Senator Alex Antic Puts Australian Christian Freedom Index into the Parliamentary Record Senator Alex Antic introduced the Australian Christian Freedom Index to Federal Senate yesterday (Tuesday, 30 June), placing the first systematic audit of Christian religious liberty in Australia into the parliamentary record. The survey findings paint a sobering picture. “92% said that they think it’s riskier to affirm Christian beliefs than it was 5 years ago,” Senator Antic reported to Parliament. “42% said they experienced hostility, threats, or harassment for expressing what they consider to be a Christian worldview.” Additional data revealed that 25% of respondents were denied opportunities at work, volunteering, or leadership due to their beliefs — issues that Senator Antic noted likely relate to positions on marriage and family. The report documents specific cases of institutional pressure, including university students dismissed for conservative opinions in supposedly “freethinking academic institutions” and teachers in Christian schools expressing frustration at being “policed in an environment where their faith is meant to provide the ethos in their workplace.” Senator Antic drew a striking parallel, sharing accounts from those with firsthand experience of totalitarianism: “Personally, I’ve had many many people who have escaped communist countries that tell me that Australia feels eerily like what they fled many years ago. Sometimes they whisper to state their honest opinion to avoid being overheard or the need to police themselves lest they face disciplinary measures from HR departments.” He emphasised that “Many Australians of conservative persuasions have felt for a very long time that an ideology hostile to Christianity has taken hold in our institutions.” “It shouldn’t be this way in Australia”, he concluded. The ACFI team, comprising the Canberra Declaration, Australian Christian Lobby, Australian Family Coalition, Citizen GO, Family Voice Australia, and the Human Rights Law Alliance, express our immense gratitude to Senator Antic for bringing the issue before the nation’s lawmakers. Senator Antic encouraged all Australians to review the full report. “I would encourage anyone listening to go and read the Australian Christian Freedom Index document from May of this year which touches on a whole lot of important subjects,” he said. Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026… Download or order your ACFI report: australianchristianfreedomin…

The Forgotten Lighthorse Charge on 25 September 1918 by Jill Curry [HISTORY] The battles of the Australian Lighthorse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles in the Holy Land in World War 1 did not end at Beersheba or even in Jerusalem in 1917. The winter set in, and they stayed camped for several months until a couple of unsuccessful attempts to capture Amman in March and April of 1918. The Turks had built a defence line from the Mediterranean Sea right across to the Jordan River at the Dead Sea, which needed to be broken in order to capture the northern part of Israel and Damascus. The ‘Megiddo sweep’ began on 19 September 1918, with a surprise attack near the Mediterranean by the British air force and cavalry followed closely by the Australian Lighthorse. They headed north towards Afula and Nazareth. The Allied forces captured 8,000 Turks, putting their entire 8th army out of action. >The Fierce Battle for Semakh The 4th Light Horse Brigade was given the task of taking the village and strategic railway station at Semakh (today spelt Tzemach) on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee. It was protected by 13 German machine guns, a 77mm field gun and several hundred Turkish infantry with grenades. Before dawn on 25 September, two squadrons (from each of the 11th and 12th Light Horse regiments) embarked on a charge – this time in the moonlight, before dawn. These squadrons included a contingent of Aboriginal soldiers, now permitted to join where previously they were denied, one of whom was the grandfather of Olympic sprinter Cathy Freeman. The enemy fire began before they were within 800 metres of the station, and several horses fell. On reaching the village, they fought fiercely but were outnumbered and were rained upon by the Germans shooting from above through the windows of their strong station fort. Only when Australian machine gunners arrived, following the charging horses, did the tide begin to turn, as they disabled the fire from the windows. The two squadrons then bashed down the door and entered the station, going from room to room, fighting hand to hand with rifles, swords and bayonets. It was the bloodiest battle on this operation, with 14 ANZACs killed and 64 wounded, together with almost 100 horse casualties, being nearly half of the horse contingent. They killed around 100 opponents (mostly Germans), took 365 prisoners (half of them German), with many more wounded. This was one of the last mounted charges in military history, as thereafter, mechanised transport and tanks were used instead. > Remembering the Fallen Largely due to the vision of Ziv Ophir of Kinneret College, which is located around the site of Semakh, the college, together with the Australian Light Horse Association, the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Government, has reconstructed the damaged station, restored the surrounding buildings and continues the memory of these gallant soldiers. In the grounds of the college, they have erected a memorial plaque telling the story of the capture. Each of those killed is remembered with an individual plaque and a small gum tree. A statue by Jennifer Marshall, depicting a horse and an Aboriginal trooper, World War I soldier Jack Pollard, was added in 2019 to complete the restoration for the 100th anniversary of the battle. > From Semakh to Damascus Meanwhile, across the Jordan, the Chaytor Force under New Zealand General Edward Chaytor finally conquered Amman and the 7th Turkish army, taking thousands more captive. From there, it was on to Damascus, where there were more battles that cannot be detailed here. Allenby’s ambitious plan involving 34,000 horsemen against three Turkish armies had paid off. In only six weeks of the ‘Megiddo sweep’, they covered 560 kms on horseback and took 75,000 Turks captive, plus capturing 360 guns. The armistice in the Palestinian campaign was enacted at midday on October 31, 1918, exactly a year after the Beersheba charge. 32,000 men and 40,000 horses participated in the Palestinian campaign, which claimed 1,394 dead from injuries or disease and 4,851 wounded. Most of these were lost in the final part of the ‘Megiddo sweep’. Illness outnumbered other causes 37 to one.1 New Zealand had a population of just over 1 million in 1914. They lost 18,000 men in World War 1, with another 40,000 wounded. Of 250,000 eligible men, 120,00 enlisted and 100,000 served overseas. While Beersheba was the first breakthrough in the ancient territory of the Holy Land, Semakh was the last major battle before they reached Syrian territory. Both involved Australian troops, showing the pivotal role our soldiers played in liberating the Holy Land from Ottoman domination. Interestingly, Tzemach means ‘branch’, a term used for the Messiah. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Monica Smit’s Next Goal: End Mandatory Voting After the Abolition of Group Voting Ticket by @JoshSpasaro [NEWS] A key figure in the abolishment of the Group Voting Ticket (GVT) in Victoria, Monica Smit, now has a new “addiction” driving her – she wants to get rid of mandatory voting. “This is my next goal. Mandatory voting forces uneducated voters to make bad and emotional decisions,” she revealed to The Daily Declaration. The founder of anti-lockdown group Reignite Democracy Australia launched the Climate Action Now party to harvest votes towards One Nation at the Victorian election on 28 November. Her brother Daniel Smit was leader of the I’m Voting To Avoid The Fine party, while prominent independent reporter and fellow conservative, Avi Yemeni, spearheaded the Free Palestine (From Hamas) Party. Smit, Yemeni and One Nation Victoria Leader, Warren Pickering, all spoke at a ‘Bye Bye GVT’ celebration at Hawthorn East on Sunday night, where they praised the state’s conservative community for helping to bring an end to vote harvesting via micro political parties. The GVT played a role in former Labor Premier Daniel Andrews getting re-elected in 2022 via the Sack Daniel Andrews Party, which diverted votes straight back to Labor four years ago. “I’m ecstatic and completely shocked,” Smit said at the function when asked how she felt regarding the end of vote-funnelling micro parties. “It took participation. It wasn’t easy, and it took effort. Nothing worth doing takes little effort.” Pickering added that the result lifted a massive weight from his shoulders. “You have no idea. It’s one of those things that has been hanging over the back of our minds for the past four years,” he told The Daily Declaration. “The additional resources, energy and effort that it takes to try and educate people on exactly how it impacts the elections in Victoria is something that was ever-present these past four years. “Obviously, we’ve made it harder to work with like-minded parties that utilised that vote-harvesting system to their benefit. “So it’s enormous for us.” The likes of the Climate Action Now, I’m Voting To Avoid The Fine and Free Palestine parties would have diverted votes towards One Nation Victoria, until the Group Voting Ticket was abolished by the Carroll Labor Government on 11 August. With Victorian conservative figures flipping the tables and playing the same game in return against their left-leaning political opposites, Labor lawmakers moved swiftly to put an end to the system last month. And now Smit wants further voting reform. “In America, they have a voluntary voting system. The older you are, the more likely you are to choose to vote,” she said. “The older you are, the more likely you are to be conservative, as well. So if we can get rid of mandatory voting, then it’s going to help conservatives.” Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Victorian Parliament Rejects Moira Deeming’s Motion to Ban Children from Brothel Sites by Samuel Hartwich [NEWS] Victoria’s Legislative Council voted 22–17 on Wednesday against a motion to make it an offence “to conduct in-person commercial sex work while a child is present, including in a private home.” Family First Victoria leader Moira Deeming introduced the motion, calling for the law to state explicitly that children cannot consent to commercial sexual exploitation and describing the child in such cases as a victim rather than a participant. “This is not complicated,” Deeming said. “A child is not a sex worker. A child is not a client. And a child should never be in the house when a man is brought in as a customer.” “The very least that [the law] should do is keep children out while that sex work is happening. To leave it as it is now is a disgrace,” Deeming told the chamber. Every Liberal and Nationals MP present voted for the motion, alongside One Nation, the Libertarians, and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. Labor, the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and the Animal Justice Party voted it down. Victorian Labor dismissed Deeming’s motion as irrelevant for child safety, while the Federal Labor Party is currently arguing its Digital Duty of Care Bill is essential for the safety of children. Deeming’s motion was the final non-government business debated before the Victorian Parliament rises ahead of the November 28 election. Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

