Richard and Mandy Lewis As the destiny Political party gears up for the next election its "leader" and Destiny Church pastor Brian Tamaki front up to National Radio's Nine to Noon programme on 7 July. The result is both disturbing and hilarious. Linda Clark (presenter): Well it's one of the newest political parties in the country. It claims to have three thousand paid up members, and it's closely aligned to one of the country's newest churches. Destiny New Zealand was launched a year ago last week and held a conference over the weekend where the talk was mainly about families and the party's concerns that moral issues should dominate the next election campaign. The leader of Destiny New Zealand is former policeman, Richard Lewis, and leader of the church it's aligned to is pastor, Brian Tamaki, and they both join me now. Good morning gentlemen. Lewis: good morning. Tamaki: good morning, Linda. Clark: Richard, let me start with you, what exactly is your relationship with the church? Lewis: Well I'm a member of Destiny Church, of course, I also work for the church, primarily in the area of social services on the outskirts of South Auckland. But my move into politics has been really a natural progression from my work in the police force, moving on to social services, my concerns for our communities families and, more specifically, children. Clark: But what's the relationship then between the party, as it grows and establishes itself and the church? Lewis: Well it's fair to say we've had solid support from the church and it would be fair to say that we certainly wouldn't be to the level where we are at right now if we did not have the support of Destiny Church but it's important to understand that our vision has always been to embrace the wider community, and some of our most enthusiastic support, in fact, has come from people who wouldn't even probably identify with our Christian faith but they have the same passion for families, for children and for the future of our nation. Clark: I saw in one interview, Brian described himself as your spiritual advisor. Is that how you see it? Lewis: Oh most definitely. I am a member of Destiny Church, as I said. I respect very much the advice I get from pastor, Brian Tamaki, and of course as many other people do, I think that's a good thing. Clark: Does a politician or a would-be politician need a spiritual advisor, do you think? Lewis: I don't think there could be a better time for that sort of relationship than in 2004. Clark: Well there's an old convention in this country and that keeps church and state very separate. Lewis: Oh I agree whole-heartedly, the function of church and state should be separate but let's face it, the sort of issues that New Zealand is facing, especially to do with the breakdown of families, the health of our children and the direction that our nation is going are all issues that are relevant to the church as well. So I think as this thing has been working itself out, people are beginning to realise that it's getting pretty difficult now to separate that kind of relationship when they are overlapping on very fundamental issues. Clark: Well, Brian Tamaki, tell me how you see that overlap? Tamaki: Well the church and the state should be separated. The church doesn't want to be a government but they're certainly inter-related, and for the life of me, as Richard as said, I don't see how people can, you know, separate morals and standards and values which we all know that the religious community holds because of the bible and it claims that it has the proper way, and how a man and a woman in marriage and a family should live, and you depart from that and you get in, you get in the mess you're getting in now. Clark: So tell me about you think about, I mean what, what's the mess? Where is the mess? Tamaki: Oh the mess, well you, you know, you're on radio, the television, the newspapers, it's full of it, in fact they must be getting sick of it by now. When we, there's a generation of politicians who no longer regard God and wholesome families values, and you see that now with, just recently, the Civil Union Bill, the Relationship Bill, then the, the lowering of the drinking age and then, you know, talking about decriminalising cannabis and then consenting with twelve year old sex, you know, and we get worse with the Homosexual Law Reform Bill and we just, there's just one after the other and, you know, we're sort of funny, aren't we, we say, gee we've got of problems, let's build some bigger, more prisons and then, at the same time, we all get hostile about, you know, when we start to finger the problems. Clark: So what, you think civil unions will lead to an increase in crime? Tamaki: Civil Unions will, will, that is going to lead to a breakdown of who we are and our identity as humans. When you no longer know who you are and your values and, and what you're supposed to be doing in life, you're going to have problems, not only just now, we're going to have problems with our children and our grandchildren. Clark: Although the people who are lining up to join in civil unions seem to know very much who they are. Tamaki: yeah, you're born a male and then you want to be a woman, or you're born a woman and you want to be a man? I mean that's confusing. Clark: They don't want to be, a homosexual man doesn't want to be a woman. He just wants to be a man who's, is allowed