Catholics divided in the House
DateDecember 26, 2009
Jacqueline Maley
THE Catholic Church, traditionally a Labor heartland, is fast colonising the Liberal Party. A Herald analysis shows as many Catholics on the front bench of the Federal Opposition as that of the Government.
A poll of the federal cabinet and the shadow cabinet showed six Catholics in each, or about 30 per cent. Catholics are 26 per cent of the general population.
The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, is a staunch Catholic who studied for the priesthood as a young man. His shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, is also a Catholic and recently gave a talk at the Sydney Institute on his religious beliefs, ”In Defence of God”.
Both men were educated at Jesuit-run schools, as was the Opposition education spokesman, Christopher Pyne.
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The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was raised a Catholic but now attends Anglican services every Sunday. When he was recently photographed leaving the Catholic Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel in North Sydney, where he reportedly took Communion, Mr Abbott accused him of ”exploiting” his religious beliefs to score political points.
The debate over religion in politics comes as a Herald/Nielsen poll found 84 per cent of people agreed with the statement ”religion and politics should be separate” – though three-quarters did not care whether politicians identified themselves as Christian or not.
Opposition MPs were more forthcoming about their faith than Labor MPs. Of the 20 members of shadow cabinet, 18 identified as Christian and two did not comment. None identified as atheist or non-believers.
The Labor cabinet was more diverse. Two members – the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, and the Industry Minister, Kim Carr – said they were ”not religious”. Six identified as Catholic, including the Small Business Minister, Craig Emerson, the Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, and the Minister for Employment Participation, Mark Arbib.
Several Labor politicians said they were ”non-practising”, including the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who said through a spokeswoman that she was a ”non-practising Baptist” and ”not religious”.
The Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese, said he was a non-practising Catholic, and Chris Bowen identified himself as a non-practising Methodist.
No one from the shadow cabinet nominated themselves as ”non-practising”. And no one from either side said they held a non-Christian faith.
The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, said he was an ”agnostic Anglican”, and the Opposition industry spokeswoman, Sophie Mirabella, said she was married in the Anglican church but had a Greek Orthodox ceremony to please her aged mother.