The Church Needs to Awake! The Canberra Declaration Is Holding 72 Hours of Prayer & Worship by Warwick Marsh and Samuel Hartwich [EDITORIALS] The Canberra Declaration has begun a special time of 24/7 prayer and worship as a part of our Awaken October prayer campaign. It began at 8 pm (AEST) last night — and you are invited! Join us anytime on Zoom from 8 pm, Thursday 24 September, to 9 pm, Sunday 27 September. The Church is God’s choice to reach Australia. But too often, the Church is distracted by things that are not that important. It’s easy for our love for God and others to grow cold (Revelation 2:4). But a Church with little love for God or others won’t share the gospel and disciple others in the life-giving way of Jesus. As we read in Revelation 2–3, Jesus is commanding his Church to “wake up” (e.g. Revelation 3:2). Awake, Church, and Christ will shine on you (Ephesians 5:14)! The focus of these 72 hours is to worship the Lord and renew our love for Jesus, as we prepare to launch these historic 31 days of prayer and fasting for the Church on 1 October. During these 72 hours, we are praying for: 1. A release of a great offering of worship, praise and thanksgiving to God. 2. The Church in Australia to be filled with extravagant love for God and a passion to reach the lost. 3. Revival, repentance and reformation for the nation of Australia and millions to trust in Christ. 4. Thousands of people to come to Christ through the Love the Northern Rivers Gospel Crusade over this 72-hour period. 5. The success of the Melbourne Bible Reading Marathon being held during this time. 6. The multiplication of our Facebook ad campaign to promote these 31 days of prayer and fasting to a very large audience. > Join Us on Zoom Join us anytime on Zoom from 8 pm tonight until 9 pm on Sunday, 27 September (AEST) via this Zoom link. Even if you can only make it for one hour, we’d love you to pray with us! But if you cannot do that, please pray in your own quiet time and commit these 31 days of prayer and fasting for the Church to God. We recently came across a pastor leading a church in repentance and tearful prayer for revival. We were mightily encouraged. God’s call to awaken is not merely for Australia — Jesus is stirring his Church across the globe. As you watch this church cry out for greater love for God and people, join them in prayer. > Daily Devotionals Begin on 1 October Each morning, we will send out a prayer devotional from 1–31 October. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive these in your email inbox each morning, simply click the orange button below to be taken to the signup page. You’ll also find more information, including promotional posters to share with your friends, family, church and prayer networks, by clicking on that same button. We look forward with great anticipation to what the Lord will accomplish during these 72 hours of prayer and the 31 days that follow. Yours for an awakening, Warwick Marsh & Samuel Hartwich Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Filmmaker Arrested for Exposing Trans Ideology Attacking Colombian Children by Quinn Delamater [NEWS] Mexican YouTuber Samuel Adrián landed at Bogotá’s El Dorado Airport on Sunday, 13 September, and was detained minutes later by the Colombian National Police. He had committed no murder, robbery, or abuse against anyone. His “crime” was expressing a politically incorrect truth through his documentary, “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans” (Colombia: Factory of Trans Children). On 5 December 2025, a court in Cali, Colombia, issued an order demanding that the content creator remove certain clips from his social media. These were images in which a doctor revealed the dangers associated with gender transitions in children and adolescents. After he refused and published the documentary, a Cali court ordered his arrest for 10 days and imposed a fine. “Ten days and a fine” — Samuel Adrián repeated this phrase in a video recorded during a layover last weekend while travelling to Colombia. He knew what awaited him. Liliana Castañeda, an advisor to the Colombian Congress, revealed for this article that the filmmaker had been invited to the South American country to give a lecture on Tuesday afternoon and to accompany several politicians that same morning during the “formal presentation of a bill seeking to ban gender ideology in Colombian schools.” Now, although Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella sympathises with the cause, Samuel Adrián remains in custody. Castañeda is confident he will be released soon. > Millions Watch As Debate Intensifies Regarding the attacks on the documentary — which culminated in his arrest this Sunday — Samuel Adrián confided in me that, contrary to his detractors’ intentions, the backlash sparked massive public outrage, generated millions of views, and garnered support from journalists, lawyers, and public figures across various countries. I can attest that even from Cuba — where internet access is difficult due to high costs — colleagues were sending me the link to the film. After premiering on YouTube on 17 May 2026, the documentary went viral and made such an impact on Hispanic audiences that some compared it to the counter-cultural work “What Is a Woman?” by American political commentator Matt Walsh. With over 3.2 million views, the documentary has fueled a debate in the South American nation regarding human nature, new totalitarian-style ideologies, the advancement of the trans agenda targeting minors in Colombia, and the “cultural, medical, and social consequences” for future generations. According to Samuel Adrián, the film allowed many people to learn for the first time about something that had been happening away from public scrutiny for years. > A Gender Clinic Under Scrutiny When I asked him a few months ago about the repercussions, he replied with a single word: “enormous.” One consequence was bringing to light the promotion of gender transition for minors within one of Colombia’s most important medical institutions: the Valle del Lili Foundation in Cali. “Millions of people heard Dr Angulo mention the consequences of subjecting children to these procedures,” Samuel Adrián recounted. “From infertility, loss of bone density, and other physical development issues, to the pressure placed on many parents to initiate their children’s transition — often suggesting that if they didn’t, the children risked falling into depression and taking their own lives.” In the wake of the documentary, “the gender clinic was removed from the Valle del Lili Foundation’s service offerings, and the doctor who ran it, Mario Angulo, can no longer perform procedures on minors within that program.” The victory represented by the clinic’s closure, he stated, “demonstrates that when people get informed, speak up, and refuse to remain silent, things can change.” “Many people understand that this is no longer just about a documentary,” he told me. “It is about the right to share information of public interest, to defend freedom of expression, and to protect children.” At the start of the documentary, a scene sets the project’s personal tone. Samuel Adrián is packing for a trip to South America, but first — silhouetted against the light — he kisses his wife, Dania, and the two young children born of their young marriage. The filmmaker thus reveals just how personal and sensitive the subject he is about to explore is to him, given that he views it also through the eyes of a father. And a father — a man of faith and integrity — is capable of anything for the love of Truth. Let us hope the Colombian authorities understand this and prioritise it over the strident cries of an ideology of death. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

‘Serious Concerns’: US Warns Albanese’ Duty of Care Bill Risks Viewpoint-Based Censorship by @K_Mahlburg [NEWS] The United States government has warned that Labor’s Digital Duty of Care bill risks becoming “a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship” and has called on the Albanese government to abandon plans to force platforms to suppress content. Washington issued its warning in a submission to the Albanese government’s public consultation into the bill, then published the submission on the US Embassy website after the government said submissions will not be made public. The submission questions how the government, or the Communications Minister, would “designate what constitutes ‘foreseeable harm’”. Vague definitions, it argues, mean that “platforms will be incentivised to over-moderate speech that should be protected to avoid regulatory penalties”. The US government lists independent journalists and “other voices whose content touches on sensitive or controversial topics” among those most at risk. It also asked what safeguards would stop officials’ “biases and preferences” from disadvantaging “independent or minority-viewpoint speech”. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells released the bill’s exposure draft on 8 September and flagged that breaches could attract penalties of up to $109.2 million. Public consultation into the bill closed at midday on Tuesday. The Coalition announced on 10 September it opposed the bill in its current form. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called the draft “a blank cheque for political censorship to the minister and to the government”. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has accused Labor of “copying the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship playbook” and warned that Australia “should be moving away from government censorship, not building the Orwellian machinery for it”. > Platform Design and Global Reach Washington’s submission says the US “has serious concerns” about mandates that “dictate how platforms manage content and users’ feeds”. It singles out “rigid, one-size-fits-all platform design requirements — such as forced chronological feeds or opt-in recommendation systems”. The US asked what criteria would define “foreseeable harm”, who would make that call, and whether users or platforms could appeal. Even without an explicit mandate, it warns, platforms could default to “pre-emptive censorship to avoid the risk of liability”. Most affected platforms are US-headquartered, the submission notes, and build features globally rather than market by market. Design mandates, it says, “may affect what users see, say, and hear not just in or from Australia, but globally”. If other nations impose conflicting mandates, it warns, platforms face pressure towards a “most-restrictive-jurisdiction outcome”. The US restated its opposition to foreign measures producing “extraterritorial censorship of protected speech by Americans online”. It urges Australia to weigh how prescriptive mandates could affect its reputation as “a jurisdiction that enables innovation — rather than one that unduly constrains the development and use of technology”. > Prime Minister’s Response Albanese, who is in the US for the United Nations General Assembly, faced questions about the submission in New York on Tuesday evening. One reporter, speaking to the Prime Minister before a dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump, called the US statement “pretty hostile” and asked whether the US response concerned him. In footage of the exchange, Albanese replied that he would “always stand up for Australia’s national interests”. “It’s not about giving government control, it’s about giving people back control over what they receive on their devices,” he said. Noting that the bill was yet to be introduced to Parliament, he added, “I hope the whole of the Parliament supports it. This should not be a partisan issue.” In June, Albanese warned against “the rise of populism whether of the right or the left,” while The Sydney Morning Herald reported in August that the Prime Minister’s plan to “beef up Australia’s heavy regulation of big tech” was aimed at countering “the rise of populism exemplified by One Nation”. Greens communications spokesman Senator David Shoebridge, whom Labor will rely on to pass the bill, has cited Pauline Hanson and the Coalition in arguing for the bill, saying, “Every time you get Pauline Hanson come out and say well actually she wants to promote hateful messages against First Nations peoples or you get the Coalition coming out and saying that they want to promote genocide denial, I think it points out we need digital duty of care so that those messages aren’t amplified.” Liberal Senator Alex Antic has warned that the bill revives Labor’s misinformation bill, which was withdrawn in November 2024. He pointed to the United Kingdom, where he said “citizens are being imprisoned for ‘harmful’ social media posts”. “If there was a mechanism for allowing political opinions to be considered psychologically harmful, this new power is it,” he said. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

