not too much

The Centre for an Ethical Society is an autonomous mainstream Christian not-for-profit body which seeks to promote Christian social justice within Australia's democratic traditions and to cooperate in the development of a more just and compassionate Australia." It is supported by leaders of the Catholic, Anglican and protestant churches and convened by the Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, the Rt Revd George Browning.

The Centre has published a Social Justice Survey Analysis for the 2007 Federal Election, based on a questionnaire. It shows clearly that the present Liberal and National party government performs very poorly.

The Labor Party is better, but its weaknesses are clear--mainly in areas where it must pander to popularism in order to gain votes.

The Democrats and Greens do best on issues of social justice. It is not the right wing ideologues that offer the best response to Christian values, but the centre-left moderates. (The coalition provided a long document, but did not answer the questionnaire, making is difficult to evaluate its response.)

Each of the 16 issues were rated on the following 1 to 5 scale:

• 5   Recognises problem, and puts forward practical ways to find a solution which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 4   Recognises problem has acceptable approach which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles but some details lacking.
• 3   Largely recognises problem and has some approaches to dealing with it which accords with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 2   Problem not fully recognised and/or approaches to deal with it vague or are not fully in accord with Christian Social Justice Principles.
• 1   Problem not recognised and/or no ways proposed to deal with it or are not in accord with Christian Social Justice Principles.

Issue No.	Subject	Greens	Democrats	ALP	Coalition
1	Vision	5	5	5	2
2	Effective Democracy	5	5	4	2
3	Government Structure	5	5	5	1
4	Poverty Reduction	4	4	4	2
5	Indigenous Affairs	5	5	4	2
6	Industrial Relations	5	5	4	3
7	Education	4	5	5	3
8	Skills Shortage	5	5	5	3
9	Housing	4	5	4	2
10	Health	4	5	4	2
11	Welfare Reforms	4	4	3	1
12	Middle Class Welfare	4	4	3	2
13	Climate Change	5	5	4	3
14	Refugees	5	5	3	2
15	Peacemaking	5	5	5	3
16	Millenium Goals	5	5	4	4
TOTALS		74	77	66	37