More bullshit spread in religious 'gloves off' campaign

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The Age reports a 'gloves off' campaign of misinformation

Both the Herald Sun and The Age reported last week that religious anti-assisted dying crusaders are running a 'gloves off' campaign in Victoria.

Religious forces are gathering once again to attempt to thwart the views of the great majority of Victorians in favour of assisted dying law reform.

Matt Johnston in the Herald Sun quoted Paul Russell, a long-term figure in Catholic circles, and Greek Orthodox Bishop Ezekiel, in statements against assisted dying.

Farrah Thomazin in The Age quoted religious stalwarts Margaret Tighe of Right To Life, and the Australian Christian Lobby, in further statements against assisted dying.

The crux of the story is that 'pollsters' claim to have run a survey in Victoria. They refuse to be identified. They refuse to publish their methodology. And they refuse to publish all their results. Enough said.

They cherry-pick an item from their supposed poll to claim that 33% of Victorians who oppose assisted dying will change their vote against a supporting politician at the next election. They neglect to mention that only a tiny minority of Victorians actually oppose assisted dying. Their analysis is astonishingly superficial, even assuming they ran a proper, robust poll and didn't manufacture the numbers themselves.

They then use this tidbit of 'data' to put the fear of electoral defeat into politicians who will soon to face an assisted dying Bill in the Victorian Parliament.

What rubbish. Assisted dying (AD) opponents seem to be utterly shameless in misrepresenting and distorting cherry-picked data to push their religious agenda — which they pretend isn't religious.

The real situation in respect of AD is the exact opposite of their claims as I show in a proper, robust analysis of legitimate data, demonstrating that:

  • A massive 78.9% of Victorians support AD, with only a tiny 8.1% opposed. Strong supporters outnumber strong opponents by more than ten to one.
  • Significantly more supporters of AD believe that law reform is personally important, than opponents believe the status quo (no law) is personally important.
  • At a general election, far more Victorian voters will punish Members who oppose the AD Bill than will punish Members who support it (3.5 to 1 overall, 2.4 to 1 for the Liberal/National Coalition and 6.6 to 1 for Labor).
  • The co-sponsors of Victoria’s 2008 AD Bill were returned with greatly increased majorities (including relative to their party’s overall performance) despite campaigns against them by anti-AD crusaders.

 

You can read the full analysis here.

So that Victorian politicians are not misled, I have forwarded my report to the Victorian Government's Cabinet and other selected members of Parliament.

The only way in which this campaign could be called 'gloves-off' is that opponents, lurking around with their shadowy misinformation, don't want to get bullshit on their mittens. Hands seem to be much easier to wash. And hide.


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