All Blacks and Springboks Kneel in Prayer as Injured Ardie Savea Recounts Encounter With God by @Rod_Lampard [TESTIMONIES] New Zealand’s All Blacks and the South African Springboks have marked the close of their new Rugby test series with prayer. Side by side, both teams stood and knelt together with heads bowed after SA beat NZ 43-28 in the United States city of Baltimore. While mainstream coverage was spread thin, South Africa’s public broadcaster acknowledged the prayer, as did Christian sports outreach platform Jesus My Goal (JMC). > Rivals Kneel Together in Prayer Commenting on the 12 September Maryland moment, JMC said, “It’s powerful to see some of the world’s best rugby players publicly acknowledge that there is something greater than the game itself. To God be the glory.” New Zealand’s coverage tended to focus more on the scores. Some official channels, like ESPN and the All Blacks management, seemed to downplay the prayer by referring to it as a respect huddle. For instance, ESPN’s Latin-American branch referred to the post-game prayer as a middle court sign of respect. “As if it were part of a movie,” ESPN said, “all the players gathered in the middle of the court, kneeling and hugging each other, showing the respect they have for one another.” Likewise, in an official YouTube post, the All Blacks management wrote, “Four Tests, one series, everything on the line.” “When the final whistle went in Baltimore, the All Blacks and Springboks came together in a huddle, arm in arm, a mark of respect after one of the great rivalries in world rugby delivered another classic.” “Rivals to the final. Brothers after,” they added. > Siya Kolisi: A Special Moment of Brotherhood Talking about the prayer during a team press conference, Christian and Springbok captain Siya Kolisi said, “We just came together to thank each other for the [Greatest Rivalry] series.” “We go against each other all the time, but we get along off the field. There’s no argument; we’re good friends.” “It’s tough when we’re on the field,” he remarked. “The way they [All Blacks] came to South Africa and embraced our country and the way they gave themselves to people in the country, we were just saying thanks.” “It’s tough that one team has to win and one team has to lose, but with the respect that we have for each other, we shared a prayer together.” “It was a really special moment,” stated Kolisi. All Blacks captain and Kolisi’s close friend, Ardie Savea, was absent from the Baltimore game. An injury knocked him out of the series. According to the AP, the New Zealander “dislocated his shoulder during the third test of the four-test series, which South Africa won 3-1.” That injury required surgery, putting Savea out of the All Blacks’ battle for the Bledisloe Cup against the Wallabies in October. AP said it’s unlikely Savea will play again in 2026. > Ardie Savea’s Encounter With God Discussing the injury as part of a devotional shared on his ASAV World YouTube channel, Savea said that it led him to a “special encounter with God.” “I asked my friends to play worship music while they were putting all the wires and needles in.” “The whole time,” he recalled, “I thought I was awake. I just saw like burning white fiery light.” “I encountered the Lord, and I was just weeping, just praising, just everything of the Lord.” “I was thanking Him, talking to Him for what felt like an hour.” Waking up after being sedated, Savea said, “I just got up and praised the Lord in front of everyone.” “I had five people doing my shoulder, some ambulance officers and some All Blacks staff. God is real. Jesus is real.” From that moment on, he added, “I think I felt the Lord tell me don’t wait. No more waiting. Do, go, follow. Seek. Stand firm. Be still.” In “every little thing, do not let fear cripple us. Honestly, life is too short.” Savea then asked subscribers to pray for his family and called on people to pray for his auntie, who passed recently. “Tomorrow is never guaranteed,” Savea affirmed. Speaking about the break in his routine, the All Black captain said he got up wondering about his purpose. “I can’t train. You kind of question and feel sorry for yourself.” “It’s a great reminder for me that the Lord, in this season of mine, something’s going to happen,” Savea testified. “I just have to stand still. Do not be afraid; stand firm and seek Him.” He then encouraged those watching to “all do that.” “Clean hearts,” he concluded, “God’s heart. Thank you, Jesus.” Rugby Rivals Point Beyond the Game Commenting on Savea’s Instagram post about the injury, Australian Israel Folau said, “Healing in Jesus’ name.” All Black flanker Wallace Sititi dropped a heart emoji, and Siya Kolisi encouraged his opponent and injured brother in Christ with, “I love you.” Illustrating the consistency of his faith and the sense of Christian brotherhood he shares with the Springbok captain, Savea attended church with Kolisi when he was in South Africa. As Savea said on Instagram at the time, “Nothing better than being in the presence of the Lord with my brother in Christ. A powerful word today on staying faithful in unexpected places. Acts 28:1-11.” Kolisi, Savea and the team prayer are all another miracle mile, indicative of the broader culture wrestling its way back to Christ. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Read the Canberra Declaration’s Submission to the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 The Canberra Declaration has submitted to the Federal Government’s Exposure Draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, warning that a Bill sold as child protection is, in its actual text, a mechanism for controlling lawful political and religious speech. Every parent wants their children safe online. The Canberra Declaration, representing over 98,000 signatories committed to Christian values and freedoms, does not dispute that social media has real and documented harms for young Australians, or that government has a legitimate role in addressing them. But a bill’s stated purpose and its actual text are two different things. When we read the Digital Duty of Care Bill closely, what we found should concern every Australian who values free speech and religious freedom. > A Bill with an Open Definition of “Harm” The entire structure of this Bill depends on one word: harm. And the Bill leaves its definition open. Proposed section 25C(1)(m) gives the Minister for Communications power to declare “any other material or conduct” seriously harmful, by legislative instrument, whenever she is personally “satisfied” it may cause serious harm. There is no requirement that the material be unlawful. No requirement a court has ruled on it. No requirement Parliament debates the category before it takes effect. The Minister’s satisfaction is the entire legal test. The rule of law is opposed to rule by decree — or “satisfaction.” A law built on the shifting judgment of whoever holds office, rather than on fixed, knowable standards, isn’t a safeguard. It’s a recipe for disaster. > A Clause That Targets a Viewpoint, Not a Crime Proposed section 25D(1)(c) deems material harmful to children if it “encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality.” This is not a description of a crime. It is a description of an opinion. It is entirely lawful in Australia to teach that a husband and wife hold different, complementary responsibilities within marriage. It’s lawful to argue against gender quotas, or to argue that biological males should not compete in women’s sport. None of these is a crime. Yet under this Bill, whether any of them counts as a “hostile attitude” can be decided by one person’s satisfaction. Even the Coalition’s own analysis of the exposure draft warns that “poorly defined tests risk catching legitimate political, religious, cultural and social debate.” > A Promise in a Policy Paper, Not in the Law The government’s accompanying policy paper promises that any rule made under this framework “will be required to include a statement of the rule’s compatibility with Australia’s human rights obligations, including freedom of expression.” We read the 75-page exposure draft in full. The words “freedom of expression,” “human rights,” “compatibility,” and “scrutiny” do not appear anywhere. Whatever safeguard the government intends exists only in a document that can be quietly revised or dropped, with no parliamentary process required. A safeguard that matters belongs in the Bill. This one isn’t. Notably, the Digital Duty of Care Bill does carve out one specific protection: proposed section 26(7) exempts “lawful communications occurring in private solely between consenting adults” from the duty of care entirely. The government evidently knows how to write a clause that places a category of speech beyond the Minister’s reach. It simply hasn’t done so for lawful political communication or lawful religious teaching. Why not? > The Minister Has Already Told Us Who Decides Asked directly who would decide what counts as a new serious harm, Minister Wells answered plainly: “the test for what would constitute a new serious harm would ultimately be made by me.” Pressed on the ABC’s Insiders about the missing definition, her response described only procedure — consultation with the eSafety Commissioner, and the theoretical right of a senator to move a disallowance motion. Neither answer defines the word “harm.” Both confirm that whoever holds the office will supply the definition, case by case. This is not a new pattern. The eSafety Commissioner’s powers began in 2015 confined narrowly to cyberbullying material targeting children, then widened with the Online Safety Act 2021. This Bill widens them again — attaching that growth to open-ended ministerial discretion rather than a fixed, debated list. > A Regulator That Has Already Gotten It Wrong This is not a hypothetical fear. In 2024, a delegate of the eSafety Commissioner issued a removal notice against Canadian activist Christopher Elston (“Billboard Chris”) for sharing and criticising a news article. It took a full year and an independent tribunal to correct. In July 2025, the Administrative Review Tribunal set the notice aside, finding an ordinary reasonable person “would not conclude that it is likely that the post was intended to have an effect of causing serious harm.” The eSafety Commissioner was convinced her decision to ban the post was fully justified. The Tribunal disagreed. Giving greater discretionary power to a regulator with an evident agenda on topics like sexuality and gender is a terrible idea. This Bill does not restrain that discretion. It expands it, backed by a maximum corporate penalty of roughly $109.2 million and a compliance window cut from 48 hours to 24. A platform facing a fine that size, on a deadline that short, over a standard this vague, has every commercial incentive to delete first and never ask questions. That’s not a safety framework. That’s 109.2 million reasons to land on the side of censorship. Parliamentarians Have Said It Themselves: It’s About Censorship Greens Senator David Shoebridge, whose vote the government needs to pass this Bill through the Senate, has already said the quiet part out loud: “… every time you get Pauline Hanson come out and say… she wants to promote hateful messages against First Nations peoples. Or you get the Coalition coming