Fred Nile Fundamentalist partyleader Fred Nile has been re-elected to the Upper House for a fourth term in the New South Wales election, after proposing to freeze Muslim immigration. Nile picked up thousands of votes around the state. His party has won about 4 per cent of the vote, with 65.3 per cent counted. Rev Nile also says he has got a fair amount of "ethnic support" for his recent proposal to ban Muslim immigration temporarily. He denies the proposal was an attempt to pick up votes from retiring One Nation MLC David Oldfield. As Wellington City Library had a copy of Fred Niles' 'biography' I borrowed it and compared notes about the Australian and New Zealand Christian Rights. Fred Nile is Australia's Brian Tamaki, albeit as a pakeha. Born in 1934, Nile came from a working-class family and has never attended university. In the late fifties, he met and married Elaine and they have five children. His sister and brother-in-law live in Christchurch, where his parents are also buried. This made visits to the soulmate Christian Heritage Party and its now disgraced ex-leader Graham Capill an opportunity to combine business and family visits. Nile is an ignorant, credulous man. As I read his biography, I concluded that his parliamentary career could be attributed to three demographic, religious and political retardants within New South Wales politics, religion and society. One: New Zealand mainline Protestants are more liberal than their New South Wales counterparts, except when it comes to the Uniting Church of Australia and Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, where the situations are reversed. Two: this backwardness provides an electoral constituency for Nile and his satellites. Three: the New South Wales Legislative Council is elected through the Single Transferable Vote electoral system, which rewards well-organised, centralised and coherent communities of interest. Nile began his activist career in the seventies. After Mary Whitehouse visited Australia in 1974, he established Australia's Festival of Light, which metamorphosed into the Christian Alternative Movement and Call to Australia Party. In 1981, the above synergy led to Niles' election to the New South Wales Legislative Council. Apart from himself, Nile has only ever had one other Member of the Legislative Council. Until recently, this used to be Elaine, his wife, until she developed respiratory problems. Fundamentalist Uniting Church social worker Gordon Moyes is now the (renamed) Christian Democratic Party's second MLC, although his status may be uncertain now. Nile may be the only CDP Legislative Council MLC after the recent state election. Amusingly, Nile avoids prolonged discussion of Marie Bignold and John Bradford, who proved to be incompatible with Niles' proprietorial attitude toward his party. Moreover, he fails to acknowledge the Franca Arena affair, in which a turncoat Australian Labor Party figure made wild and unsubstantiated allegations about paedophilia within New South Wales public affairs. Unsurprisingly, Arena's allegations proved spurious, but not before they provoked suicides. Nile states that he isn't a rabid homophobe. So one is forced to ask why he lists several HIV/AIDS casual contact hysteria titles within his biography's footnotes despite reputable medical practitioner rejection of their contents. Is it ethical to attack vulnerable, sick and dying people on the basis of outright lies and scaremongering? On a lighter note there was hardly a year went by in the mid-1990s that Nile and his flock didn't publicly pray for rain to wash out Sydney's iconic gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. If God indeed dials up the weather it was obvious he or she rarely listened to Fred and his friends. Happily, Nile has been unable to permanently obstruct any initiatives for lesbian, gay or sex work law reform. Pat Bartlett died, sad and alone. Karma will extract its ultimate vengeance on this vindictive old man for his malice, ignorance and hatemongering one day. However, his continued electoral survival suggests that there are some sad signsof stubbornrural backwardness within our transtasman neighbour. ********** Recommended Reading: Fred Nile: An Autobiography: Sydney Strand Publishing: 2001. Discredited Casual Contact HIV Hysteria (See p254, n5): Gene Antonio: The AIDS Cover Up: San Fransisco Ignatius Press: 1986. Gene Antonio: AIDS: Rage and Reality: Dallas Anchor Books: 1993. Paul Cameron: Exposing the AIDS Scandal: Lafayette Huntington House: 1988. David Chilton: Power in the Blood: Brentwood Wolgemuth and Hyatt: 1987. Lorraine Day: AIDS: What the Government Isn't Telling You: Palm Desert Rockford Press: 1991. James McKeever: The AIDS Plague: Medford Omega Publications: 1986. Stanley Monteith: AIDS: The Unneccessary Epidemic: Seierville Covenant House Books: 1991. Additional Reading: Nile does not cite these, but they are also relevant Australian Christian Right scaremongering and opportunist attacks on People living witrh AIDS: Howard Carter: AIDS: The Plague to End All Plagues: Blackheath Logos Forum: 1987. [Carter fell from grace after disclosure of an extramarital episode in 1990.] Fred Nile: Facts on AIDS: The Gay Plague: Sydney Australian Festival of Light: 1984. Craig Young - 30th March 2007