How do you get to be a captain’s pick in Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party?
This week, the civil war simmering over the preselection of candidates became very public, sparked by the case of Katherine Deves, Morrison’s pick for the seat of Warringah.
How Deves emerged from utter obscurity to national prominence — and provoked a spectacular meltdown of the NSW Liberals — is a mystery. How do you become a prime minister’s pick for a one-time blue-ribbon Liberal seat when you weren’t even a member of the party six months ago? We have a stab at solving that mystery later.
For all the furore generated by Deves, it could have been worse. Morrison had another captain’s pick in the mix earlier this year, in the seat of Dobell on the NSW Central Coast, currently held with a 3% margin by Labor. Morrison’s candidate, Jemima Gleeson, didn’t get up. Preselection went to Dr Michael Feneley, a leading cardiologist with an Order of Australia for services to medicine.
So, who is Jemima Gleeson? Gleeson is a Pentecostal preacher with Hope Unlimited Church (HopeUC). The church has several sites on the Central Coast as well as branches in the US and India. HopeUC’s lead pastor, Darlene Zschech, is well known in Pentecostal circles as a former worship pastor at Hillsong, where she built a huge name as a singer and producer of worship music under the Hillsong Music label.
Gleeson describes her life thus on her Twitter account: “blessed beyond measure. love my God. love my family. love my church. love my life. totally blessed.” Her last posting is from 2012 and includes nothing to indicate any interest in politics, Liberal or otherwise.
Significantly, Gleeson is also a graduate of Alphacrucis College, the official training college for Australia’s Pentecostal churches, where she completed a theology degree in 2019. The head of Alphacrucis’ governing council is Pastor Michael Murphy, a highly influential figure in Australia’s Pentecostal circles.
Murphy founded a training organisation, Leaderscape, which aims to build the leadership skills of pastors. One of its aims, candidly put, is to help “release enhanced generosity for churches and ministries in the order of millions of dollars”. Murphy is a former Hillsong pastor and was also lead pastor for 18 years at Shirelive, the southern Sydney Pentecostal church that Morrison attends.
So, how did theology graduate Gleeson come into the orbit of the prime minister and into the mix of Liberal Party politics in Australia? And what role, if any, did Murphy have? Crikey sought comment from Gleeson and Murphy but neither returned our calls.
Also unclear is the role Morrison has played in the elevation of another Pentecostal Christian, Linda Aitken, who late last year was preselected as the Liberal candidate for the West Australian seat of Pearce (replacing Christian Porter). Aitken is a member of Victory Church, whose lead pastor (and former tennis great) Margaret Court is famously opposed to homosexuality.
It was also revealed yesterday that the National Party’s candidate for the NSW seat of Richmond, Kimberly Hone, had told worshippers at a Pentecostal church that her “ultimate goal” in politics was to “bring God’s kingdom to the political arena”.
And what of Katherine Deves?
As Crikey’s Cam Wilson has reported, Katherine Deves had been politically homeless until several months ago when she joined the Liberal Party. So how does someone with no party pedigree to speak of become a prime minister’s captain’s pick?
Earlier this year, Deves proved she had the right stuff and would run through a brick wall for her cause — if that’s what you’re looking for — when she spoke at a forum in Hobart alongside Liberal Senator Claire Chandler. Chandler had tabled the Save Women’s Sport bill in federal Parliament, gaining the public support of Morrison for her stand. The “Gender Identity in Law” forum had been deferred three times. Opponents had attempted to have the event cancelled or removed from Hobart Town Hall.
Forum chair Sydney University Professor Emerita Bronwyn Winter, who describes herself as a feminist and lesbian activist and a life-long ALP voter, told Crikey that the women and sport issue “cuts across the political spectrum”.
Of Deves she said: “She is a sincere woman. I am not inside her head but I think Katherine ran with the Liberal Party because the left is not listening and it is very difficult to run as an independent. But I stress I am not inside her head.”
(Crikey contacted Senator Chandler’s office for comment on her role in linking Deves to the Liberal cause but received no response.)
Deves’ preselection appears, then, to be a marriage of convenience — where an opportunistic prime minister comes with a political platform for a candidate passionate about a single issue.
But how much longer can she last as Morrison’s cannon fodder for remaking the Liberals?
Trying to ensure that the Pentacostal sect is the most over-represented group in Parliament?
2016 Census shows 1.1% of Australians identify as Pentecostal. Wonder what percentage of Morrison’s gov’t are affiliated with the Pentecostal church. It would be an interesting statistic to know. Suspect it might be more that 1.1%
I read recently that 58% of the cabinet identify as Pentecostal or similar. Hardly reflects the average voter.
Hawke. Stuart Robert. Luke Howells. The Nat party woman doctor who aslo attended the leadership operation. bert Van Something from a southern Bris/Gold Coast seat. This topic deserves some research.
Well, they’re blessed, remember! Scotty’s blessed not to have disabled children, and jemima gleeson (only God deserves capitalisation) takes it one step, perhaps a nauseating infinity of steps, further, saying she’s ‘blessed beyond measure. love my God. love my family. love my church. love my life. totally blessed.’ totally.
You can’t “bring God’s kingdom to the political arena”- aka Christian Dominionism – to Australia without controlling Australia’s parliaments. It’s a basic tenet of many Evangelical sects- including the one Morrison was raised in. So yes, that’s exactly what he and his friends are trying to achieve. They want theocracy- not democracy.
They do, but only their version of it.
Overall, Christianity is over represented in the LNP, Labor, media ranks and US style bipartisan ‘prayer meetings’ vs. wider society and the electorate.
