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Hostage to the woke brigade

Faith-based schools among those well and truly in the sights of Alex Greenwich on gender

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Transgender Bathroom Sign
A sign protests a US state law prohibiting transgender rest room access in a hotel. PHOTO: CNS/Jonathan Drake, Reuters

According to the NSW Electoral Commission, the electorate of Sydney had the fewest number of votes cast in the most recent state election. Of the 43,201 voters in that electorate, 17,905 listed the Independent Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, as their first preference.

This was 41.45 per cent of the primary vote in the electorate, and just less than 0.4 per cent of the 4,551,886 votes cast in NSW. It was enough to get Greenwich elected after the distribution of preferences.

For someone who received less than 0.4 per cent of the vote in NSW, Greenwich has held a disproportionate amount of power during this parliamentary term because the Coalition is in minority government and needs his support to stay in power.

“Instead of the 90 minutes of debate time allocated to private members’ bills each week, Greenwich’s abortion-till-birth bill had MPs sitting through the night to get it passed.”

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This has to be the reason that Greenwich has been empowered in ramming his extreme legislative agenda through parliament in recent years.

Think about the 2019 abortion debate. Instead of the 90 minutes of debate time allocated to private members’ bills each week, Greenwich’s abortion-till-birth bill had MPs sitting through the night to get it passed.

A similar story is being seen with his euthanasia and assisted suicide bill, which was allocated full days of debate to ensure it passed the Lower House before Christmas, and has now seen the Coalition, Labor, the Greens and the Shooters all cede some of their time in the Upper House to facilitate debate.

On top of that, Greenwich has just announced that he will begin work on a euphemistically-named ‘equality bill’ that will seek to preference gender ideology and LGBT activism over individual and institutional rights to religious freedom.

Member for Sydney Alex Greenwich speaks during Question Time at New South Wales Parliament House on 12 October 2021. Referral of Mr Greenwich’s bill to legalise euthanasia to a parliamentary committee is not a delay. Photo: AAP image pool/Dominic Lorrimer

The bill will seek to take away the right of religious schools and other organisations to uphold their ethos in terms of employment and enrolment policies, to the point where a faith-based school could be sued for discrimination for asking a male kindergarten teacher to not transition to presenting and living as a female in the middle of a school year.

It would also prevent those with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria but who wanted to live in accordance with their religious beliefs from seeking anything but affirmation to engage in homosexual activity or gender transition.

Greenwich isn’t coy that this is a power play: in announcing the bill, he said he would make it an election issue and that the parties’ respective positions on these issues would influence his decision about which party to support in another minority government scenario.

Instead of telling Greenwich that the hobby horses of the 17,905 latte-sipping, inner city elites who voted for him do not in any way represent the needs or aspirations of the vast majority of NSW residents and so will not be given the time of day, leaders of both major parties have let him become something of a shadow Premier.

“My sincere hope is that both leaders will stand up to Greenwich on the so-called ‘equality bill,’ and declare that they would prefer to lose his support in the Lower House than to govern with a rainbow gun pointed at their head.”

At the same time, they voted down a bill that would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religious belief or activity, and rejected a bill that would give parents and medical professionals a say in whether a child is allowed to transition their gender at school.

Instead of using it to serve those in the suburbs, the regions and rural NSW who give this state some stability, leaders on both sides have allowed parliamentary time and procedure to be allocated to the concerns of the ‘laptop class’ in what is likely the most transient electorate in the country.How long this state of affairs will continue is anyone’s guess.

My sincere hope is that both leaders will stand up to Greenwich on the so-called ‘equality bill,’ and declare that they would prefer to lose his support in the Lower House than to govern with a rainbow gun pointed at their head.

Something tells me that if they did that, they wouldn’t have to worry about being in minority government, because values voters would flock to a leader who refused to be held hostage to the woke brigade.

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