Religious Right Groups
Australian Festival of Light
(full title: Australian Federation of Festival of Light Community Standards Organisation)
| Leadership: | Rev. Fred Nile (NSW); Dr David and Mrs Roslyn Phillips (SA); Geoffrey Bullock (Qld.) |
| Date formed: | Conceived as a national organisation in 1972; officially launched in 1973. |
| Area of operation: | Strongest in NSW and SA. Vestigial or non-existent in other states, although a Queensland branch was re-launched in 2003. |
| Estimated membership: | Maximum of a few thousand Australia-wide, most of them inactive. |
| Finances: | Annual revenue for all branches combined estimated at $150-200,000, largely derived from resource sales and donations. |
| Main objectives: | Include: ‘to mobilise Australians in support of purity, love and family life’ and ‘to resist any influences that lower moral standards …’ A broad-focus moral reform group, strongly opposed to abortion, feminism, homosexual rights, ‘pornography’ and ‘permissiveness’ in general. |
| Main activities: | Lobbying politicians, forming front organisations (including political parties), publishing, promoting letter-writing campaigns, demonstrating etc. |
| Links with other groups: | Inspired the formation of the Christian Democratic Party (q.v.), also headed by Nile. Maintains close relationships with most other leading Australian Religious Right groups. |
| Publications: | Quarterly journal Light and monthly South Australian Festival Focus plus assorted newsletters and bulletins. Nile also publishes the (theoretically independent) Family World News, a monthly tabloid. |
| Sample quotes: | “[Modesty] is essentially a recognition that sexual organs are very special - not to be ashamed of, but not to be used lightly. Rejection of these values (as in society’s acceptance of public nude bathing) is essentially a rejection of the privacy of marriage and a rejection of the wonderful and intimate nature of the procreative act. After all, delicacies like strawberries and cream soon lose their appeal if they become a daily diet.” (Light, Feb. 1977, 2)” |
| The chairman of the Illawarra Festival of Light, the Rev. Ben Richardson, said … [his proposed pornography addicts' clinic] would run something like Alcoholics Anonymous. ‘A man or woman getting the urge to use something pornographic will ring up the clinic as soon as they feel the temptation coming on … Then we would send someone over to calm them down. Of course, we would only send a man to advise a man or a woman to help a woman.’” ( … and they’ll see the light, The Age, 4 Sept. 1976) | |
| Assessment: | NSW branch was once the strongest Religious Right body in Australia but is now faltering, being so heavily dependent on the ageing Fred Nile. SA branch is sufficiently vigorous to have recently kick- started a new Queensland branch. The group’s general influence should not be underestimated while its CDP offshoot retains parliamentary representation. |
| Contact details: | (NSW) P O Box 400 Enfield NSW 2136 www.fol.org.au |
| (SA) Fourth Floor, 68 Grenfell Street, Adelaide SA 5000 www.fol.org.au |
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| (QLD.) GPO Box 1483 Brisbane QLD. 4001 |
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| (VIC.) P O Box 232 Box Hill VIC. 3128 |
