Dear TBC,

I'm going to sound like a broken record,
but I'll repeat Dennis Pryor's law of obfuscation
or "that wasn't what I said."

"All political statements whether by government
or opposition, must be worded so that the
opposite meaning can be extracted from them.
The hidden agenda of such a simple statement
as "we shall abolish poverty" reads as follows:
"We shall abolish poverty sometime in the future,
subject to the state of the economy, if the
Senate lets us, if we haven't got more important
things to do, if it suits the international bankers
and if there is no more important measure necessary
to win the next election..."

Julia's email will be full of attempts to convert her.

Unfortunately, it's true to say that religious belief has historical connections with war.
Most, if not all wars in fact. Even todays.

So i think that distance should exist between religious belief and the fingers
poised above the buttons of war in todays world.

After all, it is now almost impossible to deny the theory of evolution,
causing the question to arise " does a God actually exist ".

Julia is right to say that it's okay for people to have such beliefs,
( that's a civil liberties issue ) but I feel comforted
knowing that religion and Govt are separated
and living in their appropriate places.

I agree, TBC. It's refreshing to have a PM who's not captive to the influence of the odious ACL. Brigadier Jim must be spewing.

Next step: get rid of the Lord's Prayer from Parliament. After that, chaplains in schools, tax concessions for religious organisations, funding for religious schools etc etc.

But of course that's not going to happen, is it?

Foxy:
<The hidden agenda [is to] ... win the next election>

Dear Foxy,
if I may observe, since 'tis an old punching bag of mine; it is not the fault of the politicians that policy is subject to popular approval. The villain(s), s/he who must be obeyed, is the will of the people. The politicians must affect to do his/her bidding, though s/he knows't must needs be disingenuous.
Popular politics is the art of the impossible.
"I" sound like a broken record; our politicians are our "faithful" representatives.

TBC and CJ Morgan are right as far as I am concerned.
I too find Julia Gillard refreshing in her secular views and feel we will hopefully now keep religion and politics as far apart as possible.

With the now diverse religious and non-religious views of the many different politicians (and their constituents) in our country, there should not be a mandate on one belief alone- that of christianity.

Now I have just seen a disturbing news item on TV about our past tennis champion Margaret Court getting upset at Julia Gillard for 'not believing in God'!

It is none of her business what Julia's personal beliefs are.
Whether Julia believes in fairy tales or not will have no bearing on how she runs the Government.

suseonline - you do know that Margaret Court's a Pentecostal pastor, and who her father-in-law and brother-in-law were, don't you?

I don't think that she's exactly representative of your average voter ;)