Around 888AD King Alfred the great, a Bible believing Christian, declared that the law of England to be “the 10 commandments read in the light of the whole Bible”.
For England the final say always rested with the king. He was regarded as God’s representative on earth and charged with the responsibility to govern “lawfully, justly and mercifully, to maintain Gods law and to regard the Bible as the rule for the whole of life and government.” …These words were incorporated into the coronation oath by 973AD and have remained part of the coronation to this day (even formed part of the promises made by Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation).
In 1688 these “requirements” were finally recognised by statute in the British Parliament— making them “law” of the land.
The role of our Attorney General is to represent the Queen’s responsibility in Australia to her oath and the statutes—“to ensure that the laws are ‘lawful’ just and merciful and that God’s law is maintained in Australia and the Bible is regarded as the rule for the whole of life and government.”
The Australian Legal System
The judgement of Mr Justice Hargrave in 1874 (a) (in the case of ex parte Thackeray (1874 13 S.C.R. (NSW) 1 at p. 61) he said “We the colonists of New South Wales, “bring out with us” this first great common law maxim distinctly handed down by Coke and Blackstone and every other English judge long before any of our colonies were in legal existence or even thought of, that ‘Christianity is part and parcel of our general laws’; and that all the revealed or divine law so far as enacted by the holy scriptures to be of universal obligation, is part of our colonial law.”—This is the true basis of Australian law.
This sentiment didn’t change either when the Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on 1st January 1901. The preamble to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act begins:
“Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, HUMBLY RELY ON THE BLESSING OF ALMIGHTY GOD, have agreed to unite in one indivisible Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established….
The very foundation of Australia that fosters “mateship” in our culture is steeped in Biblical commandments like “love your neighbour as yourself”.
About 80% of welfare agencies in Australia were founded by Christians and are still maintained by people who think this way. Christians began Melbourne’s first welfare, hospitals, orphanages, emergency accommodation, aged care. They began mechanics institutes, savings banks, libraries, benevolent societies, RSPCA, The Age and The Argus. The first schools in Australia were started by our Christians and only decades later were given over by the State as the responsibility of taxpayers—on the proviso that the Bible will always taught in our schools—a promise that is slowly being eroded by UNESCO and other Socialist agencies.
We are a nation that has developed policies and laws that are the same for any culture that lives amongst us. But we are not a Godless nation, nor do we deny the backbone of the Christian principals that made us one of the most liveable places on earth. Everything that made Australia great has come from a culture that has its foundation steeped in the Bible and the 10 commandments.
So regardless whether the current wrapper over Australia is a thin sheet of Multiculturalism…our vast heritage and what makes Australia “Australian” is our Christian values, and the Christian platform to our law and Governance.
