#ruap

Prior reviews: federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016

Running where: NSW, NT, QLD, VIC. They are also contesting Boothy (SA), but have no Senate candidates in that state.

What I said before: “This vile little party represents possibly the worst of the Christian far-right”

What I think this year: I am so sorry for all the moderate and reasonable Christians out there that this party claims to represent their faith. Rise Up Australia has that ability to be so utterly awful as to tarnish and embarrass anything and anyone with whom they claim association.

Allow me to illustrate how horrid Rise Up is with reference to their two most prominent candidates, who are standing together for the Senate in Victoria: Rosalie Crestani and Danny Nalliah. Crestani is a local councillor in Casey, in Melbourne’s southeast, and she is top of this year’s ticket. She recently proposed an anti-LGBTI motion that would have stopped all diversity training in Casey and prohibited the council making statements on sexual equality—it found no other supporters. It is by no means her only attempt on council to discriminate against LGBTI people. Her bigotry extends much further, having appeared at racist and xenophobic rallies including those organised by Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front. Her strongest disdain is reserved for Islam; she has led anti-mosque and anti-halal campaigns in Casey and beyond.

Nalliah, who founded Rise Up, is somehow worse. He is so crazy that he managed to get dumped by Family First back in 2004. He claimed the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 were divine punishment for Victoria’s abortion laws. He followed this in January 2011 with the accusation that the Queensland floods were divine punishment for comments Kevin Rudd made about Israel; he also called prayer the solution to cyclones and condemned Australia for having an atheist prime minister in Julia Gillard. He believes that the Islamic religion itself is a terrorist group and a “death cult”. The charities commission stripped charitable status from Nalliah’s Catch the Fire Ministries after he asked his flock to donate to Rise Up.

These believes underpin all Rise Up policy. The party is shot through with paranoia that sharia law is about to be enforced on Australia to make “Western culture forbidden”. There are many parties right now hostile to asylum seekers, but Rise Up might take the cake as most vehement. They are convinced most people seeking asylum are scammers, criminals, and a burden on society. It’s extremely dehumanising language and quite shocking when you consider Nalliah himself is Sri Lankan. He’s one of those people who will push through a door and then slam it on the fingers of people behind.

This party is simply disgusting.

My recommendation: Give Rise Up Australia a weak or no preference.