They don’t mean any of it. They are just pandering to the majority of people who still believe in superstitious bunkum, even in 2022, to get their votes.That is a lot of people to appeal to!
Is this country under the control of a right-wing religious sect .I believe it is and the control must end . We are becoming the laughing stock of the world as the leadership or alleged leadership stumbles from one rort to the next,from one disaster to the next, and ignores the part it plays in our diminishing security.
We need a leader, not a frontman for the Fat Miner and the Greedy Grandma as they fight to continue the mining of fossil fuel to the detriment of the world climate. CLIMATE CHANGE is the main issue we face today and a vote for Sco Mo To Slo To Late is a vote for more natural disasters.
We’re not under the control of a right-wing religious sect yet – but they’re working on that….
As I read your post I have just received a post asking “Are the world’s richest people driving climate change?”
The question is how close to total control can we let these people get?
Religious nut cases or greedy miners I believe we should reject them all
“Religious fundamentalists running Iran. That’s bad. Religious fundamentalists running Oz. Hallelujah!”
Miners – through their puppets – already run Oz.
Agree . The fat coal miner who lies and the greedy grandma are the puppeteers.
…. With a government agenda dictated by a foreign media dictator – suspending a dagger of bad PR over party hearts.
I’ve also noticed that no matter how unChristlike Scott Morrison is, the Pentecostals still think he is god’s gift to Australia. My ex-husband’s family are in that church. I attended with him for many years. They have some rather strange and dangerous beliefs. The last thing we need is to have them in Parliament.
Leandra, any religious person has strange and dangerous beliefs. We do not need, or want them in Parliament.
Much like the US Evangelicals that support Trump, surely one of the least Christian men in existence.
They are already there and its not even the end of the road!
The sentence in this article that really sent a chill a chill down my spine was:
It was also revealed yesterday that the National Party’s candidate for the NSW seat of Richmond, Kimberly Hone, had told worshippers at a Pentecostal church that her “ultimate goal” in politics was to “bring God’s kingdom to the political arena”.
I am in little doubt that this is also one of Morrison’s fantasies. It seems that there is no shortage of those who would gladly turn Australia into a theocratic state. The achievement of such a goal would take this (or any) country back to a ‘dark-age’. It would be nothing short of a nightmare. And let’s be brutally honest about this, it is not only the Christians who would like to move things in this direction.
Likely true, Morrison having that fantasy. But if Indonesia, say, invaded and took over Australia, Morrison would be the first in line for religious conversion if his career, whatever it is or would be, depended on it. He wasn’t a Sharks, not even a Rugby League, fanatic prior to his preselection (such as the ‘process’ is still referred to) in the seat of Cook in 2007.
Well Cap, if Indonesia, or any similarly inclined country (one has to be very careful in these days of extreme political correctness how these posts are worded!!) were to invade and take over Australia, then I too, would be first in line for religious conversion because with that crowd it is not just your career that is at stake, it is your very life! (That reminds me, where did I put that kor*n) I bought just in case of an emergency??!!
Robert, you would still be second; that is, if Scovo left you alive behind him in the scramble. If there were serious prospects of a massacre, though, Scove would likely have left the country well before the invading forces arrived, and taken refuge in the New York chapter of the Hillsong church.
Alas Cap, I think that you are totally correct!! I wouldn’t want to stand between Scummo and the last plane out of here in the event of an invasion. I wouldn’t stand a chance!
Australia should never under-estimate either the numerical or resource-rich potentialities of Pentecostals. Their strength, American-based with world-wide ambitions. Both Australia and New Zealand high on their list.
Your opening sentence Robert, or in fact entire post, be re-positioned to head all today’s comment listed. . . .
Morrison’s intent? Re-birth his political Party. And under-mine democracy.
It wouldn’t take us back. Back then, most of the population genuinely identified with a religion and attended a church . A theocratic state now would be a minority ruling over a secular majority who don’t attend religious services and identify with a religion in a cultural rather than religious sense, if at all.
I think that you are looking back through some sort of ‘rose-colored glasses’ Kathy. I do not want to see a return to those days ‘back then’ to which you refer. And as a 74-year old I can remember what you are talking about. I do not relate to religion in a ‘cultural’ or a religious sense. I do not understand how you can speak sympathetically about a set-up where you have some ‘witch-doctor’ dressed up in some kind of special garb speaking in some kind of special building, all designed to instil awe in the audience. This kind of superstitious nonsense should have ‘withered on the vine’ centuries ago.
I will strenuously oppose the extension of religious influence in this country Kathy, no matter how you dress it up.
The fecundity of the soil in which irrational belief/faith lies fallow was seen in 1959 when the money grubbing charlatan Billy Graham visited.
As reported in this zine recently (Hardaker?) the then rural area where the deluded massed became the breeding ground for Hillsong and other weird nutbaggery.
The evil seed planted then sprouted, then was watered and weeded ten years later when, inexplicably, he was allowed to return.
Appalling as he was – check out his son Franklin is truly malignant and intent of Gilead for the Benighted States.
Selection criteria for a seat at the PMs cabinet table .Do you believe in fairies? Can you lie underwater? Will you do what I tell you? Will you support fossil fuel mining regardless of its impact on the environment? Will you reject any attempt to establish a federal ICAC?
Say yes to all questions and become a Pentecostal and you could become PM
Yes the current (I will not say ‘our’) Prime Minister satisfies all the listed criteria. No wonder he is the Prime Minister (What does that say about the people who elected this, (or any), Liberal Government?) People get the government that they deserve (as the old saying goes). It is most unfortunate for the rest of us.