard heads and soft hearts”.

Saying a sense of fairness and balance was “very much in the Australian soul”, Mr Rudd took aim at the Government’s Work Choices laws, which he said had “gone too far”. He also praised Australia’s churches for their work in education, health and welfare development.

Labor and the Coalition have been keen to tap into the voter base represented by the church, particularly in light of the faith-based support that helped Family First’s Steve Fielding win a place in the Senate.

In marked contrast to Mark Latham at the last election, Mr Rudd has made it clear he wants to engage churches in the political debate.

Although Kim Beazley also had a strong religious faith, the elevation of Mr Rudd to the leadership has put a stronger spotlight on the role of religion in politics.

Catholic-baptised Mr Rudd is now a churchgoing Anglican convert. Mr Howard, who goes to church, is also an Anglican.

The Australian Christian Lobby organised and hosted the Make it Count event with 200 church leaders and lay people at the Press Club last night to quiz the political leaders.
Churches from all Christian denominations participated in every state and territory. ACL managing director Jim Wallace said the aim was to engender policies “for an increasingly moral and caring society”.

“This is a valuable opportunity to highlight the importance of the Christian constituency in the lead up to the election and to ensure that the Christian influence has maximum impact,” he said.

At least 100,000 people were believed to have watched the Howard and Rudd speeches last night. In Sydney, a swag of people from the Hillsong church watched in inner-city Waterloo.

Jeremy Horn, 37, a web-developer from Sydney’s Pagewood in Sydney’s east, was among them. He welcomed Mr Howard’s Netalert strategy, saying internet safety was an issue for his 12-year-old son: “I want to know he is safe online — there are so many games sites he plays at the moment and a lot of them have chat rooms.”

He said what was great about the evening was that “as an Australian who is a Christian, I get to hear the leaders address me directly with my values in mind. So I can, like any Australian coming into the election, be better informed.”

Anne Knock, 46, of Maroubra in Sydney’s east, an executive officer with Church Schools Australia, applauded the Netalert initiative as something that would protect children and “give parents tools that they can use to support their children; for kids, access to the internet is life”.

Lesley and Jeff Morrow, both 57, from Penshurst in Sydney’s south, responded well to Mr Rudd’s speech. “He is not afraid to speak up and say ‘I’m a Christian, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ’, where a lot of politicians we know are Christians but you never hear it mentioned,” Mr Morrow said.

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Howard, Rudd court Christian vote – Sydney Morning Herald -August 10, 2007 – 6:45AM

Both John Howard and Kevin Rudd have courted the Christian vote in a webcast for up to 100,000 people gathered in churches across the country last night.
The prime minister and opposition leader each took turns to tell the audience how Christianity shaped their lives and their politics.
Mr Howard took the opportunity to announce a $189 million initiative to provide free internet filtering software for parents and bolster the federal police’s efforts to combat sexual exploitation of children online.
Mr Rudd countered by saying that under a Labor government, a family impact statement would be prepared for every submission to cabinet.
Both tried to persuade the faithful that their respective policies met Christian virtues.
“I acknowledge of course that God is neither Liberal nor Labor,” Mr Howard said in the webcast from the National Press Club in Canberra.
“But there are people of good faith in all political parties and I don’t come to speak of the Liberal Party in any way to propound a superiority or a claim on the Christian religion by my party.
The prime minister said there was an unusual ambivalence in Australia about the influence of Christianity on politics.
“The broad interaction of public life and Christianity has almost drawn a strange awkwardness in the response of many people,” he said.
Mr Howard also spoke out against giving up Christian traditions in order to show tolerance to other religions, giving the example of calls to ban Nativity scenes in department stores.
“I always find if odd that you have to demonstrate your tolerance by denying your own heritage,” Mr Howard said to loud applause.
“It’s an absurd political correctness which I’ve been as you know, I’ve been something of a critic.”
The prime minister also rejected criticisms that his government did not care about marginalised people in the community.
“I am especially proud of the fact that contrary to many things that were said about me and my party 11 and a half years ago, we haven’t destroyed the social security safety net, we haven’t destroyed Medicare.
“I don’t deny that the rich have got richer that is inevitable in a prosperous country.
“But they have not got richer at the expense of the poor getting poorer.”
Mr Rudd described himself as having been a “garden variety” Christian for the past 30 years.
“For me the question of personal faith also provides a compass point for my life, it also therefore helps shape the values which I hold to be true.
“It also therefore helps shape the view I try to bring to the public space as well, not always successfully.
The opposition leader said during moments of quiet prayer when in Canberra he reflected “on what I can do constructively to make this a better and more humane country, recognising that all those that sit opposite are not sons of the anti-Christ.”
Asked about his vision for Australia, Mr Rudd said: “How can we be a country which has hard heads and soft hearts?
“I think that sums up so much of what the nation actually wants to be like.”
He criticised the government’s workplace reforms, suggesting that changes of shifts with short notice could prevent workers from taking their families to church on Sundays.
On foreign policy, the Labor leader said he wanted Australia to be a “creative and human middle power actor” in the world.
He said the nation had a responsibility to help Iraqi refugees given Australia’s role in invading Middle East country.
“If you’re going to go into a country and bust it up in a war you do have an enduring humanitarian responsibility to assist those who have become victims of that war, including the refugee community.
A Labor government would particularly seek to help members of Iraq’s Christian minority who had fled the country.
“I want to initiate a multilateral conference involving as many states would participate in how would we deal with the needs of that refugee community in Syria and in Jordan and beyond.
“The threat of violence being suffered on a daily basis by this Christian minority in a raging Sunni-Shia civil war that is erupting is terrifying.”

