Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi hits out at 'pro-death' abortion, step-families, IR laws
One of Tony Abbott's backbenchers has accused some women of using abortion as "an abhorrent form of birth control" and labelled those who advocate pro-choice as "pro-death."
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has made the comments in his new book, The Conservative Revolution, in which he also calls for more flexible industrial relations laws, including a return to individual workplace agreements whereby penalty rates can be negotiated away.
Senator Bernardi also rails against non-traditional families, surrogacy and euthanasia and calls on fellow conservatives to help to reverse the trends in social acceptance of changing attitudes.
It is "horrendous and unacceptable" that the abortion "death industry despatches 80,000 to 100,000 unborn children [in Australia] every year," Senator Bernardi writes.
"The political pressure from the left has ushered us into a morbid new world. It is not enough to stop the trend. What is needed is a reversal back to sanity and reason."
Call to give employers free hand to hire and fire
The Coalition has been mute on workplace relations changes ever since John Howard's ill-fated Workchoices, which contributed to the Liberals' defeat in 2007.
Mr Abbott has reiterated that Workchoices is "dead, buried and cremated" during the two subsequent election campaigns, but Senator Bernardi says some parts of Mr Howard's laws warrant resurrection.
"Surely an employee should be free to negotiate an acceptable workplace agreement directly with their employer... free from government or union interference," he writes.
"Small business needs to be empowered to hire and fire employees free of illegitimate government interference."
Step-families, single parents, surrogate parents singled out for criticism
His essay sets out five founding pillars for a "conservative revolution", including restoring the traditional family model to what he says should be its "prime position" over other family types like step-families, same-sex and single families, as well as couples with children born via surrogacy.
"Given the increasing number of 'non-traditional' families, there is a temptation to equate all family structures as being equal or relative," he writes.
Competent social policy should be drafted by those who understand the primacy of natural law and who are able to see patterns in society. Cory Bernardi "Why then the levels of criminality among boys and promiscuity among girls who are brought up in single-parent families, more often than not headed by a single mother?
"What is missing in the push for human cloning, in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy, for example, is the understanding that children come into families as gifts, not commodities.
"It is perfectly reasonable and rational therefore for the state, if it is to have a role in social policy and the affairs of marriage, to reinforce and entrench those aspects of traditional marriage that work, not undermine them and promote 'alternatives' which have led to social chaos.
"Competent social policy should be drafted by those who understand the primacy of natural law and who are able to see patterns in society."
Greens, Islam threatening Christian values; Red Cross breakfasts for kids undermining parental responsibility
He also advocates removing Government welfare designed to assist children from families that experience a breakdown, arguing programs like the Red Cross's Good Start Breakfast Club remove parental responsibility and create a mentality that the state will provide.
Senator Bernardi also laments the absence of religion in politics and its diminished role in society, saying it has left Australia bereft of direction.
"I believe that by stripping God and religious principles from our culture (and our politics) we have become a nation which does not know which port it is sailing to," Senator Bernardi writes.
He argues there are two great threats to faith, and specifically Christianity: the "green agenda" which he believes places plant and animal life above humanity; and Islam, which he says is fundamentally incompatible with the Western way of life.
Comments come from one-time confidante of Prime Minister
Senator Bernardi is an influential member of the Liberal party's right-wing and has been a confidante of the prime minister, serving as Mr Abbott's parliamentary secretary in Opposition until he was demoted in 2012 for a speech in which he said gay marriage could lead to acceptance of bestiality.
His comments are bound to cause controversy for the prime minister, who in recent weeks has backed cabinet minister and prominent moderate Malcolm Turnbull in an internal dispute with the South Australian Senator over Mr Turnbull's public support for gay marriage.
In her infamous "blue ties" speech, delivered shortly before she was dumped as prime minister, Julia Gillard warned that "men in blue ties" would seek to make abortion rights their "plaything" if the Coalition won office.
That prompted Mr Abbott to pledge the Coalition had no plans for any change in the area.