to have relations with other men, isn't it? Tamaki: Oh come on, that's not natural, it's very unnatural and I'm sure three-quarters of New Zealand again would agree with me that no matter how you look at it and whatever rights that you claim to put to that, that is not a natural relationship. Would you like your son to be having that sort of relationship with another man? Clark: Well Richard Lewis, let me ask you, do, there some in your party who would support recriminalising homosexuality, is that right? Lewis: Well as I said in the weekend, that's something that we will have to look at further down the line of course. But right now the issue is civil unions and the reality is, that is same-sex marriage, that is what the legislation could, should be called because that's the truth of what that bill represents and the concern that we have is that homosexual relationships represent less than one percent of New Zealand relationships and the question I'm asking is why our government is driving so hard the agenda of such an extreme minority? Clark: Where do you get this figure that homosexual relationships represent less than one percent. I thought the international kind of agreed stat. Was about ten percent? Lewis: No, not at all, statistics New Zealand have the homosexual relationships right down there around the one percent mark in New Zealand. At the last census, and this is where the problem is. Okay, if you're going to advance a bill that represents such an extreme minority, the problem I have is that they've hijacked the de facto relationships population of New Zealand to use it as a front. There's already a civil union for opposite sex de factors and it's called marriage. So I can't understand, for the life of me, why they would want a completely new institution that has everything but the name marriage, and so they should call it what, what it is. And they've already conceded that the New Zealand population would detest the notion of a same-sex marriage bill which is why they've advanced it this way, which to me strikes at the very heart of government integrity, and this is one of the concerns that I have, as our nation moves forward, is can this government be trusted, and I say it can't. Clark: Well you have some interesting ideas about promoting families that you talked about at your conference at the weekend. One of them is that if you stay married, you should get a financial incentive, tell me how that would work? Lewis: Okay, well the first thing I need to say is this. Marriage in New Zealand has declined sixty-six percent while the rate of divorced has tripled. Clark: and why do you think that is? Lewis: Well obviously, there's many issues, but the first one was that the door was opened for it to be able to happen quite easily. So now we have, as we look forward that, by 2010, potentially three-quarter Maori infants could be born into fatherless homes. Clark: But a lot of those children are born into relationships where there's never been a marriage. I mean that's not about marriage, is it? Lewis: exactly. Tamaki: That's the problem, because we've minimised marriage, and this is what I'm saying, if you minimise marriage, this is what marriage is about, it's the sanctity of preserving families and making sure that we don't have the wreckage that we see. But when you see marriage eroded in easy laws and legislations, to be able to be able to condone de facto relationships, condone same-sex relationships, that's an obvious breakdown of the family so therefore you're going to get these problems. Clark: Hasn't human behaviour eroded marriage? I mean if you look at, you know, other statistics... Tamaki: Oh now you, Linda, you're really putting it to me now as a minister, of course it is, and the whole problem is that we don't want to regard God any more and if you don't want to serve God any more, then the human factor kicks in which you know as, we call it secular humanism, which is the type of regime that we've been under, and it's funny to me that they say, here comes the Fundamentalist and the Christians and, and they say that they're not a religion. Well of course they are, that's a ideology, and we've been under that regime for the last eight years, to twelve years already and look at what it produces. Clark: Well if we look at what marriage produces, I mean the stats say, you now, women are beaten in marriages, people are abused in marriage. For a sacred institution it's got some serious baggage. Tamaki: Well I've been married for twenty-four, twenty-five years had three children and they're all married, I've got grandchildren, there's four of them, and we haven't had that problem, quite the opposite. Clark: Well I've never been married but I've lived with the same person for twenty-one years, very happily, we've got two children, we've never had any problems either. Tamaki: That's great, well you've now... Clark: So marriage itself doesn't make, isn't the difference between your relationship and mine, isn't it? Tamaki: Well you, yes it does and if marriage, because marriage is the only institution when it comes to relationship, that is, God has condoned as having, or being able to have safe sex. You have sex outside of that and you're playing with fire. Just because, Linda, you've made it this far, there are plenty of others that have not. Clark: It's an interesting point though, isn't it? I mean what's the