Perth madam threatens rescue ministry
Christians who shaped our nation
Heated debate on servitude bill
Spare the grog and support the child
Euthanasia's hard cases: why we need taboos
A wealthy brothel owner has threatened to destroy the rescue ministry of Linda Watson (previously Coyle) in Perth. The owner made the threat last month after Linda helped expose drug deaths and children in Perth's semi-legal "contained" brothel system.
Linda left the sex trade in 1997, turning to Christ after 20 years as a prostitute and a madam. "My mother prayed for me all through those years," Linda said.
She will visit Adelaide from 23 June to 7 July, to give evidence to MPs and the community of the damage done by prostitution.
"Legalising prostitution is the worst thing you could do," Linda said. "It would give the sex trade respectability, and many more girls would be tempted to enter it. It would suck the life out of them."
Linda now runs Australia's only refuge for prostitutes wanting to leave the trade - Linda's House of Hope in Perth. There has been little media coverage, but a single item on the Channel Nine Today Show last August stimulated 270 of phone calls in two days. They were girls asking for help.
"We have now had over 2000 phone calls, and they are still coming," Linda said. "It is stressful work, because many of the girls have drug addictions on top of their other problems. But God is blessing us. I long for the day when other cities set up refuges for these girls."
Linda says the need for a refuge is very great in Melbourne, where brothels were made legal and licensed in the mid 1980s. "Before licensing, Victoria had 50 illegal brothels. Now, Victoria has 200 legal, licensed brothels. They also have over 100 illegal brothels. They also have street prostitution, child prostitution and many more prostitutes who are deeply damaged."
John Hepworth, bishop of the Anglican Catholic Church, historian and political commentator, will be a keynote speaker at a Festival of Light meeting at 4 pm on Saturday 26 August at the Bible College of South Australia, 176 Wattle Street, Malvern.
Bishop Hepworth will talk about Christian influences on federation under the title, "Christians who shaped the nation".
Most people do not realise that several of those who helped draft Australia's uniquely durable Constitution were devout believers. There will be a shared tea after the meeting - all are welcome.
The federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams announced on 30 May that the government will no longer back the porn industry push to rename pornographic videos as "Non-Violent Erotica".
The category name will now stay as "X", and a bill before parliament will exclude sexually aggressive language, certain fetishes and portrayal of people over 18 as children (currently allowed in "X").
Festival of Light chairman Dr David Phillips welcomed the government's change of mind. "It is a small victory for children, and for common sense," he said.
"I particularly want to thank Queensland National MP De-Anne Kelly and SA Liberal MP Trish Draper (left), who were not afraid to call a spade a spade," he said. "The `X' name means `eXplicit' - and that is what this material is. It is not about love, which `erotica' implies."
Barbara Biggins of Young Media Australia pointed out that the material in these videos "can hardly be classed as soft porn. Further, it's material that's highly toxic to children and should be labelled as such. X fits the bill," she said (The Australian, 15/5/00, p 14).
Smokers inhale a lethal cocktail of 600 additives, many of them toxic, a British government publication has revealed (The Advertiser, 14/2/00).
Permitted substances in cigarettes include acetone (used in paint stripper), ammonia (in toilet cleaners), and beta-napthyl methylether (mothballs). Other substances in tobacco smoke include hydrogen cyanide, arsenic and carbon monoxide.
The UK government wants to force manufacturers to list the contents of cigarettes on every packet, to help convince smokers of the dangers they face.
Despite enormous media coverage, brothel madam Stormy Summers came second-last in her bid for Lord Mayor of Adelaide in the 14 May council elections.
However Channel Seven News (6/6/00) reported that Stormy will now stand for the SA Legislative Council in the election due next year.
Stormy (born Bronislaw Mols) showed reporters an Adelaide "beat" for child street prostitution and claimed that legalising brothels would eliminate it. However Stormy failed to mention that legal brothels in Victoria have failed to do so. St Kilda police are battling a growing street prostitution problem.
The Sexual Servitude Bill passed the SA House of Assembly on 24 May after a heated debate, unreported by the media. The Labor Party tried to postpone the committee stage debate until after the prostitution issue had been decided by parliament, but failed in a vote on party lines.
Environment Minister Iain Evans led the debate for the Government, and argued that the Bill should be passed immediately to give greater protection to women in the area of prostitution.
In reply, Labor shadow Attorney-General Michael Atkinson (right) said the Sexual Servitude Bill "does not give greater protection". He pointed out that "nearly everything prohibited by the new clauses introduced by this bill is already prohibited by section 63 (of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act).
"What the Attorney-General proposes to do by this bill is abolish section 63 and replace it with a range of new offences... procuring children, procuring by duress or undue influence, ... or the victim's status as an illegal immigrant."
