G'day it's Martyn Iles here to talk about the Federal Election
result now that the weekend is over though counting still
continues but we're getting a pretty clear picture. Let me
say first of all I have my concerns about the result of
course but this video is not me being a misery guts and there's
two reasons for that. The first one is that actually the
government that really matters is still intact. And that is
the Kingdom of God and we can say that every day no matter
the circumstances he still reigns overall. He's still
bringing everything to yield according to his purposes and
the fullness of time and we don't know how or why or when
but that's why He is God and we are not. So, we have confidence
but second of all, there's another reason I'm not being a
misery guts and that is because it is not quite all
doom and gloom. There are some silver linings to bring out of
this and I want to focus on those in this video. So, let
me explain. The Liberals were, let's be real, always going to
lose an election. Whether it was this one or the next one or
whatever. They've been in power for nine years. This is the way
the system works. Governments don't last forever. The
question for me strategically about when that loss happened
was really about the manner of that loss. Would the manner of
that loss result in a better Liberal Party or a worse
Liberal Party going into opposition and potentially
government once again in the not too distant future. Well
actually it looks as though the Liberals may have come out of
this in a better position or as a better party than they did
going into it. And this is actually why we had the people
not parties message you know because it matters who is in
the party in order to show it and in order to direct it and I
think a lot of us felt like the Liberals probably had gone a
little bit off the reservation in recent years in terms of
their values and so we had this 'people not parties'
message and the result of the Election therefore I think
needs to be measured in terms of the people. What happened at
the people level, not the party level and that's where you find
a silver lining for example. The Liberals at the time of
filming have lost 16 Lower House seats and you can look at
that at the party level and go that's terrible and I have my
concerns of course. However note the silver lining. Only
three. Maybe four depending how you measure but definitely
three of those are what you would call socially
conservative MPs. People with effectively traditional
Christian values on social policy. The rest were moderates
as they call them in the media or wets as some people like to
call them. So that's an incredible change to the
composition of the party. In a good way. Key figures on the
so-called moderate side of the party who really a bit closer
to Greens. People like Jason Falinski, Trent Zimmerman, Dave
Sharma, Trevor Evans, Tim Wilson, Ken Wyatt, Fiona
Martin, Katie Allen and so on. They've lost their seats. But
here's the really important thing that I want us to note.
All of the MPs who crossed the floor to vote against
Christian schools and faith-based schools and
failed to support the Religious Discrimination Bill and
religious freedom all of them except one have lost their
seat. And this was ACL's campaign. We highlighted these MPs with
door knocking, phone canvassing flyers, digital advertising,
billboards and a reasonable amount of media coverage as
well and now Fiona Martin, Dave Sharma, Trent Zimmerman, and
Katie Allen have lost their seats and Bridget Archer's,
whilst you'll probably survive at the time of filming it is
technically too close to call. It's line ball that hangs in
the balance. So, I want to look for a second at our impact here
because we did some polling and we can measure it. We did
polling and Reid which is Fiona Martin's former seat, North Sydney
which is Trent Zimmerman's former seat, Wentworth which is Dave
Sharma's former seat and Bass which is undecided, potentially
going to see Bridget Archer continue and we polled two days
prior to Election Day to see where people were at in those
seats and on average, just shy of 70% of voters in those seats
knew how their MP voted on Christian schools and religious
freedom. Now, given the lack of voices really talking about
that especially Christian schools, 70% awareness is a
pretty great achievement. I'm pretty happy about that.
Furthermore, on average, over 35% of voters in these seats
had encountered ACL's campaign materials or message through
the activism that we were doing. That means that they not
only saw or encountered the message but actually they
processed it comprehensively enough to connect it to the
Australian Christian Lobby and then remember that connection
when they were asked two days out from Election Day. So that
is also pretty good and of those people The number of
voters who said that our message affected their vote had
an actual real impact on their voting decision was in Reid
32.7%. That's a third of those people. In North Sydney
24.1%. In Wentworth 27.3%
and in Bass 23.1% and that showed in the Election
results. North Sydney and Wentworth of course they were
under pressure from another angle a a very effective
campaign from the teal Independent so we had some help
there but certainly in both those seats we measured an
impact from us as well but of course we had no such help in
read where our polling showed that the constituency there was
significantly more sensitive to our message and Fiona Martin
decisively lost that seat and whilst Bridget Archer may well
hang on just in Bass note this the swing to her as a Liberal
MP and remember in Tasmania it was a bit weird there was
actually a swing to the Liberals the swing to her on
current counting is about. 6%, but the neighbouring seats
right next door of Bradden and Lyons the swing to the Liberals
in those two seats is about 5% and so I can see significant
impact there because awareness of the campaign was high in
Bass these are our successes but in the interest of
transparency there was an area where we weren't so successful
we did run some soft support style campaigns for people like
Andrew Hastie and Terry Young up in Longman in
Queensland and we saw great fruit there but we didn't see
such great outcomes in one area and that was where we had a
couple of areas where we were running campaigns that
reflected poorly on some of the Independents. So particularly
Rebekha Sharkie in Mayo and Helen Haines in Indi. Now why
didn't we have big fruit there? Well obviously this was the
election for the Independents. If ever you're going to be an
independent running this was the one to go for because
everyone seems wanted a reputable or a well-known
independent to vote for. The primary vote of both major
parties was the lowest it's ever been. I think someone said
the Labor Primary was the lowest it's been since since
1910 or something like this. Whether that's exactly right or
not. It is incredibly low. And so there was just this a
massive surge on in the independent space. And
probably we shouldn't even have tried to stand against that. In
hindsight. But that's where we didn't have so much success.