difference, you now, what is the, if, if my relationship is happy, is, is monogamous, is faithful, is loyal, is faithful, is loyal, is fulfilling, what difference does it make if I've been up the aisle or not? Tamaki: It makes a lot of difference because, one, you are violating the law of God, which most people don't blink an eyelid at and yet you would so dearly hold to the laws of the land, you won't murder or bank, rob a bank or something like that, but you won't hesitate twice to violate Gods laws, and you're violating one now by saying that you're having a happy relationship and yet you haven't been committed to the point where you've said, I do, in a relationships which is a covenant which protects, protects relationships and most of all, it honours God. Clark: Well I say, I do, every day. Tamaki: do what? Clark: Well everyday, I choose to be loyal every day, I choose to be faithful every day, I choose to be kind to the people I live with every day. Tamaki: And that is really good and I, I say to you, that's really great, Linda, but what... ? Clark: So what difference does it make? Tamaki: What is so wrong with not, not honouring God in that, you know? Clark: I guess what I... Tamaki: Because the generation, what about your children, how are they going to see that? You see there, your children have seen, there's a happy situation but they haven't seen the depth of what that commitment can produce by allowing, you know, a, a God factor that... Clark: but that's when we go back to the stats about…. if being married makes the difference and that, because God's involved, why is it that marriage, married when are beaten to and that, and that children in marriages are abused to? Tamaki: Because you have abuse in marriage it doesn't make marriage wrong as much as somebody goes to McDonalds to have a burger and finds out they get a wrong burger, it makes all McDonalds wrong. It doesn't, does it? Clark: I want to come back, Richard, to this financial incentive for being married, because it's an innovative idea, it's an innovative idea because you would give people, what, every five years you're married you get a little bonus from the government? Lewis: That's correct, and that's all part of the incentive and reward for marriages that, of course, are the children who are products of that generally contribute very well back to society. But it's also a way of turning the marriage trend around. I think it's a good thing and certainly there are a lot of very successful marriages as well who would appreciate that. It's an opportunity to provide more economic support to our children, and I think it's a good thing, and in fact we've had very good positive support for that policy alone, but the detail and mechanics of that have to be fleshed out. Clark: What about the Family Commission? What do you think of the family commission, Richard, because United at the last election, which of course you know, enveloped a whole, you know, the established Christian parties into United Future and, and successfully so, got into the, got into parliament, had the deal with Labour, and out of that came the Family Commission. What do you think of that? Lewis: Well I don't think to much of it simply because they're still confused about what a family actually is. Destiny New Zealand's the only party that has clearly set a definition of what a family is, being a legally married husband and wife in the covenant of marriage, their children, grandparents and so forth, and I think it's very important to get that right first. If you can't get that right, it doesn't matter who's involved or what you're strategies are, ultimately the outcome's going to be flawed. Clark: So do you think United's sold out? Lewis: yes I do. Clark: And why did they sell out? Lewis: Well they've gone into a supply relationship with a government that clearly clashes with the principles they said that they were going in on. Clark: so you couldn't do a deal with Labour? Lewis: N No absolutely not, not with their current position and policy as it stands. Clark: But, so tell me, you could do a deal with National? Lewis: Well National would be more up our alley, but having said that they've got a leader right now who clearly supports same-sex marriage and the prostitution bills, so there'd be some issues that we'd have to talk about. Clark: Because ultimately if this is going to work, you'd have to do a deal with one of them. Lewis: Yes, we accept that and I guess that... Clark: I don't wish to be biblical, but it's the devil you know maybe. You got into trouble, Brian Tamaki, a few years ago talking about the devil; you said that women in power were part of the devil's work. Tamaki: No, there's, that's been a misquotation of what I said from, from the media. Clark: So it's okay if women work according to you? Tamaki: Of course it is, and it's okay for women to be in, in levels of leadership of society. What I said was that it's part of the plan of evil,' and the devil you call it, and for the sake of, of , there is one that wants to take out the role of man, confuse it and amend it to advocate their roles, so therefore women have had to step into a lot of places where the men should be, especially, no more than in fathering and their responsibilities in the home. Clark: Nice talking to both of you, Brian Tamaki and Richard Lewis from Destiny New Zealand. National Radio - 13th July 2004