Father Rod Bowers's Speech 11 July 2015
Channel: Peter Deane
Date: 11/07/2015

Covering political rallies is sometimes hard work. Today, I was absolutely privileged to hear Father Rod speaking at a National Welfare March rally at Gosford, NSW. This one you just HAVE to hear and share with everyone you know.

Show Heart, Show Up, was the slogan, and we were reminded that it's okay to show compassion. It's what people living in a very rich country can afford to do, if only they weren't worried about their own self-interest and were concerned about others.

Here's the full transcript:

The Mahahtma says that there are seven great social sins:

1. Wealth without work.
2. Pleasure without conscience.
3. Knowledge without character.
4. Commerce without morality.
5. Science without humanity.
6. Worship without sacrifice (and)
7. Politics without principle.

If we apply Gandhi’s principles to our nation we cannot be left but wondering if there is something wrong in our society. I have diminished hope in attempting to change the mind of our politicians. The only chance we have is to change the minds and hearts of the Australian people.

We should be deeply disturbed that the ABC seems to have given in to the government pressure over QandA. 

They’re a programme that provides an opportunity for anybody to question our elected officials. 

Winter is coming and it is bringing with it a famine of information. Transparency is the currency of democracy; and we need a public broadcaster not a state run Ministry of Propaganda.

We need Aunty and not Pravda.

It is time for us to awake from our slumber and to re-kindle the decency that lies deep within the Australian heart.

We walk upon the land that contains the stories of 60,000 years of human wisdom. If we listen quietly and respectfully we will hear the songs of the ancients echoing in our hearts. 

A society is ultimately judged by its attitudes towards its most vulnerable. And history will judge us harshly unless we soften our hearts towards those most in need. 

We seem to be blaming the unemployed, pensioners, Asylum Seekers for the budgetary difficulties we have. This is lazy, cheap politics - it is unworthy of a great, good and generous people.

The poor are not our enemies; they may well, in fact, be our saviors. In a world of rampant individualism, and chronic self-centeredness, where marketers compound this with iPads, iPhones, iPods and iWatches, we can now get YouFoodz and insure our cars through youi. 

If we are not starting our sentences with “I” we are listening for others to start theirs with “you”. Until we can stop thinking “what’s in it for me” and start wondering “what’s in it for others” we will continue to diminish our humanity. 

When both sides of parliament collude to incarcerate innocent children, passing laws that reduce our freedoms because they believe that fear-based politics will win the hearts of the Australian people; there is something wrong. 

It is second-rate politics, and we will not long fall for its deceptions. 

We walk now with brothers and sisters of every race and language, and if we take time to hear each other’s stories we will catch the echoes of our own journeys, in our own hearts and know that we are companions. 

We hear the cries of the persecuted, the hunted and dispossessed, and we cannot be deaf to their screams without denying the most fundamental part of our own humanity.

Our politicians need to be reacquainted with an essential reality. That if we are to be a great nation, then our foundations must be laid upon the solid ground of compassion, truth and decency.

Without these footings our house is built upon the sand, and it will surely crumble. 

We are human beings, and it is our sacred duty to alert our fellow Australians to the reality that every time we turn away from another human being who is suffering, we diminish our own humanity.

Every time we incarcerate a man, woman or child who has committed no crime; every time we see a homeless person and pass by on the other side; every time we deny an elderly person a fair standard of living, every time we tell the unemployed that it is your fault that you do not have a job, every time that we forcibly remove First Nations people from their lands, every time that we ignore women and children affected by domestic violence, or blame people with mental illnesses for their own suffering; something within us dies. 

Each time, every day in this beautiful, prosperous, free country we are faced with a choice. We can choose life or death. At the moment there are many people who are choosing death, and we cannot remain silent. 

Something is wrong in the State of Australia; but despite this, there is a deep goodness within the hearts of the Australian people.  We must rise up and reclaim our decency so that we may once again stand with our heads held high and say: “I am, you are, we are Australians”.

And so now may your god bless you, and if you don’t have one may you bless one another.

Thank you.