out and saying that they want to promote genocide denial… we need Digital Duty of Care so that those messages aren’t amplified.” A sitting senator holding the balance of power has named a political party and a political leader, by name, as the reason this Digital Duty of Care Bill is needed. Before the exposure draft was released, the Prime Minister warned of “the rise of populism,” with reporting linking his tech agenda directly to countering One Nation. But once the Digital Duty of Care Bill was actually on the table, the language softened to “this is not about giving government control… it’s not about censorship.” Are we to believe what was said before the Bill was drafted, or the talking points released once it was time to sell it to the public? Censorship has already happened to real people holding views this Bill’s “hostile attitudes” clause targets. Queensland psychiatrist Dr Andrew Amos was banned by the Medical Board from posting about gender medicine. Dr Jillian Spencer spent three years suspended for publicly criticising a children’s gender service, before all proceedings against her were finally dropped. These aren’t slippery-slope predictions. They’re the present. > What We Told the Government about the Digital Duty of Care Bill Our submission makes clear: Harm must be defined in the Digital Duty of Care Bill itself, not left to ministerial satisfaction, and should require a connection to conduct that is actually unlawful. Freedom of expression and religious freedom protections belong in the legislation, not in a policy paper that can be discarded without debate. Lawful political and religious speech deserves the same explicit protection the Bill already grants to private communication between consenting adults. Genuine child safety measures should be separated from open-ended discretionary power. We oppose a Bill that uses the language of child safety to build a discretionary power that a senator has openly admitted is aimed at silencing political opponents, and that has already been used, in a narrower form, against people for lawful speech. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Understanding Our Story as Christians: Helpful Church History Resources by Cody Mitchell Evangelical Christians like myself, especially in modern times, have gained a reputation for being notoriously detached from the wider history of Christianity — whether that be the history of evangelicalism as a movement or of the church as a whole. Pleasingly, there are some important efforts underway to correct this blind spot. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker’s Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan, 2024) calls Christians of all stripes and traditions to push back against what she calls “ahistoricism” and see ourselves as part of a much bigger story. Similarly, Gavin Ortlund’s YouTube ministry “Truth United”, and his book Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future (Crossway, 2019) offer a blueprint for how retrieval can enrich the evangelical movement and Protestant theological discourse more broadly. Organisations like the American Center for Baptist Renewal explicitly list historical and theological “retrieval” and the promotion of “Baptist catholicity” as among their key aims. Yet for the everyday Christian, a useful personal starting point in this project of historical retrieval is simply picking a good short history of the church. It doesn’t need to be anything super complex, long, or academic. A simple, well-written survey of Christian history is a great way to deepen your understanding of the various expressions of Christianity, not only geographically, but throughout time. It is also a fantastic way to discover areas of church history — particularly significant events, traditions or movements, or Christian figures — that pique your interest, opening the door for further reading and research. Here are two of my recommendations. > David Bentley Hart, The Story of Christianity: A History of 2,000 Years of the Christian Faith I just completed David Bentley Hart’s ambitiously-named The Story of Christianity (Quercus, 2013). Don’t let Hart’s extremely high-level work in other areas (he can be pretty difficult at times) put you off this little book — The Story of Christianity is genuinely accessible for any thoughtful layperson. Hart is one of the most interesting Christian thinkers and writers around today. He is a philosopher, theologian, essayist, fiction author, and a scholar of religion, and has written some twenty-four books on everything from theology and church history to philosophy of mind (I am currently reading his magisterial defence of the pre-modern, non-mechanistic conception of reality, All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life). In The Story of Christianity, however, his emphasis is on the 2,000 years following Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, but he fittingly begins with a brief overview of Christianity’s Jewish origins and nature of Jesus’s ministry as the Jewish Messiah and an itinerant rabbi. The book has very short chapters, which are broken up into even shorter topical sections. While this means that its treatment of any given figure, event, or movement is necessarily fleeting, brevity does have its upside. Rather than investing in one of the countless entire volumes dedicated to, say, the Spanish inquisition or the Carolingian Renaissance, you get a page and half summary of each — enough space to touch on the event’s significance and highlight several important figures. One of Hart’s strengths is that he has previously done very detailed work in apologetics — see, for example, his spectacular rebuttal to the “new atheists”, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale University Press, 2009). Accordingly, The Story of Christianity has a strong theme of clearing up common misunderstandings and misrepresentations about Christian history, misunderstandings that frequently offer ammunition to aggressive anti-Christians to attack Christianity. > John Dickson, Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History Another single-volume history of Christianity worth adding to your library is by Australian historian John Dickson: Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History. Dickson is an Aussie Anglican minister, who currently holds the (extremely prestigious-sounding) position of Jean Kvamme Distinguished Professor of Biblical Evangelism and Distinguished Scholar in Public Christianity at Wheaton College, in Illinois. He holds a PhD in Ancient History from Macquarie University and specialises in ancient Christianity and Judaism. He has held academic positions at Macquarie University, the University of Sydney, the University of Oxford, and Ridley College. Like Hart’s book, Dickson’s is engagingly written and accessible for non-scholars. Yet Dickson’s main focus, as the title of his book makes clear, is on the often controversial history of the church, and how, so frequently, atrocities have been committed in Christ’s name that stand in stark contrast to the teachings of Jesus himself. Dickson does not gloss over these tragedies and atrocities. After all, the history of Christians is a history of very fallible, broken people — indeed, “bullies” as well as “saints” as his title suggests. One need go no further than the Bible to find clear examples of the mistakes, disobedience, and sometimes downright wickedness of God’s people. It is important for Christians to reckon with the ugly side of church history as well as the many wonderful achievements and positive contributions that followers of Jesus have made to this world. Hence, I wholeheartedly recommend Bullies and Saints and The Story of Christianity to those seeking a better grasp of the Christian story of which we are each a part (whether we like it or not!). Those are two of my recommendations. Do you have some of your own? If so, leave a comment below to tell us more! Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

The World’s Greatest Redemption Story by @BillMuehlenberg [BIBLICAL] Of late, the media – or at least the Australian media – has been talking a lot about ‘redemption stories’. They all seem to involve people in the news who may have had a shady past, but have turned things around. Three quick examples can be mentioned: I just read this headline on an online newspaper: “‘Looking for redemption’: Hawthorn WAG’s fiery finals message to Jai Newcombe”. I don’t really know what that is all about, and wouldn’t know, as it is behind a paywall. And then, former AFL great Ben Cousins got into all sorts of strife for some years, including problems with drug addiction. Recently, he had been invited to be a guest speaker somewhere, but not everyone was pleased with that, so his speaking engagement was cancelled. Talk shows went back and forth, with some talking heads saying he should not be allowed to speak, while others spoke about people like this being allowed to turn over a new leaf and be given a second chance, and so on. Perhaps one of the more talked-about episodes concerns a newly appointed One Nation political candidate. It seems he, too, had a shady past, including drug use. Even though he now seems to be a new man, and his grown-up children are supporting him, because he dares to be part of that ‘evil’ One Nation, the sides have been firmly taken. Lefties, of course, say he is unfit for office and must resign immediately. As usual, double standards abound here. Consider just one case in point: the husband of Federal Labor MP Tanya Plibersek is a convicted heroin smuggler! But no one says she must go because of this. Hypocrites much? Anyway, with these and other ‘redemption stories’ being discussed in the media and at dinner parties, it is time to remind my readers of what redemption is really all about. And the Bible gives us the full story on just what genuine redemption is, entails, and can do. > Redemption Is More Than Self-Improvement Before examining the biblical and theological data, a few quick words about what we do NOT mean by redemption. We do not mean becoming a better you. We do not mean lifting yourselves up by your own bootstraps. We do not mean trying harder to be nicer or better. We do not mean ‘having your best life now’ as some dodgy televangelists proclaim. Self-improvement is simply not on the cards, and that, for the simple reason that we are all selfish sinners who are incapable of properly and fully turning our lives around. Given that the Bible insists that we are all dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, for example), we need much more than reform or a make-over or self-improvement – we need resurrection. That is something only God can provide. And given that we are by nature – our fallen nature, that is – at war with God, a declaration of complete and unconditional surrender is our very first need. As C. S. Lewis famously put it in Mere Christianity: Now what was the sort of ‘hole’ man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who needs to lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the right one—that is the only way out of our ‘hole.’ This process of surrender is what Christians call ‘repentance.’ Or as he put it elsewhere: “Non-Christians seem to think that the Incarnation implies some particular merit or excellence in humanity. But of course, it implies just the reverse: a particular demerit and depravity. No creature that deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the physician.” > The Biblical Meaning of Redemption First, let me look at the term in question. In the New Testament, various Greek words are used. Here are some of them: Lutron = ransom (noun), from luo, to loose Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Antilutron = substitute-ransom (noun) 1 Tim 2:5-6 – For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men – the testimony given in its proper time. Lutroo = to ransom, redeem (verb) Luke 24:21 – but we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. Titus 2:14 – who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good. Agorazoo = to buy, purchase (verb) Matthew 13:44 – The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 1 Corinthians 6:20 – you were bought at a price. Therefore, honour God with your body. Exagorazo = to buy up, to redeem (verb) Galatians 3:13 – Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Galatians 4:4-5 – But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. As can be seen, an essential feature of the term is the notion of making a payment. A few brief quotes tease this out a bit: “Redemption points to the payment of a price that sets sinners free. It referred to the practices of warfare. After a battle, the victors would not uncommonly capture some of the vanquished. The poorer ones would almost certainly finish up as slaves, but the men of rank, men who mattered in their own country, would be held to ransom. When the people in the homeland had raised the necessary sum of money, they would pay it to the victors, and the captors were set free. The process was called redemption, the price was called the ransom.” (Leon Morris, Galatians: Paul’s Charter of Christian Freedom) “The idea of redemption must not be reduced to the general notion of deliverance. The language of redemption is the language of purchase and, more specifically, of ransom. And ransom is the securing of a release by the payment of a price.” (John Murray, Redemption – Accomplished and Applied) “[W]hen the New Testament speaks of ransom with reference to the work of Christ, the idea is not one of transaction, as though a deal is arranged and a price paid. Rather, the focus is on the power (I Co. 1:18) of the cross to save. … There is no need, then, to ask the question posed so often in the past: To whom was the ransom paid? It is not possible to consider payment to Satan as though God were obliged to meet Satan’s demand or ‘asking price,’ And since the texts speak always of the activity of God in Christ, we cannot speak of God paying himself.” (R. W. Lyon, “Ransom”, in Walter Elwell, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology) “It would seem best to understand the biblical term ransom as a figure of speech indicating that our redemption is costly. We sometimes speak of the price which a mother pays when she brings a child into the world, but it would be absurd to ask to whom she pays the price.” (Charles Horne, Salvation) For those wanting a bit more than just theological definitions, I finish with some impactful, practical and devotional quotes: “Jesus Christ is both the only price and sacrifice by which eternal redemption is obtained for believers.” — Jonathan Edwards “The heart of the Gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.” — Charles Spurgeon “I thought I could have leaped from earth to heaven at one spring when I first saw my sins drowned in the Redeemer’s blood.” — Charles Spurgeon “If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.” — A. W. Tozer “God’s purpose in redemption is to make worshipers out of rebels.” — A. W. Tozer “Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people.” — C. S. Lewis “God’s global aim in creation and redemption is not only the glory of his name, but also the gladness of the peoples.” — John Piper “We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles. We offer people a Redeemer.” — Paul David Tripp “In salvation, we are not only saved from sin and damnation; we are saved unto holiness. The goal of redemption is holiness.” — R. C. Sproul “After creation, God said, ‘It is finished’ – and He rested. After redemption, Jesus said, ‘It is finished’ – and we can rest.” — Timothy Keller “God undertook the most dramatic rescue operation in cosmic history. He determined to save the human race from self-destruction, and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to salvage and redeem them. The work of man’s redemption was accomplished at the cross.” — Billy Graham Yes, it is at the cross that we find the one great redemption story. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

Calls Grow to Fire Dr Joanna Howe as Couple Sues Media Over “Rape” Smear by @Rod_Lampard [NEWS] A petition pressuring Adelaide University to fire leading pro-life advocate and law professor Dr Joanna Howe has resurfaced. News Corps’ The Advertiser gave the 21 May Change.org page oxygen in a piece published on Monday. Howe replied online by describing the attack on her professional life as “vultures circling.” “It’s not enough that they’ve destroyed my husband’s career and reputation on the false allegation that he’s a r*pist and a p*do,” Howe said. “Now they’re coming for me. These people are vile.” The petition, which has 5,000 signatures, was started by a user simply known as A E. They are calling on Adelaide University to fire Howe over her tone and pro-life advocacy. Accusing Howe of “disturbing behaviour unbecoming of an academic”, the user claims the Rhodes scholar is a “significant, harmful” threat to the university’s integrity. As such, the petition wants the university to “take immediate action” against her. This, the petitioner alleged, will save the University’s “reputation and moral standing.” Specifically, they accused Howe of spreading misinformation, harassment, abuse, doxxing opponents and fostering a “toxic environment.” That list extends into accusations of violating “basic principles of human rights, inciting individuals to break the law, and sharing illegal information.” Without providing evidence to justify the claims, the petition also condemned Howe for “undermining Australia’s legal framework and setting a worrying precedent for law students.” Going even further, the petition accuses Howe of discrimination, stating that, “While she is an expert in migration, Professor Howe has made alarming comments that are anti-multiculturalism, racist, and [so-called] Islamophobic.” They then effectively claimed Howe’s words were harming globalism because they are “deeply damaging in a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected.” The petition ends with Adelaide University being “urged to take decisive action by removing Howe from her position.” Outside Dr Joanna Howe’s brief criticism of the Adelaide University petition on YouTube and X, neither Howe nor her husband James has responded to the claims. The couple, who have been married for 17 years and share five kids, are, however, answering legacy media’s slanderous spin. They’re suing some news organisations and “several social media influencers” for falsely accusing James of advocating marital rape and pedophilia during Episode 273 of the Dr Jo Show podcast. He was, in fact, criticising comments made by Chanel Contos about consent and the Digital Duty of Care censorship push from the Albanese government. Contos told The Imperfects in 2025 that Australian schools should be teaching kids consent like “Can I take your top off? Can I kiss you? Can I touch you here?” “I think those conversations,” she asserted, “need to be explicitly said in classrooms to give children language to be able to use.” Contos also wants “porn literacy” taught in Australian schools. Described by Howe as the RADICAL Feminist Behind Albanese’s Social Media Crackdown, Contos is a “sexual consent” activist with a Master’s in Education, Gender and International Development. Her “Teach us Consent” platform pushed for and already helped insert compulsory consent sex education into the curriculum from kindergarten onwards. Answering the “media pile-on” about his Contos criticisms, James explained, “we basically said, ‘we don’t do consent.’” Which, he added, “sounds bad if you don’t listen to the whole 5-minute segment.” In the segment, James mocks a system that forces adult educators to teach sexual consent education to kindergarten kids. “Consent is not even a thing,” he said, adding, “I do marriage.” Referring to Contos saying “we need to teach children” consent, James shared concerns for teachers having to talk about sex to six-year-olds. Such as, “Do you consent for me to take off your top, little girl?” Agreeing, Joanna replied, “It’s creepy.” Contos is a freak, James remarked. “It’s what these feminists have always done,” he commented. Mocking “free love,” he added, “They’re like, ‘Free Love’. It’s so amazing. We can have sex with whoever we want.” “Oh, you’re getting pregnant. Oh crap. Well, that didn’t work well. Here, let’s take the pill.” With sarcasm, James quipped, “Yay! ‘Free love.’ Oh, we’ve all got diseases. That’s not working. Here, here’s a condom. All right. That’s fixed. Ah, ‘free love.’” Now “we’re all getting pregnant. Oh, that’s all right. You know, you got the pill, but it’s not working. Here, have abortions.” “Next minute, like 100 million babies worldwide are getting aborted.” Slamming the dissonance between celebrating “free love,” confusing pressure with rape and actual sexual violence, James said, “Even if it’s not rape, just feeling that way because we’re pressured into whatever. Oh, now we need consent in schools.” “None of it,” he concluded, “works.” This is why Contos, who is Albanese’s Consent ambassador, has nothing to teach him, said James. “She does not have the answers. Consent is not the answer. It’s just another fake solution waiting to fail.” At which point, James asked, “Do you just admit that the whole ‘free love’ thing hasn’t worked?” “It hasn’t. It just leads to a trail of dead babies and broken lives.” To this, Joanna added, “The construct is marriage.” Choose to marry wisely. Look at the person’s character. “Then you don’t need to talk about consent because you have a good marriage.” Marriage, they both agreed, “is the only consent that works.” Ignoring all of this, the largely left-wing Australian mainstream media leapt before it looked. Their false narrative hit James’s business hard. Starting his own Give Send Go petition, James asked people to help him sue those involved, saying, “The claims were circulated to millions of viewers online and in the media, and instantly decimated the furniture design and architectural commentary career I’ve spent 11 years building in the Australian design industry.” “These falsehoods were wilfully propagated by ideological opponents of mine because I support my wife Dr Joanna Howe in her prolife work.” He’s suing for loss of income as a designer, citing responsibilities as a husband and father. As of 22 September, 924 people had given $84,000 towards a $100,000 goal. Consider praying for Joanna and James. Call upon your church to do the same. Abolish abortion. Read the full story at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

