It is common for religion to play a role in Australian election campaigns so the expectation should be that it will do so again. This is despite the fact it is not high on the agenda at the moment, and both the major political parties are now led by non-dogmatic Christians. The latter is a change from the last election when the parties were led by Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, who could be dogmatic and were long-time combatants over matters religious.
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Some voters do notice the religious character of political leaders, and it can change votes. In Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten we now have leaders with interesting religious histories. Turnbull is a Catholic convert who married into a strong Catholic family, the Hughes. Shorten, educated by the Jesuit order of Catholic priests at Melbourne's Xavier College, became an Anglican when he married for a second time.
That combination may change a few votes, though it is hard to see the personal identification of the leaders becoming an election issue. That is something new. Rudd deliberately sought out middle-of-the-road religious voters, while Abbott's conservative orthodox Catholicism put off some voters while attracting a few others.
This time the election politics of religion is much more likely to be about issues presented by faith-based pressure groups, church schools and their advocates and other church agencies. There have already been intimations of likely election campaigns, including interventions to release children from offshore detention centres (Catholic Religious Australia), opposition to corporate backing of same sex marriage (Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney), criticism of the treatment of lower-income groups in last week's federal budget (faith-based welfare groups), and advocacy of freedom of speech in the same sex marriage debate (Australian Christian Lobby).
Some of this election campaigning will be the result of nationally co-ordinated campaigns by groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby. It has a history of such involvement in recent campaigns and the resources to engage again. Like other peak national organisations its resources include enough financial backing to run medium-sized campaigns, some high-profile leaders who always attract media attention and the professional knowledge to run modern election campaigns.
There are two down-sides to religiously-based campaigns. The first is that their brand is damaged, especially by the culpability revealed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, while the second is disunity on key issues. Some of this is structural. There are both conservative and progressive churches and groups. The generally conservative ACL is matched by the generally progressive Uniting Church for instance.
Some disunity comes from key individuals with Christian credentials breaking away from the official public position of their church, like the consistent advocacy of same sex marriage by Turnbull, compared to the fierce opposition of his church. His position reaffirming the status of Manus Island and Nauru as refugee centres is also contrary to the official anti-detention centre position of Catholic agencies.
Campaign interventions are unlikely to be general support for one party or another but rather sector-by-sector advocacy on particular issues, including welfare and foreign aid, education and same sex marriage.
The major faith-based welfare agencies, Uniting Care, Anglicare, Catholic Social Services Australia and the Salvation Army increasingly speak with one voice. They will undoubtedly put pressure on both parties to commit to greater welfare spending in areas like unemployment benefits and foreign aid and to greater compassion for asylum seekers and refugees. This will come against the background of years of neglect and in the case of foreign aid of targeted cuts of about one-third over the present government's term.
That makes the churches the voices in the wilderness in these fields. They represent an alternative and more compassionate culture than that represented by the major parties. On such issues the church welfare lobby is much closer to the Greens, although that relationship is fragmented by other Greens' policies of a much more secular kind.
Same sex marriage is another issue of concern to the Christian churches, which on balance advocate the no-change conservative position. The conservative groups might target the Greens primarily, but Labor too, as it is committed to a parliamentary vote rather than the government's proposed plebiscite. ACL and like groups will be tested by what to do given Turnbull's pro-same sex marriage position.
This might mean that strong campaigns are run on an electorate level supporting anti-same sex marriage MPs and candidates. But such campaigns run the risk of significant backlash, given majority support for same sex marriage in the community, from other groups, including secular-minded parties like the Australian Sex Party.
Faith-based groups are increasingly evident within the pro-asylum seeker movement and will undoubtedly speak out loudly. Major party bipartisanship for the status quo makes the Greens the major beneficiaries in this sector, with some room for electorate level support for major party candidates who buck the party line.
State aid for church schools used to be an election campaign favourite. The lines have been blurred in the current school funding debate, but many church schools will favour Gonski-style increased government investment across the board as advocated by Labor.
Past studies of the impact of faith-based campaigns show it is prudent not to exaggerate any likely impact given so many variables. But candidates should always be wary of the intensity that faith-based groups, especially conservative ones, can sometimes generate on the right issue. The best the religious left can hope for is to neutralise conservative campaigns by reminding the candidates that many church people are driven by compassion not dogma.
John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University.