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Howard, Rudd speak to Christian audience – The Age – August 9, 2007 – 11:19PM

Prime Minister John Howard hit the right notes, drawing more applause from Christians at one Sydney church while Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd won more votes – just.
Up to 100,000 Christians in 850 churches across Australia watched a live telecast from Canberra of the two leaders pitching their Christian values to the converted in a bid for votes.
About 500 Hillsong churchgoers, mostly aged 25 to 35 years, listened attentively for more than two hours the two leaders, after a rousing round of prayers for good governance and leadership.
Afterwards, five out of ten churchgoers said they would vote for Mr Rudd, while four preferred Mr Howard and one was undecided.
However, it was Mr Howard’s stance on Christian identity that drew the only two bursts of spontaneous applause.
Heterosexual marriage and the affirmation of Christianity as the dominant Australian religion were apparently more popular than Mr Rudd’s attack on Work Choices, climate change and foreign aid.
Indeed, Mr Rudd’s support for state-based same-sex relationship registers only drew suspicion from churchgoers who feared they will only lead to gay marriage and adoption.
Assurances about the preservation and affirmation of Christianity relative to other religions was captured best by Mr Howard, 49-year-old teacher Marlene Matthew said.
“While we give others the ability to practice their faith, christians should still have the right to practice without fear,” she said.
Pastor Carole Simister, 56, said Muslims were given more freedom in Australia than Christians received in Islamic countries.
Mr Howard’s reference to political correctness-gone-mad when citing the example of nativity scenes being banned for fear of offending other religions drew wide applause.
“I always find it odd that you have to demonstrate your tolerance by denying your own heritage,” Mr Howard said to vast approval.
Mr Rudd may have suffered by speaking second, later in the night to about 100 fewer people after supper.
But his stance education and foreign aid appealed to 27-year-old charity worker Rowan Vansleve.
“I will vote for Rudd, if not the Greens. Mr Rudd looked like a charismatic leader,” Mr Vansleve said.
Mr Rudd offered student Aaron Chamberlin a vision for the future he thought Mr Howard lacked.
“John Howard spoke a lot about the past and what has been done but there was lack of direction for where we are going to go. Rudd, while unproven, offered more direction,” he said.

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PM’s net porn war  – John Ferguson and Gerard McManus -August 10, 2007 – Herald Sun

PORN websites and chat rooms used by child-sex predators will be blocked from home computers under radical moves to protect young internet users.
Australian families will have access to free internet filter systems under a $190 million Howard Government crackdown.
Prime Minister John Howard will back plans for sweeping changes to home computers and public libraries.
Under the strategy, chat room predators will be singled out and blocked from home computers, as will offensive emails.
Terrorist groups also will be under further pressure with the technology to be used to block sites.
Improper content such as swear words, pornography and criminal acts could be detected and barred automatically from being viewed in family homes.
Internet service providers will be required to provide the filter technology, either in homes or from the central server.
The social networking sites Facebook and MySpace are also likely to be affected by the new filter regime.
Mr Howard used a web-cast address to Christian groups to declare that fighting computer crime was complex.
“No single measure is fool-proof,” he added last night.
The filtering technology is already being used overseas and experts predict it will lead to a dramatic reduction in offensive content seen by children.
Under the strategy, the Australian Federal Police’s sex exploitation team will also be doubled in size.
And a seven-day telephone hotline will be set up to help parents install the filters in their homes.
Regulators will also be given better resources to blacklist websites deemed to provide inappropriate content.
The Government crackdown is the latest move by authorities to protect children using the web.
In 2004, federal Labor considered a push for X-rated filters, which have prevented any under-age viewer from accessing the material.
Mr Howard will expand on his comments tonight in a bid to bolster the Government’s family values credentials.
When the roll-out of the new internet system is carried out, Australia will be considered a world-leading country.
The move was introduced in Britain several years ago amid an outcry over the easy access to pornography and the growing trend by child abusers to use chat rooms to target minors.
However, the government crackdown in Australia is likely to be controversial among civil liberty groups.
It will also require a massive effort by the service providers to ensure the filtering systems are installed.
It may take years for the full roll-out of the technology.
The Government is believed to have received independent advice that the filter system will severely hamper the sale and distribution of improper content.

Link to Australian Christian Lobby WebsiteLink to Australian Christian Lobby Website