GordonMoyes.com

The Shooters Party has presented this Bill to the Legislative Council with various amendments pertaining to gun control, access, licensing, ownership and other requirements. I will briefly summarise what the Bill proposes, and then ask readers to let me know if you think this Bill should be supported by the CDP.

The NSW Government announced on 3 April 2008 reforms to the licensing system for older motorists after an extensive public consultation period. More than 24,000 people had their say, and the message to the NSW Government was clear – we needed to take another look at the issue of older driver testing. In response, the Government has announced reforms, which will balance the safety of road users and the general community with the continuing independence and mobility of over-85 drivers.

We have few antiques in our home, and those we have came down through our families, but as both sides were working people on limited incomes, they never had any antiques of any great value. And we have never had the money to buy any. So you don’t see much at our home. Except for a couple of small things. They mainly rest on the shelves of the bookcases I have built, in front of the ranks of books. They are small, and visitors pick them up and look at them with interest.

Uniting Churches in the Upper Hunter area have responded wonderfully concerning our program for drought stricken farmers in the South West of NSW. Dr Moyes has been invited to speak to 400 farmers and people from the towns about Finley on September 6th on the theme: “Hope for Farmers in Tough Times”.

Where is God amidst the horrors of war? How do soldiers keep their faith in God’s goodness amidst the suffering and slaughter of battle? American soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines have asked questions like these ever since the War for Independence. The questions occupy their thoughts and find their way from faraway battlefields into letters to loved ones. Journalist Andrew Carroll has collected many of these letters in a book titled “Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War”. Among them is a note from Private Walter Bromwich, who questioned God’s role in the slaughter of World War I.

On 7 May 2008, the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, John Hatzistergos, introduced the Same Sex Relationships Bill to the Legislative Council. This bill, based on recommendations from the NSW Law Reform Commission, seeks to amend 57 NSW laws by first re-defining homosexual partners as equivalent to heterosexual de facto partners under the law, and then seeking to make all legislation apply equally to de facto couples and married couples.

I agree with the top climate scientists that some level of climate change can now be considered unavoidable, no matter how aggressively the problem is combated, and this means that we in Australia will be dealing with unknown changes in the climate, as well as the already deadly environmental extremes that are common here such as drought and flooding.

The devastation caused by the cyclone and tidal surge which hit Burma (Myanmar) this month has shocked the whole world. The suffering is beyond imagining, with an estimated 150,000 dead, a million homeless and no one knows how many lacking food and fresh water.

Last Sunday, Dr Moyes was preaching to an enthusiastic congregation at New Lambton Heights Family Church of Christ under the excellent leadership of Kelvin Holliday This church is known for its wide spread care ministry and its support for Christian leadership in the Parliament. Then he spoke at the CDP meeting at Islington Baptist, under the leadership of Milton Caine and Jim Kendall.

With the State Government so reliant on the generosity of developers, the community is entitled to mistrust proposals to streamline planning. At the same time, however, the need for reform is undeniable. No less than 120,000 planning proposals worth $21 billion are processed each year in NSW. The figure can only grow as housing in particular faces the pressure of surging immigration. The Government is right to pursue a sustainable reduction in the permanent backlog that clogs council planning offices. The question is: at what price?