But we did have a tremendous impact in another way in the
way that I described which is that we we didn't change who
won government and I want to be very clear about that and you
know I don't think that ACL has the capacity to do that but
what we did do was we altered the manner of the lost and we
made sure there was accountability accountability
that usually these MPs don't have to worry about for voting
against Christian schools and for failing to support
religious freedom and it worked so we affected the manner of
the Coalition loss. We didn't decide whether they lost but we
affected the manner of the loss in a positive way. We also
affected the manner of the Labor victory. They actually
responded to our campaign by making promises about religious
freedom and they made some promises about Christian
schools which weren't as nice as we would have liked but were
better than they used to be. So, we've improved their
position and obviously, there's further, there's more ground to
take on that, I think but we also will now hold Labor
accountable for those promises. So, here are some silver
linings, right? Concerns of course about the overall result.
But here are some silver linings. And this is ACL's
mission to be politically and culturally effective in the
public squares. By making truth public. By taking it out there.
And our Election materials, yeah look they're a bit provocative
with cartoons on them and stuff like that. But actually the
text of those materials. All it did was tell the truth. It just
said how that MP voted on specific issues and footnoted
it chapter and verse. And our volunteers, I want to thank you
so much because thanks to you we were able to take truth
public and be politically effective once again this year.
I want to share some scriptures as well from Daniel chapter
four because these have been on my mind this Election season
have given me a great deal of comfort and I trust that they
do for you as well. It says the most high rules in the Kingdom
of men. He gives it to whomever He will and sets over it the
lowest of men. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion. And
His Kingdom endures from generation to generation. All
the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he
does according to His will among the hosts of Heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His
hands and none can stop Him. Or say to Him, what have you done?
You know or bring Him into question. He does what He will.
Daniel chapter four verse 17 and 34 to 35. And I read that
because I know a lot of you feel as though your vote's been
wasted. But I want to say don't lose heart. Because it's our
duty. It's our responsibility to vote like it depends on us.
In other words to be responsible as salt and light
in that particular part of our That's what we're supposed to
do in this world. But having done that and by the way if you
did that and you researched your vote and you took it
seriously you have done right and in that you can have peace.
But there's another way we now need to have peace as well. We
may have tried to be responsible but we need to go
to bed at night like it depends actually not on us but on God
because he is sovereign. And that's why I read those
scriptures because it gives us that reminder that yeah we'll
be responsible but then we're at peace. Because it's in God's
hands. So what's next? Well first We can expect an attack
on Christian schools in pretty short order. Be ready to act
when that campaign is upon us. We really don't want the
position that Labor has put on that to come to pass. We want
to improve it. It's really important and Christian schools
are crucial. This will be a key battleground. Secondly,
however, pray for our leaders. Pray for Anthony Albanese.
Please, you know, pray for Scott Morrison because even
though he's lost, this will be a difficult time in his life.
But finally, and this is something exciting as we look
forward as to what's next. I want to draw attention to
something far greater. A truth that we must never forget and
it is that Australia's greatest need is not a change of
government. Australia's greatest need is a change of
Lord. They need, Australia needs the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that is why over the next few months ACL's
singular goal will be to spread the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ with your help. We will be distributing at least two
million Gospels of John. 2 million through our wonderful
volunteer network of now 7,700 people. Sign up acl.org.au/volunteer
to be notified when that's on the go and to
have a chance of being part of that massive distribution to a
significant chunk of Australian households and we know the Word
of God does not return void right? We need this to happen
in our country. Also we have a message for the nation at three
landmark events in Sydney, in Canberra and in Melbourne not
to be missed. If you enjoyed The Truth of It Live or you
enjoyed looking on at the Truth of It Live, if we didn't come to
your part of the world like Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne
you're really going to love this new mini series of events
and they're going to be later in the year but they're
going to launch the advertising, marketing. Ticketing is going to
launch on the 1st of June. So, stay tuned and meanwhile,
think about a friend or two who you might bring along to those
excellent events that are coming up later in the year and
whoever you are, please commit to praying for these efforts
that the word of God would not return void because Australia
needs the gospel now more than ever.