Mr Atkinson said that the current law, section 63 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act, is not often enforced because of lack of police resources. "But it is a very important symbol in our law," he said.
"At first, the Attorney-General proposed to abolish the offence of simple procuring... (An outcry) caused him to retreat a little and replace the abolition of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act offence of simple procuring with a Summary Offences Act offence of simple procuring - punishable not by a maximum of seven years' imprisonment but by a fine of $1250 - and that is a maximum fine; so the fine actually imposed in a case will probably be one-third or less of that - or three months' imprisonment. That is what you receive for a traffic offence..."
A number of MPs, including Local Government Minister Dorothy Kotz and Angus Redford MLC, have said they share Michael Atkinson's concerns about the downgrading of the offence of simple procuring. Attorney-General Trevor Griffin has promised to reconsider the legislation after the prostitution debate is finished, probably later in the year.
Festival of Light research officer, Mrs Roslyn Phillips, is grateful to the knitters and shoppers who have kindly donated bootees for the Parliament House unborn baby memorial on Friday and Saturday 1,2 September.
"I have brought out the needles for the first time in years - but our goal of 5,500 is still far off," she said.
"Can you help us? We welcome bootees in all shapes and colours, to remind South Australians of those precious little feet, destroyed before they had a chance to be born."
Bootees, which may later be sent to needy babies overseas, can be left at the Festival of Light office, 4th Floor, 68 Grenfell Street, Adelaide.
US teen pop star Britney Spears (18, left) says her provocative videos and photo shoots are deceptive (The Sunday Mail, 4/6/00, p 148).
"Just because I look sexy doesn't mean I'm a naughty girl," she says. "Good morals mean waiting to have sex until after you've married. I was raised to believe that if you're with the right person, you can make it work - if you really love each other."
Britney says she's not willing to change her devout religious beliefs for anybody. "Sometimes you cry because you're lonely," she said. "It's hard in this business."
However one US commentator has warned that Britney has been corrupted by the pop industry. On Chuck Colson's website (www.breakpoint.org 2/6/00), Roberto Rivera says some pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are sending a dangerous child porn message.
Rivera says the hit single, Baby One More Time, begins with Britney Spears as a school girl, "complete with uniform, the embodiment of innocence and purity. By the end, she's a vixen, inviting the viewer to believe that what she wants `one more time' is anything but pure."
Rivera is concerned that increasingly younger listeners are being influenced by "less than wholesome" videos and lyrics.
A US pro-life group, American Life League, was upset by the many ads for abortion clinics in New York trains. So they prepared a simple ad showing an eight week foetus in the womb, with the words: Please don't do it. She's your baby.
However the New York Metropolitan Transport Authority has banned the advertisement (Zenith News Agency, 6 June).
A new study by London sociology professor Margaret O'Brien has found that children do less well at school if their mothers work full-time, rather than part-time (The Age, Saturday Extra, 3/6/00, p 1).
Journalist Bettina Arndt said O'Brien has suffered bitter attacks from feminists over her findings, despite many other studies showing the same thing.
A federal government report (May 2000) produced by researchers from Charles Sturt and Macquarie universities found that children in full-time child care in the first two and a half years of their lives were rated by their early primary school teachers as being less effective learners than their peers.
Many Australian parents are delighted, but Canberra's porn and prostitution lobby is fuming. Eros Foundation spokesman Robbie Swan's long campaign to change the name of X videos to "Non-Violent Erotica" has failed (see p 1).
Five years ago porn lobbyist Robbie Swan proudly told journalist David Barnett about his campaign - reported in The Age (Good Weekend), on 28/10/95.
Mr Swan said he wanted NVE because it had a "less offensive sound" than X. In other words, he thought it would be easier to persuade the Australian States, who now ban the sale or hire of X-rated hardcore porn videos, to allow them under the "NVE" name.
Robbie Swan also boasted in the 1995 article that he would campaign against the federal Liberal/National Coalition in key marginal seats, because the Coalition had promised to ban X videos. The Eros Foundation campaign backfired badly - in 1996 John Howard won government in a massive landslide, and Coalition MPs targeted by Mr Swan did better than before.
However Mr Swan did not give up. Federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams was persuaded that a good way to ban "X" videos would be to exclude a little of the more objectionable material and rename the rest of it "NVE". The bill to effect this change was introduced late last year.
But many Aussie parents had had enough, and told John Howard so. Barbara Biggins of Young Media Australia described X-rated material as "highly toxic to children".
The director of a Melbourne clinic said last year that an increasing number of kindergarten age children are being referred because of deviant sexual behaviour. Many had raped other children. The main factor was X-rated videos in homes.
