Religious Right Groups
Australian Family Association
| Leadership: | Changes regularly. Most significant spokespersons during recent years have included Mary Helen Woods (daughter of the late B.A. Santamaria), Dr Joseph Santamaria and Bill Muehlenberg. |
| Date formed: | August 1980 at a seminar held at the University of Melbourne. |
| Area of operation: | Branches in all states. National Office in Melbourne. |
| Estimated membership: | Maximum of a few hundred and may be considerably less. |
| Finances: | Secret, although national budget appears from publications and activities to lie in the six-figure range. |
| Main objectives: | “To cultivate within society an appreciation that the integrity and well-being of the family is essential to the stability, morale, security and prosperity of the nation“; in other words, to defend and promote the nuclear family (father, mother and as many children as possible) to the detriment of all other family types. |
| Main activities: | Publishing, lobbying, holding public meetings, writing letters to the media (both daily and specialised). |
| Links with other groups: | AFA is a National Civic Council ‘front’ organisation. It maintains cordial relations with most other Australian Religious Right bodies. Muehlenberg has also worked for Focus on the Family Australia and Salt Shakers and is a contributor for the Australian Christian Lobby and Rev. Fred Nile’s Family World News. |
| Publications: | The Australian Family (journal - issued 3-4 times annually - most recent online issue is dated November 2001); Family Update (newsletter - generally issued bi-monthly - most recent online issue is dated September 2001) |
| Sample quotes: | “How is it that a small and ignored minority [i.e. gays] has become the ‘flavour of the month’? How is it that a lifestyle that has been universally condemned throughout most of history has now become chic and cool? How is it that societies that used to put the common good ahead of the desires of individuals now cater to every noisy minority group?” (Bill Muehlenberg, National Secretary, AFA, The State of the Culture Wars, Salt Shakers Journal, February 2001, 3)” |
| Australian Family Association’s Bill Muehlenberg said [Moomba] should return as a family festival. ‘Most families wouldn’t want those kind of memories of naked bodies writhing away,’ Mr Muehlenberg said. ‘Family festivals have become an endangered species. They are being taken away by young trendies.’” (Herald Sun, 14 March 2001) | |
| Assessment: | Hey-day was in the 1980s; now an organisation in decline, its place usurped by more vigorous evangelical Protestant bodies. Still the Religious Right group of choice for most ultra-conservative Catholics. Sections of the media seem to regard it as ‘expert’ and ‘respectable’ and rarely identify it with the NCC, thereby according the group undeserved influence. |
| Contact details: | National Office, 582 Queensberry Street, Nth. Melbourne, Vic. 3051 www.family.org.au (updated irregularly) |
| State Offices: details at www.family.org.au/contact |
