National Civic Council

The National Civic Council (or NCC) is a conservative Christian lobby group in Australia, founded by B.A. Santamaria in the 1940s. The NCC publishes a weekly magazine, ''News Weekly''.

The NCC promotes policy based on Santamaria's Catholic values, including opposition to feminism, abortion, same-sex marriage and supporting Christian values along with "the integrity of human life", "the family unit", decentralism and patriotism (including economic). It is usually considered socially conservative, while in economics it is critical of both socialist and economic-rationalist trends. The group organised support for Tony Abbott before the spill motion in February 2015.

History

The NCC evolved in 1957 from the Catholic Social Studies Movement (also known simply as "The Movement") which was founded in the early 1940s by prominent Catholic layman B.A. Santamaria. The Movement worked closely with the Industrial Groups, which were formed within the Australian Labor Party to combat the influence and infiltration of the Communist Party in trade unions. The Movement, and later the NCC, had close links with the original Democratic Labor Party.

The organisation's website states that its "primacies" are "The family as the basic unit of society," opposition to "excessive centralization," the "right to life" from fertilisation to natural death, patriotism, and "Judeo-Christian values."

Publications and influence

The NCC publishes a fortnightly magazine, ''News Weekly'', and formerly a journal of religious opinion called ''AD2000'' which ceased in 2017. The current President is Patrick J. Byrne, an author of two books, ''Transgender: One shade of grey'', and ''The Little Grey book on Sex and Transgender''. The previous former National President, Peter Westmore, was a candidate at the 1975 federal election for the original Democratic Labor Party. Peter took over from the founder B.A. Santamaria in 1998.

The Australian Family Association (AFA) is an affiliate of the NCC which maintains a high profile on a range of social issues. (Note to be confused with the Australian Family Movement, which was created as a conservative Christian political party in the 1970s by some supporters of the AFA and the NCC. In 2014, the NCC represented at a "strengthening the family" conference organised to support the World Congress of Families.

The NCC emerged from the Labour movement as a grass roots response to radical elements within some Labor Party branches who were involved with the Communist Party of Australia.

While conservative on many social issues, the NCC is firmly opposed to so-called 'conservative economics' that which is associated with Liberal/National party reforms of this century (which followed Hawke/Keating reforms) best described as neo-liberal economics.

Tony Abbott, who was Australia's Prime Minister from 2013 to 2015, became interested in politics in 1976 after attending a National Civic Council conference. Abbott represented the Democratic Club in the 1970s, which was sponsored by the NCC. Gerard Henderson describes the NCC as Abbott's "original spiritual and political home in politics". Various media sources have reported that a NCC email campaign helped in part to secure Tony Abbott's position as Prime Minister before the spill motion in February 2015. Senator Eric Abetz stated before the spill: "In the last few days the emails have been overwhelmingly flooding the office saying all this nonsense about leadership has gone far too far, and the emails are now overwhelmingly saying 'stick to the team you've got'" In 1999, Abetz was a speaker on "the family" at Family Council of Victoria (a "front" group dominated by the National Civic Council's Australian Family Association). Abetz also spoke at the NCC in November 2011.

Organisation

The NCC has its national office in Melbourne, as well as ones in Brisbane and Perth. The current NCC National President is Patrick Byrne and there are also a number of State presidents, who co-ordinate local groups in each state.

The NCC describes its task is "to expose and counter four key hostile ideologies in defence of human life and the family, inherent human rights and Australia as an independent, free nation: Libertarianism, ‘the right to do as I please‘, (e.g. unrestrained pursuit of pleasure or profit) in its cultural, economic and legal forms, undermines the natural family and a fair market economy; Chinese communism, the ideology behind Beijing’s aggressive extension of power into the Asia Pacific region, and beyond; Fluid gender ideology that is weaponising laws that attack the foundations of a tolerant democracy – freedom of speech, association and religion; and Radical environmentalism that goes beyond protecting the environment to undermining both the energy needs of the nation and the development of important industries."

World View

The NCC claims to be unique in its outlook, because it analyses issues through the lens of five principles drawn from Christian Social Teaching:

1) The family as the basic unit of society, as it is the most effective provider of welfare to children, the sick or disabled, and the aged, and creates the concentric rings of family relationships that tie a society together. We aim for a family wage that makes the family independent of the welfare state.

2) Decentralisation of population, economic power (giving preference to the family farm and small/family business over larger corporations) and political power (federal government should not do what states can do, states should not do what local government can do). These policies give people the maximum control over their own lives, providing the best protection against authoritarian forces. (This is also known as the principle of Subsidiarity, the idea that governments are there to serve others and that a larger organisation should never do what a smaller organisation can do just as efficiently.)

3) The integrity of the individual, including full legal protection of the right to life for all human beings from natural conception to natural death, and economic structures that ensure a just worker’s wage.

4) Common Good / Patriotism (as opposed to nationalism): An independent foreign policy based on the national interest, self-reliance in defence industries, support for economic and strategic alliances that further Australia’s national interest, policies that preserve Australia’s economic sovereignty and that ensure Australia is a property owning, tolerant democracy.

5) Judeo-Christian virtues that provide the moral cement to hold society together, as opposed to relativism and hedonistic individualism that undermine familial ties and dissolve the ties that bind a society together.

Controversy

In November 2014, former National President, Peter Westmore, attended his daughter Trish's marriage to her female partner Christy in New Zealand, where same-sex marriage was made legal in 2013. He said his daughter's wedding had his blessing: "She always has my blessing in everything she does". Asked on 24 March 2015, if he still supported the NCC's opposition to same-sex marriage, he said: "Of course I do". Westmore did not respond when queried about the apparent inconsistency between his personal and his political positions on the issue. He asked Fairfax Media to "respect" his family's privacy.

See also

* Political catholicism
* Christian democracy
* Catholic social teaching
* Distributism

References

{{Reflist

External links

National Civic Council websiteNews Weekly websiteAustralian Family Association website

Think tanks based in Australia
Anti-abortion organisations in Australia
1957 establishments in Australia
Conservatism in Australia