Others are also suffering - in outback indigenous communities, for example, where porn videos are a major form of entertainment. Festival of Light and other groups told Coalition MPs that enough is enough.
We pointed out that laboratory studies on the impact of "non-violent" pornography show that porn consumers tend to trivialise rape and have a more calloused attitude to women. They also tend to have a considerably decreased desire to have children.
"Europe, with a growing porn culture, is facing an unsustainable ageing population due to plummeting birth rates," we said. "One must ask whether pornography is one of the contributing factors."
This time at least, the federal government listened. We thank them!
The article below, by Margaret Martin, JP, of Albany WA,
is reprinted from The West Australian, Saturday 6 May 2000, page 2.
Controversy over the increase in diagnosis of children with Attention Deficit Disorder and the possible over-prescription of drugs such as Ritalin and Dexamphetamine have sparked comments about child behaviour.
While it is evident that some children are properly diagnosed and benefit greatly from the treatment, there are many who believe that it is an easy option for parents with "naughty" children to drug them.
I cannot help wondering whether the current trend that forbids smacking children in a quick, caring way has anything to do with the increase in child misbehaviour.
As a Children's Court Justice of the Peace, I often see young children with a complete contempt for the law and for their parents/guardians who are often at desperation point with an uncontrollable child.
I would certainly oppose any form of violence against a child, but a simple smack at the time of the offence is an immediate deterrent and an excellent way to teach a child obedience.
Another social problem could have an even greater influence on the increase of ADD in children, and that is the increase in drinking alcohol by young girls and women. It is well known that many teenage girls binge drink every weekend, sometimes resulting in sexual indiscretion.
Since ancient times, women have been advised not to drink alcohol when pregnant or planning to be, but not all pregnancies are planned.
In 1973, scientists in the United States confirmed that alcohol is a teratogen, a toxic agent that can cause birth defects. Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is caused by prenatal exposure to high levels of alcohol. FAS is the highest single preventable cause of mental retardation in the Western world.
Prenatal alcohol exposure that causes some, but not all, of the FAS characteristics is referred to as Foetal Alcohol Effects (FAE). It results in brain damage and is thought to be three to five times more common than FAS.
Smaller amounts of alcohol, if taken at the crucial time of development of the foetus, may cause FAE - possibly before the women know they are pregnant. Sadly, I have been told that FAS/FAE is seen by paediatricians in Australia, but rarely named because of the guilt sustained by the mother.
Therefore there is little evidence-based information available in Australia about FAS/FAE and it often goes undiagnosed and therefore is not treated appropriately.
Who is fighting the war on foetal alcohol damage? Who is fighting for the children who have been robbed of their full capacity to think and act on their own behalf? How many of these uncontrollable "naughty" children have brain damage?
Where are the researchers who will address this problem and provide evidence-based statistics similar to those in the US, Canada and New Zealand? Australia must not sweep this problem under the carpet and pretend it does not exist.
On 24 May, SA MP Michael Atkinson (ALP, Spence), assisted by Jack Snelling (ALP, Playford) summed up arguments for and against legal euthanasia given to the SA parliamentary Social Development Committee's euthanasia inquiry (Hansard pp 1169-72).
Mr Atkinson quoted doctors who gave evidence about dying patients' "hard cases". Even though modern medicine, properly applied, can now eliminate virtually all pain, conditions such as weakness and dependence may continue to cause distress for a few.
Mr Atkinson noted that some Australian doctors have admitted, in an anonymous survey, that they practice "mercy killing". On this evidence, campaigners like Professor Helga Kuhse and Dr Philip Nitschke argue that the practice of euthanasia should be legalised so that it can be "regulated".
Michael Atkinson disagrees. He says: "If a small number of doctors is prepared to break the law against homicide now, it would be trusting of us to think that some would not stretch a voluntary euthanasia law and begin to kill those who they consider would benefit from euthanasia if they were sufficiently competent to ask for it.
"In the United Kingdom, a jury at Preston Crown Court recently found Dr Harold Shipman guilty of killing 15 elderly women patients with diamorphine in their homes and in his surgery. No question of consent arose in any of the cases.
"Would there be more Dr Shipmans after active voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide were legalised? I say the answer is `Yes'. Some may deride my reasoning as the slippery slope argument. Let them. Taboos have a role. In my opinion, the mischief that would be remedied by such legislation is not as great as the mischief that would be created by it," Mr Atkinson said.
After hearing all the evidence, a majority of the Committee (Hon Carolyn Schaefer, Hon Terry Cameron, Joe Scalzi and Michael Atkinson) rejected the principles of the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 1996. Hon Sandra Kanck and Dr Bob Such supported them.