The Bible and the newspaper
The Bible and the newspaper
19 October 2022
Jennifer Kirkaldy is heading up The Salvation Army Mission Portfolio Leadership Gathering in Canberra this week.
Jennifer Kirkaldy, General Manager for Policy and Advocacy, talks about the Mission Portfolio Leadership Gathering in Canberra this Anti-Poverty Week, as The Salvation Army holds a roundtable of poverty and theology and begins to talk about an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
A range of faith-based service providers will meet for a strategy discussion this week to talk about disadvantage in the lead-up to the Federal Government’s ‘wellbeing budget’. Has this been done before?
The faith-based service providers are always talking and working together, but this is a unique opportunity. The government has said that this next budget will be a ‘wellbeing budget’, so we are meeting at a roundtable of the major faith-based service providers, Anglicare, Uniting Care, Catholic Social Services and St Vincent de Paul, to ask ‘what does wellbeing mean for a faith-based provider?’ One of the things church providers can do is to provide a perspective on what wellbeing means in the context of rampant disadvantage in our country. It is hard to imagine a ‘wellbeing budget’ that does not start to address poverty and other systemic injustices. Can we have wellbeing at a national level while people still sleep on the streets, aren’t safe in their own homes, or are in financial distress? That’s the question we need the government to consider.
How do we hold the government to account? What is The Salvation Army’s role in this?
The Salvation Army is a respected and well-regarded organisation for our political leaders. In this parliament, we have already met with around 50 MPs and Senators and more meetings are scheduled. We use The Salvation Army’s social justice stocktake to get us through the door, which allows us to provide insights into each electorate and social justice in Australia more generally. The Salvation Army can offer a different perspective on many of these social justice issues that can shift thinking for MPs and Senators. For example, the top social justice issue identified in Australia was mental health, and MPs often jump straight to considering access to mental health services. We instead talk about how the best clinical care in the world is not going to get an outcome if people leave that care to go sleep in their car or have to choose between food or medication. This helps MPs understand the connection between other social justice issues (like the low rate of JobSeeker) and the issues they are seeing (like mental ill-health).
Later in the day, the leadership team is meeting with Alicia Payne MP to have a roundtable on poverty. What are we hoping to achieve with that?
We have met with so many MPs and Senators who care about poverty but right now there is no network for them all to work together. Ms Payne is looking to build a new group – Parliamentary Friends for the Eradication of Poverty. Parliamentary Friends groups are official networks of MPs and Senators who work together to further a particular cause. They have co-chairs from both major parties and include like-minded MPs from across the political spectrum, from both houses, the crossbench, and minor parties. We are really excited that Ms Payne, and her fellow co-chair Bridget Archer MP, are starting this valuable initiative. We want to reinforce The Salvation Army’s experience, passion and commitment in this area and that we are ready to help.
The second day of the gathering provides an opportunity to meet and talk about The Salvation Army’s support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. How does that conversation start?
It starts with a sensitive and respectful approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and how a discussion around a Voice may be impacting them. On the day, we will spend some time on Country, here in Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, and then we are going to have a yarn led by [the Army’s] RAP Co-ordinator Lucy Davis. We’ll make time to talk through any technical questions as well as explore what people are concerned or excited about. We are also hoping to create a group artwork that demonstrates our commitment to addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander hardship through supporting a Voice.
How does social justice drive the agenda here, what’s the connection between faith and advocacy?
Our vision is that wherever there is hardship or injustice, we will live, love, and fight, alongside others, to transform Australia one life at a time with the love of Jesus. Every part of Mission Portfolio is pursuing this vision, and, in that way, working for justice is really driving everything we do. In terms of advocacy, the people we are working for justice alongside are the people who have the power to make a change, and that is usually government. The theme for the gathering is taken from a quote from Karl Barth that ‘theology is done with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other’. The Salvation Army is uniquely placed to speak with authority around social justice because we do both, and that makes our advocacy effective. People sometimes refer to the Salvos as Christianity with its sleeves rolled up, and that’s really comforting both to those experiencing hardship and those also seeking to address it.
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