Thoughts at Election Time

Some of my favourite quotes from Sunday's Compass episode:
(click for full transcript)
Rabbi David Freedman "....the really key issue about any election or about any political activity has to be the answer to the question, what effect does this have upon a human person."

Rabbi David Freedman "The standard issues that are in this election, and to be fair in all the previous elections that I can remember, they are all fundamentally of a religious nature if you investigate them. Let’s take for example AWA’s and employment. The work ethic is a fundamental ethic in Judaeo-Christianity. To give a human being the dignity of being constructive, of being able to make a contribution to society through that employment with a certain security."

Rabbi David Freedman "Well I would like them to think that the party that they’re voting for will improve Australia over the next three years or so, and will leave them and their families and their company and their industry just a little bit richer in the broadest sense of the term than we are at the moment"

Jim Wallace- Australian Christian Lobby "What I want to see is all people of Christian faith thinking about who they’re voting for from their Christian perspective......I don’t want them to be a part of that community that goes in and just votes for the way mum did or what’s in the hip pocket. I think we’ve got to be more discerning than that."

Geraldine Doogue "What are some of these human values that we’re moving away from?"
Imam Afroz Ali "Our family values, that actually there is so much pressure on the families and individuals about work, about economy, that a lot of our definitions, a lot of our standards are based on money and fiscal policies rather than the essence that actually makes us human beings… we have reduced families, and definitely women for example to an economic factor. And this is not going to be helpful nor productive in bringing about the social positive changes that actually we are hoping for."

Archbishop Peter Jensen " Well the bible first of all says to work six days and rest the seventh. That’s not a bad prescription I think for us all. It doesn’t say work five, it says work six. But it does say to work six days and rest the seventh. I think that’s very valuable and very important, in order to keep your relationships intact."

Imam Afroz Ali "....we are becoming slaves to the economy. We are becoming influenced by other nations when Australia is fully capable of making its own decisions for its own people for its own good. We have an indigenous population that needs to be looked after, that needs to be learnt from, and we have an environmental problem in our own country....."