Gillard won't play religion card

[grace_for_him]

Australian PM Julia Gillard announces 21 August election date
Australia’s first female leader calls a snap election in a bid to capitalise on the Labor party’s narrow poll-rating lead
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/17/australia-election-august-21-gillard

[grace_for_him]

Australian archbishop concerned by prime minister’s atheism
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7033

[Charles Gregory]

The belief in nothing is catching on fast!

[grace_for_him]

Yes, she grew up in the Baptist church and you can see that she still maintains righteous values, but all our self-righteousness is a s filthy rags of course, but we are told to pray for our leaders and even a "Paul" was turned around, and who knows her heart and what caused her to turn away from her upbringing?

[tom]

Some find that a better approach to a countries leaders is to pray for them like this Aussie site asks.

http://www.aussiejoyslife.com/2010/07/concerned-about-australias-upcoming-election.html

I just thought that a different approach was well worth promoting.

Shalom

Tom

PS: - I do not think that we should necessarily stop when the elections happen, but perhaps we should be promoted to pray for our countries leaders as we are lead by the Holy Spirit.  I wonder how much of a difference that that would make to the countires that we live in?

[grace_for_him]

Australia election set for neck-and-neck finish
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Support for Australia’s government has fallen sharply, polls show, making the August 21 election likely to be decided by marginal seats where voters are focussed on the divisive issues of mining tax, climate and immigration.
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE6710CN20100802

[grace_for_him]

The Aussie elections are set for August 21st and the balance of candidates is toward the non-Biblical standards from all appearances. We have many who are standing independently and for very small minority parties without a name-tag; and then the ones who are named give an indication of the morality of our nation.
They are:
The Sex party - quite openly labelled as such;
and then we have a party that is advocating apostasy - the Secular party;
and two parties advocating fun and pleasure;
as well as the Socialist party and others who do not stand for anything Biblical.

The Greens don't look too bad in the light of this and I have posted an article here on them:
Greens laugh off anti-faith label
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/05/2974775.htm

Fortunately in the wake of this down-turn we have a party which has stood up for Christian values - the "Christian Democratic" party.
We have had the "Family First" for a few years which professes to be Christian, and which advocates family-orientated Biblical values.

A party which not many recognise as being Christian is the "Citizens Referendum Council" (I may not quite have the name right). They are a very strong fundamental Biblically based group that require their candidates to sign a declaration of adherence to all their Biblically-stated values - and the list is quite comprehensive. There is no room for any compromise with them.

But in all, the balance of power is toward the non-Biblical values with less than half (counting independents and those with an undeclared policy) as against the known non-Biblical.
And so, Labour may get more votes than they would otherwise receive, from people who do stand for Biblical values and place them before the others.

And so, we pray and wait and see what election day will bring.

[grace_for_him]

I did get the name wrong of the party I mentioned:

A party which not many recognise as being Christian is the "Citizens Referendum Council" (I may not quite have the name right). They are a very strong fundamental Biblically based group that require their candidates to sign a declaration of adherence to all their Biblically-stated values - and the list is quite comprehensive. There is no room for any compromise with them.

It is "the Citizens Electoral Council"

They are rather right-wing, but in a choice between many ungodly parties, they are worth considering in a positive vote in consideration of their staunch Biblical values. Here is their policy statement:

http://www.cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=info&id=platform/platform.html

[grace_for_him]

Australia heads to polls amid discord
http://www.boston.com/news/world/australia/articles/2010/08/20/australia_heads_to_polls_amid_discord/

We Aussies would appreciate your prayers Saturday (our time) it will be Friday your time.
Julia Gillard is a proclaimed atheist and Tony Abbott is a practicing Catholic with high ideals.

There are many indications that Australians may not know how to vote and we could have a hung parliament.
Thanks brethren,
grace

[grace_for_him]

For those of you who may be interested and/or have prayed for us, many are predicting a hung parliament or a slight Labour lead (Gillard) caused by preferences given to the Greens party.  It is too early yet to tell what it shall be as the west coast counting can't begin for another two hours from now and because it is so close the outcome may be determined by postal vote counting two weeks from now.

All the indications are that it will be very close. 

[tom]

hello

Early reports give the following picture of the Australian Election; -

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7948968

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/labor-has-lost-its-legitimacy-says-tony-abbott-as-hung-parliament-looms/story-fn5z3z83-1225908328818

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/labor-hopes-shattered-in-qld-as-hopes-fade-for-retaining-longman-brisbane-and-bonner/story-fn5z3z83-1225908253211

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/election2010/7948950/independents-to-back-stable-government

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/election2010/7948963/tight-election-leaves-australia-in-limbo

Australia has been speculating on the outcome of our governance for over eight weeks now and we have ended up with a result that may even bring some stability to our country.  The elections were tinged with sadness with the news of another two soldiers dying in Afghanistan with the taliban sending a clear message that they do not want foreign troop in their country.

It seems that the country has rejected the bully party machines' form of government and have gone looking for a heart in the politicians of a number of independents.

A few weeks ago I posted a link to a web page of an overseas Aussie lass that called the country of Australia to be praying for our country's politicians and what we witnessed last night was a bickering between the parties as to who had been right in the call of the decisions made over the last two terms of Government.

If people are going to pray then we should be considering that Australians go down on their knees and offer up prayers of repentance first before asking for God's intervention in the outcome of how the dice was rolled.

If anything we should be praying for the independents on whom the governance of Australia rests and that they will consider wisely how they should act and provide leadership of this land without the bickering that has been going on over the last six years in and between the two political parties.

We should pray that the independents can withstand the bullying that they will face from the faceless men who run government from the back rooms so that their "party" can control the Parliament of Australia.  We have gone from a cash surplus of three years ago into a massive debt as money was splashed around to supposedly stop Australia from collapsing during the monetary crash of 2008-10 when in reality the party machine only continued to feed the real problem that was causing the crash, the greed of people.

Australia needs prayer from within and without for real wisdom and protection from the greed of people who will now control this Parliament over the next three years or until the next election is called.  We need prayer to protect Australians from playing at being God thereby bring even more iniquity down on ourselves.

More than anything else we need prayer from people who have an ear towards God as to how they should be praying for Australia and its needs.

If God is speaking to you to pray, then please follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit in your actions.

Shalom

Tom

[grace_for_him]

This is a good objective summary on it also:
Australian Hung Parliament Would be Historic Event
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/41320/

[grace_for_him]

The process is still going on of counting votes and the parties concerned trying to come to some workable agreement with those who seem to be going to hold the balance of power.

But, I came across this -
Jews elected to new Australian parliament

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=185813

The Jewish world thought it was good - I hope we find it so also.