When Advocacy Masquerades as Evidence: Why Australia Needs Higher Standards for Research That Shapes Public Policy by @DavidMaywald [ANALYSIS] Good public policy depends on an elementary bargain between citizens, universities and government: evidence should be gathered as impartially as possible, uncertainty should be disclosed, competing explanations should be tested, and conclusions should not outrun the data. That bargain becomes especially important when taxpayers fund the research and governments subsequently use it to shape school curricula, public campaigns, regulatory powers or legislation. There are legitimate reasons to study misogyny, violence against women, online radicalisation and harmful online communities. Some manosphere content is plainly degrading or extremist. The problem arises when a particular ideological interpretation becomes embedded in the research design itself and is then presented to policymakers and journalists as neutral empirical fact. A revealing body of recent research concerns boys, masculinity and the “manosphere”. Across numerous studies, a recurring architecture can be identified: feminist or critical-masculinity theory supplies the interpretative framework; male grievance is frequently interpreted through patriarchy, privilege, entitlement or backlash; manosphere engagement is associated with misogyny or radicalisation; and interventions are recommended for schools, platforms, parents or government (including, for example, critics of feminism being caught in counter-extremist regulations). The existence of that pattern does not establish that the studies are false. But it makes methodological scrutiny essential. Fisher et al. (2026), for example, commendably disclose that principal coders align with left-wing political perspectives and are critical of significant aspects of online masculinity content. They acknowledge the subjectivity inherent in coding politically charged material. Yet their donated TikTok dataset found only 5.76% of videos in the two manosphere categories, while 37.74% comprised much broader “cultural touchpoints”. That illustrates how dramatically conclusions can depend upon definitions, sampling and classification. Baker, Ging and Andreasen instead used artificial accounts and a much broader coding framework, reporting “toxic” content rapidly entering recommendation feeds. Their experimental accounts included interests such as gyms, sport and gaming, while their definition of toxic content encompassed essentially all coded categories other than generic known-actor material. Neither methodology should simply be dismissed. But neither should one result be transformed into a universal description of what boys experience online… This is where Tom Golden’s provocative concept of the “Femosphere Pipeline” becomes useful, not as established fact, but as a hypothesis about institutional transmission. Golden proposes a sequence in which ideas emerge from academia or advocacy, are amplified by advocates and journalists, taught by educators, incorporated into government reports and training, and ultimately influence policy, legislation and courts. He also identifies circular validation: academics, advocates, journalists and politicians cite one another until an originating proposition can appear independently corroborated. Sociologist Murray Straus raised related methodological concerns years earlier in research on intimate-partner violence: selective evidence gathering, selective citation, failure to investigate female perpetration symmetrically and the possibility that theoretical commitments can affect publication and funding. These are questions worth asking of today’s masculinity scholarship. Consider the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). A current federally funded Monash project explicitly starts from “growing evidence” about misogynistic manosphere discourses, describes influencers including Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson as challenging feminism’s gains and reasserting patriarchal roles, and aims to develop and evaluate interventions in schools. The project receives $226,188 from the Australian Government Department of Social Services. ANROWS’s resulting 2026 guide describes harmful impacts and pathways into the manosphere and recommends school responses. Those objectives may be defensible. But taxpayers are entitled to ask whether alternative hypotheses receive equivalent investigation: boys’ genuine educational problems, loneliness, developmental needs, family breakdown, changing employment and relationship markets, positive aspects of male-oriented communities, or evidence that some criticisms of gender policy are substantively correct. A research programme becomes epistemically fragile if male grievance can be studied only as something requiring correction, rather than something that might sometimes contain information. The concern is not confined to universities. The eSafety Commissioner currently tells Australians that a common but “false” manosphere narrative is that feminism and gender equality have come at men’s expense. It describes a pathway in which young men seeking fitness or self-improvement content can be propelled toward blame, resentment and hate. Importantly, the eSafety Commissioner also acknowledges that most boys viewing such material will not enter harmful communities. Whether feminism or particular “gender equality” policies have ever disadvantaged men is, however, an empirical and political question; not something a regulator should resolve merely by definition… Victoria provides another example of the scale at which a particular gender framework has become institutionalised. The Victorian Government says more than $19 billion across five successive budgets has been directed toward initiatives assessed through its gender equality framework. Respectful Relationships operates across Victorian government schools and extends into Catholic and independent schools; government materials say more than 1,950 schools participate. The Victorian Government argues that these programs are evidence-based, promote healthy relationships and arose from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. Those are important counterpoints. Yet Respect Victoria itself says further evaluative evidence is required to establish the potential population-level benefits of the statewide program. That is precisely why disagreement over underlying gender theories should remain scientifically permissible rather than being treated as resistance to equality. Respect Victoria also recommends that Commonwealth funding, commissioning and evaluation concerning men and boys be grounded in “gender-transformative practice” and links online misogyny and gender-based violent extremism to shared foundations in harmful gender norms and stereotypes. That demonstrates why theoretical assumptions matter: research frameworks can become funding frameworks, which become intervention frameworks. Biased or poorly constructed research can cause harm well beyond wasting research grants. It can misallocate scarce resources. It can direct interventions toward changing boys’ attitudes while neglecting measurable problems in their literacy, mental health, physical activity, employment or family lives. It can pathologise normal male behaviour. It can generate misleading media headlines by converting correlations into causal stories. It can stigmatise legitimate dissent by blurring distinctions between criticism of feminism, misogyny and violent extremism. And once contested concepts enter regulation, the stakes become greater still. Australia is already strengthening online-safety enforcement. Parliament’s own analysis records both expanded eSafety powers and human rights questions concerning privacy and children’s rights, while the Government has committed to legislating a broader digital duty of care. Whatever form future legislation takes, restrictions on lawful expression warrant a considerably higher evidentiary threshold than exploratory academic research… Taxpayer funding makes neutrality particularly important. Government-funded academics need not be politically neutral people; no researcher is devoid of values. But public funding should support methodological pluralism. Governments damage their own credibility when grants appear concentrated among researchers sharing government-preferred assumptions, while universities damage their credibility when advocacy objectives become difficult to distinguish from empirical investigation (here’s looking at you, Monash University). The solution isn’t conservative research replacing progressive research. It is better research: preregistration where practicable, published codebooks, representative samples, sex-symmetrical comparison groups, transparent funding and positionality statements, competing hypotheses, replication by ideologically diverse teams, separation of correlation from causation, serious engagement with contradictory evidence and clear boundaries between empirical findings and policy advocacy. Above all, every theoretical framework must be allowed to lose. A democratic society should be especially suspicious of a closed circuit in which government funds research, researchers validate government-favoured assumptions, funded advocates popularise the findings, media repeat them, and government then cites the apparent consensus to justify further funding or regulation. The way to establish whether such a circuit exists is not rhetoric. It is to follow the citations, funding, methods and policy documents. And Victoria stands out as having been most contaminated by this closed circuit. As a democratic nation, we desperately need to return to what rigorous scholarship is supposed to do. >> 20 Sources that Should Anchor the Investigation These sources do not all “demonstrate harm”; rather, together they allow the claimed harms, methodological weaknesses and institutional pathways to be tested. Murray A. Straus (2007), “Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence” — foundational methodological challenge concerning selective evidence, citation and theoretical commitment. Murray A. Straus (2006), “Future Research on Gender Symmetry in Physical Assaults on Partners” — useful framework for testing sex-asymmetric research design. Debbie Ging (2017/2019), “Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere” — foundational manosphere theoretical text. Stu Lucy (2024), “Slippages in the Application of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Case Study of Incels” — important internal criticism of misuse of hegemonic-masculinity theory. Ann Biedermann (2026), “The ‘toxic masculinity’ trap” — challenges conceptual inconsistency and circularity in masculinity/violence scholarship. Carian, DiBranco & Kelly (2024), “Intervening in Problematic Research Approaches to Incel Violence” — valuable contrasting argument favouring feminist structural interpretation. Wescott, Roberts & Zhao (2024), “The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools” — 30 women teachers interpreted through male-supremacy/hegemonic-masculinity concepts. Roberts et al. (2025), “‘Adolescence’, manufactured outrage and instructed victimhood” — particularly relevant to treatment of claims about boys’ disadvantage. García-Mingo & Díaz Fernández (2023), “Wounded men of feminism” — conceptualises male-victimhood discourse within the Spanish manosphere. Hopton & Langer (2022), “‘Kick the XX out of your life’” — feminist psychological/discourse analysis of manosphere Twitter. Haslop et al. (2024), “Mainstreaming the Manosphere’s Misogyny…” — useful for examining claims about teenage boys and Tate. Franklin-Paddock, Platow & Ryan (2025), “From Privilege to Threat” — quantitative opportunity to examine constructs of male privilege and feminist threat. Baker, Ging & Andreasen (2024), Recommending Toxicity — crucial algorithm/sockpuppet study and particularly important for classification methodology. Fisher et al. (2026), Masculinity Content Classification Framework — especially valuable because of real-user donated data, coder reflexivity and reported base rates. Sara Meger (2026), Misogyny, Online Radicalisation, and Youth Extremism in Australia — essential for examining movement from gender attitudes toward counter-extremism policy. Gerrand, Ging, Roose & Flood (2025), “Mapping the Neo-Manosphere(s)” — shows development of the field toward algorithms, mainstreaming and overlapping extremisms. Pfitzner et al. (2026), An Introductory Guide to the Manosphere and the Impacts for Young People, Teachers and Schools — unusually important because academic ideas become a federally funded intervention resource. eSafety Commissioner (2026), “The manosphere: What it is and what parents and carers need to know” — demonstrates translation of these concepts into the regulator’s public framework. Tom Golden (2026), “The Femosphere Pipeline” — not empirical scholarship, but the central hypothesis about academia → advocacy → media → government → law that the investigation can test. Institute of Public Affairs (2026), Stacking the Deck — an ideologically interested but potentially important audit of government-funded advocacy; its selective methodology means its claims should themselves receive the same scrutiny applied to feminist research. The strongest eventual analysis would not ask readers to accept that these 20 sources prove an ideological conspiracy. It would do something much more persuasive: trace who funds whom, who cites whom, which propositions change from hypotheses into “facts”, which alternative explanations disappear, and exactly where academic terminology subsequently appears in government programs, media narratives and regulatory proposals. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’: Nationals Minister Accuses Carroll Government of Roads Neglect by @JoshSpasaro [NEWS] For too long, maintaining regional Victoria’s crumbling roads has been an issue of “out of sight, out of mind” for the state’s incumbent Labor government. That was the opinion of Nationals Member for Ovens Valley, Tim McCurdy, after the death of a 71-year-old motorcyclist while riding along a stretch of the Western Highway, west of Ballarat. Police said Peter “Tiki” Mason died after “emergency services responded to reports a motorcycle had struck a pothole and lost control”. “It’s disappointing they (Carroll Government) basically said ‘beyond Melbourne and Pakenham, it’s out of sight and out of mind’,” McCurdy told The Daily Declaration. Mason’s family did not want to take a political side after the tragic incident, saying he was a much-loved member of their family and a friend to many. “His loss has left an enormous hole in our lives, and we are struggling to come to terms with a life taken far too soon,” the family said in a statement. “We are aware of the public interest surrounding the circumstances of Peter’s death, including the condition of the road where the incident occurred. “If, through the appropriate processes, changes are identified that could prevent another family from experiencing this devastation, we sincerely hope something positive can come from Peter’s death. “However, these matters should be dealt with by the appropriate authorities.” Premier Ben Carroll has promised to fix half a million potholes this financial year – double the number from last year. Asked on 13 September if his government was responsible for Mason’s death, Carroll said he accepted “responsibility for making sure our roads are safe”. Asked how many potholes had been filled, he received criticism for replying: “I’m the Premier, not the Roads Minister”. Carroll was the Roads and Road Safety Minister from June 2020 until December 2022, with Paul Hamer currently holding that portfolio. “I’ve directed the funding to get in there and do the maintenance. I’ve spoken to the Roads Minister,” he added. “He tells me crews are out right now on the Western Highway, doing what they need to do. In terms of the exact number, we can try and give you those details.” With the Victorian election approaching on 28 November, the Liberal-Nationals Coalition has promised to invest $5 billion to repair and rebuild the state’s roads. It also said it would patch one million potholes if it wins office. “The problem is not just the north-east. It’s all of regional Victoria,” McCurdy said. “We’ve obviously said we need to fix them, and we’ll (Coalition) invest $5 billion over the next four years. “But also the new country roads and bridges program we’ve introduced again, which Labor cut out. “That’ll put $60 million into the north-east LGAs (local government areas), so it’s not just the major roads, it’s the local roads.” McCurdy said fixing regional Victoria’s roads was urgent, because residents outside of Melbourne needed their vehicles as their only way of getting to and from work, school or leisure activities. “As I say to people, ‘We don’t have the luxury of being able to get on a 96 tram or electric train,” he said. “We need our roads to get the kids to school, get to work or the other things we need to do. “Roads are more than just one part or 25 per cent of your transport options, which they are in Melbourne. “They’re 95 per cent of our transport options in regional Victoria. And the safety aspect – we’ve seen the amount of damage that’s getting done to cars. “It’s not unfortunate, it’s just neglect. “Roads is probably the issue that concerns us most at the moment, because it’s right there before your very eyes every day.” The Carroll Government recently announced that prisoners in Victorian jails would work on road maintenance as part of Labor’s plan to fix the state’s roads. Shadow Roads Minister Danny O’Brien said the move to use prisoners in road maintenance was “a distraction”. “That’s no surprise, because the government’s handling of road maintenance has been absolutely criminal,” he said. “We do already have prisoners involved in maintenance of public assets. “This is desperate spin by a government on the eve of an election that knows it’s got a problem trying to hoodwink Victorians into thinking they’re actually doing something about it.” McCurdy said he personally did not have an issue with prisoners working on state roads. “I don’t see anything against the idea of using prisoners, because I don’t think they’re fixing the roads,” he said. “I think they’re more slashing and mowing the sides of the roads because, again, everything has been neglected on the roads. “Not just the road surfaces themselves. It’s also the roadsides and verges. I’ve got no problem with the prisoners.” The pothole-ridden stretch of road that claimed the life of Mason was already considered among the 10 most dangerous roads in the state, according to a survey from RACV. The RACV’s My Country Road 2026 report identified the Western Highway between Ballarat and Trawalla as the eighth most dangerous road in the state. Respondents to RACV’s survey had cited road-surface condition and speed management as key concerns, with deteriorating roads remaining the number-one concern for regional Victorians. O’Brien said the tragedy had been compounded by the fact that the road was a well-known hazardous stretch after years of neglect. “This was not only a preventable tragedy, but it was sadly predicted by many,” he said. “Mr Mason’s family and the whole motorcycling community are grieving this week, and they deserve to believe that when a stretch of road is identified as dangerous, it is immediately addressed. “Ben Carroll’s response to this tragedy is that he is not the Minister for Roads. That is not just unacceptable, but it is also misleading. He was the Minister for Roads for three years as they fell into disrepair, and the only thing that changed was his ascent to Premier.” Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

John Anderson Defends the Majority On Multiculturalism: ‘We’re Not Cohesive Anymore’ by @Rod_Lampard [COMMENTARY] @JohnAndersonAC held his ground in a firm exchange with South Sudanese lawyer Nyadol Nyuon on immigration. Anderson pushed back against Nyuon, who asserted during the 14 September ABC forum that white Anglo-Celtic culture didn’t exist. Nyuon also said she considers monoculturalism to be a myth. Asked about Anglo-Celtic Australia, immigrants respecting the laws, values and way of life, she answered, “I understand some of it, but I find some of it sort of hard to place.” “The idea of Anglo-Celtic, I think, it goes back to this notion that Australia is sort of monocultural.” “Australia has never been monocultural,” she said. “Before European settlement, there were Indigenous people here who spoke multiple languages and considered themselves to be people of different nations.” Nyuon clarified, “I’m not trying to accuse anyone here of necessarily being racist.” “I just think that if we start talking about terms like Anglo and stuff, it creates this idea that there is some form of white culture that exists somewhere and can be recreated here in Australia.” “There is no white culture. There’s Italian, French, and Argentinian culture. There is no white culture that is being threatened.” “I have no intention of assimilating,” she declared. “Yet I went to law school and studied the law, and respect Australia’s laws.” “I think the majority of immigrants do.” Speaking to multiculturalism and her refusal to assimilate, Anderson noted that this was Nyuon validating concerns about mass immigration and social cohesion. “There appears to be significant numbers of various groupings of people in Australia who do not respect [the law].” People “who come here with the express intent of trying to set up an enclave of their own culture, which doesn’t match.” “Until we come to grips with that, you will not settle this debate, and you will not see the sort of social cohesion we need.” Two essentials to being safe, he argued, “are a cohesive society, and good economic management” of that society. “We’re not cohesive anymore,” Anderson explained, and the nation’s economy is sliding backwards. “We’re in danger here of missing what’s really happening in this country.” “You cannot disaggregate very real levels of concern about immigration.” On the housing crisis and immigration, he said, we’re increasing demand above our ability to supply. “The broader issue is that Australians are feeling they’re becoming poorer. They are becoming poorer.” Reasserting his point, when answering what “Anglo-Celtic” culture means, Anderson said, “Let’s accept a few realities. We’re becoming poorer. People feel a lot of financial stress.” People think that “immigration is one of the major problems.” To some extent, he said, they’re right. “We’re not against immigration as a people. I don’t believe we are. I’m certainly not.” “A balanced, reasonable immigration thing is good economically,” Anderson affirmed. “It’s good socially whilst we agree that, if you like, the law of the land really does apply, but we need to realise how badly broken it is.” One Nation’s popularity shows, he continued, Australians think the system isn’t working, and that “we’ve lost too much as Australians.” Defining Anglo-Celtic culture, Anderson said, it wasn’t some vague idea of “Aussie values.” Anglo-Celts “gave us our dignity as individuals.” “We recognise dignity, the rule of law, all equal before the law. The common law applies to the prime minister just as it applies to somebody else.” “We believe in the separation of the secular and the sacred.” “We know that security forces in this country are now having to monitor a very significant number of people who are anything but committed to our way of life and the respect and dignity of all other Australians.” A human rights advocate, Nyadol Nyuon’s apparent issue with Anderson is his opposition to multiculturalism. Her denials that Anglo-Celtic Australia exists seem to stem from a passion for multiculturalism and a subtle embrace of Critical Race Theory. In 2021, the refugee-turned-lawyer told the National Press Club that she arrived in Australia as a teenager. There, Nyuon lauded the Whitlam and Fraser governments of the 1970s for “dismantling” the European underpinning of Australia. For her, multiculturalism is “a bold and even revolutionary social concept.” “For the first time [Australians] started seeing diversity as a strength instead of seeking comfort in being part of the British Empire.” Multiculturalism allowed for Australia’s globalisation. Notably, Nyuon mentions the very same Anglo-Celtic culture she says doesn’t exist. For example, she credits multiculturalism for giving Australia egalitarianism. This gave minorities, women and immigrants, Nyuon argued, “wealth and security” that “until recently was mostly preserved for Anglo-Saxons – white males.” She then called for a renewed, bolder, more revolutionary multiculturalism, while referring to Christchurch, the mosque attack, “white supremacy and far-right extremism.” If multiculturalism is to “come of age,” Nyuon told the Press Club, “it needs to be improved.” During the 2021 address, she called for a “rethink of multiculturalism’s role as a grand and revolutionary concept.” This means rewriting Australia’s constitution, institutions and relationship with the British monarchy. Her exchange with Anderson on the ABC suggests she still holds to these views. Effectively: Australia won’t end “racism” until multiculturalism (COEXIST) becomes constitutional. In May, Nyuon revealed that she was handing back her Order of Australia Medal (OAM) and renouncing her Australian citizenship. Nyuon seems to regard white people in a majority-white country being in leadership positions as evidence of “racism.” As News.com reported, “Ms Nyuon accused her former employer, Victoria University and WorkSafe Victoria of double standards. “Racism,” she said in 2025, “is Victoria University and WorkSafe Victoria defaulting to white-led organisational judgment over the professional and lived expertise of Black and Brown women.” Nyuon “claimed she had left [WorkSafe’s WorkWell Respect Network] early after becoming concerned about being used as “corporate blackface”. According to the report, while Nyuon “stressed gratitude” to Australia, her alleged experience was a “good enough example of what it can mean to be here, especially when you are a Black woman.” Worth noting that these claims are contradicted by her Australian (likely taxpayer-funded) university qualifications, Order of Australia Medal, National Press Club and national broadcaster platforming. Instrumental to understanding Nyuon’s context, her late father, William Nyuon, was an alleged warlord. He was called out by the Australian government in 1992 for ordering the execution of two UN workers. Then Senator Gareth Evans said that four people were killed after “William Nyuon and his followers went to a UN camp to demand food.” “The two UN officials on duty explained to the group that the food was available only for southern Sudanese civilians whose livelihoods had been destroyed during the war.” “Nyuon ordered his bodyguards to shoot the two officials,” Evans recounted. “The two witnesses to the shootings were kidnapped and later killed.” This adds weight to Anderson’s warning, “If we don’t have cohesion. If we don’t have agreement on who comes here and [about] what sort of country we’re going to be, one of the first things that will happen is that you’ll break trust.” He then rightly concluded: the elites are making a big mistake by refusing to stand with the concerns of Australians on social cohesion and mass immigration. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

One-Way Ratchet: Italian Doctors Face Criminal Investigation for Refusing to Kill by Joshua Arnold [COMMENTARY] The anti-Christian culture of death is making rapid advances across Europe on the assisted suicide front. In Italy, doctors who refused a woman’s request for euthanasia now face a criminal investigation for their ethical and morally upright decision. Only days earlier, news broke that a Dutch committee concluded that a doctor acted properly by ending the life of a one-year-old. At least the Netherlands still reviews cases of assisted suicide and holds doctors accountable to some sort of standard. Italy seems to have swung already to the other extreme. Not only is assisted suicide legal, but Italy’s universal public health system now requires its health care providers to perform the ultimate act of anti-health — deliberately ending a human life. The case involved an elderly former actress, Sibilla Barbieri, who had suffered from cancer for years and asked for euthanasia in 2023. In 2019, Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled that “dying Italian patients on life support have a constitutional right to access facilitated suicide,” as Discovery Institute senior fellow Wesley Smith summarised it. However, the Board of Directors for the Local Health Authority (ASL Roma 1) denied Barbieri’s request for a simple reason: she was not on any “life-sustaining treatment.” Barbieri later travelled to Switzerland and found physicians willing to put her to death there. That was only the beginning, however. Barbieri’s family members filed a legal complaint against 10 health care professionals at ASL Roma 1, alleging that they had denied their relative her constitutional right. In particular, they argued, the physicians erred by not taking into account Barbieri’s deteriorating condition. The complaint triggered a criminal investigation — an unusual step. “Usually, the attacks on ‘medical conscience’ (as it is known) involves threatening refusing doctors’ professional licenses,” Smith writes. Such professional punishment has support from secular bioethics scholars like Peter Singer, and it has already been practised from Australia to Canada. But imposing criminal penalties — or even the threat of criminal penalties — takes the postmodern coercion to another level altogether. After investigating, prosecutors sought to drop the case. But the family objected, and preliminary investigations judge Marisa Mosetti refused to dismiss the case. Mosetti will hear further evidence in the case on December 16. The case further illustrates the moral and ethical quagmire into which nations plunge themselves by allowing euthanasia, under whatever alias it travels. Following an incrementalist approach to policy, nations have opened the door to euthanasia little by little — approving it cautiously, and only when certain conditions have been met. But the Italian doctors acted with caution and found that the (arbitrary) conditions for assisted suicide were not met. Unfortunately for them, Italian approval of assisted suicide had already plunged beyond cautious permission to uniform acceptance. Although done in stages, there is nothing incrementalist about such a policy change, which moves a nation swiftly from defending life to mandating death. Such illogic is not surprising. The term euthanasia itself, which means “good death,” is an oxymoron. Life is better than death, so intentionally ending life is not good. Life is good even when it is accompanied by great suffering — a fact overlooked by the utilitarian calculus of pleasure versus pain. But secularists have no solid foundation on which to affirm that life is good for its own sake — because they have no solid foundation at all. It’s up to Christians to affirm the goodness and value of every human life, from conception to natural death. Perhaps some of the 10 doctors in Rome were influenced by Italy’s long Christian and Catholic heritage, even if unconsciously. In any event, the Italian legal system seems to have turned a deaf ear to these Christian truths. Even once one recognises the worldview chasm separating pro-euthanasia regimes from Europe’s Christian heritage, it can still be difficult to grasp why these governments expend so much energy infringing upon the consciences of health care providers by forcing them, in an otherwise free-market society, to participate in practices to which they strongly object. Smith compiles a list of possible answers to this question far better than any this author could create: “States aren’t going to establish killing centers. So doctors and nurse practitioners have to be conscripted to do the dirty deeds if the culture of death is to advance. “When doctors refuse to lend their authority to controversial procedures, it sends a clarion moral message to the patient and society that certain actions are just wrong. That burns activists like a branding iron. “Medicine is being deprofessionalized into a technocratic order-taking enterprise that exists in part to fulfil customer desires. Hippocratic ‘do no harm’ values have no place in such a system. “Denying medical conscience seeks to impose a secularist hegemony over a vital sector of society. “If willingness to take life or engage in other ‘do harm’ practices becomes a required aspect of practising medicine, it will drive pro-life and Hippocratic Oath-believing medical professionals out of the medical sector. Meanwhile, gifted young people may avoid the field altogether, knowing that to pursue a career in health care would require them to leave their moral beliefs at home. Alas, I suspect that is precisely what medical conscience opponents want.” When healers are vilified for not killing, Isaiah’s warning against social injustice is never more relevant: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness … Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight … who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!” (Isaiah 5:20-23). The first pages of Scripture establish the premium value God places on every human life. Reflecting on his work in creation, God gives Noah and his descendants (all mankind) the instruction, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). Woe to those who reverse that formula and establish by judicial fiat a system contrary to God’s perfect justice. Read the full piece at dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…

I’m pleased to share my first article published by Canberra Declaration: “When Advocacy Masquerades as Evidence: Why Australia Needs Higher Standards for Research That Shapes Public Policy.” dailydeclaration.org.au/2026… My article begins with a simple principle: good public policy requires evidence to be gathered as impartially as possible, uncertainty to be disclosed, competing explanations tested, and conclusions kept within what the data can actually support. I examine what happens when that standard breaks down. Particularly in research concerning boys, masculinity, the “manosphere”, misogyny and online radicalisation... My concern isn't that these subjects shouldn’t be studied. They absolutely should. Nor is it that progressive research should simply be replaced by conservative research. The answer is to produce much better research, than what we have been getting. That means representative samples, transparent methodologies and funding, competing hypotheses, replication, ideological diversity, proper separation of correlation from causation, serious engagement with contradictory evidence, and a clear boundary between empirical findings and policy advocacy. We should deeply investigate misandry and male victims, to the same extent that academics have pored over misogyny and female victims. Why does this matter? Because academic theories don’t remain inside universities. Untested research claims have become funding frameworks, which become intervention programs (influencing schools, public campaigns, government agencies, regulation and legislation). And when research concerns boys and men, we should be willing to ask whether male grievances are always something to be “corrected” or whether they most often contain information that's worth listening to... The principle I keep coming back to is this: Every theoretical framework must be allowed to lose, including feminist theories. Science should test our assumptions, not protect them. Thank you to @TheCanDec and The Daily Declaration for publishing the piece. #Research #PublicPolicy #EvidenceBasedPolicy #Boys #Men #Masculinity #Education #Australia #AcademicFreedom #ResearchIntegrity

3,400-Year-Old Altar of Sacrifice Validates Biblical Account by Kym Farnik [BIBLICAL] We (my wife, Nel, and I) toured Shomron, a.k.a. Samaria, in Israel on 17 September 2026. We were hosted by Nofar Wizmann-Berman (Shomron Director of Foreign Relations) and our guide Boaz Haetzni. They both provided so much information as we got an understanding of the land. This region is also referred to as the West Bank. We also thank the Governor of Shomron, Yossi Dagan, and the Israeli ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Hillel Newman, for helping us arrange this incredible tour. One of the most amazing things we saw was Joshua’s altar of worship at Mt Ebal, which was the first act of sacrificial worship in the Promised Land after crossing the Jordan. This location is not on general tourist itineraries and is somewhat difficult to get to. Adam Zertal is one of the most interesting and controversial figures in the archaeology of early Israel. His work on Mount Ebal is particularly important because he identified a previously unknown complex that he believed could be connected with the altar Joshua built in Joshua 8:30–35. Zertal was an atheist. Read more: dailydeclaration.org.au/2026…