This month we see the end of Reverend Fred Nile’s time in NSW Parliament after 41 years — one of the longest parliamentary runs in Australian history.
However, he is leaving with little fanfare and his absence will have almost no effect on NSW politics. Why is this?
In the four decades since he arrived, his conservative Christian grouping has been through many iterations — first the Festival of Light, then the Call to Australia Group and the Christian Democratic Party, and finally the Revive Australia Party (Fred Nile Alliance). He accomplished in that time mainly a blocking role, as he has not really achieved any significant legislation.
Although it is difficult to pinpoint actual laws or political interventions where Nile has had an influence, one must not downplay the huge effect he had on both major parties when they were contemplating legislation. There was a visceral fear of his supporters’ reaction at the ballot box. I can still recall the anxiety that a call from Nile’s office would engender in the Labor Party leadership. His ability to muster up volunteers at elections was immense.
He may have been an object of hilarity for most progressives (who can forget his persistent “praying for rain” stunts at early Mardi Gras events?), but his dampening effect on women’s rights, stem cell research, assisted dying, drug law reform and most importantly homosexual law reform was huge. He was the most vociferous opponent of early HIV prevention policies and probably caused a delay in the implementation of effective life-saving strategies.
His party vote has declined from almost two quotas (9%) in the early days to not even making one quota at the 2019 election. Nile earlier stated he would be replaced by Lyle Shelton but later decided to serve out his full term. He is now supporting his wife Silvana Nile to take his place. At the last minute, he has chosen to stand as number two on the party ticket, somehow believing that his name will raise the party vote.
And here I must confess my part in Fred’s career.
In 1981, I was a lecturer in politics at Macquarie University, teaching voting systems to a rather bored class — which included Nile, then a relatively unknown pastor.
In explaining how voting systems can decide the shape of the polity, I pointed out that to get elected to the NSW upper house you only needed 4.54% of the vote. Fred asked a number of piercing questions and then disappeared from my class. When he failed my course for not handing in any written work, he complained that he had passed the “practical” by getting himself elected to Parliament. Who could argue with that? Sometimes it was hard to know when Fred was joking.
Nile’s brand of Christianity seems strangely old-fashioned or even quaint when compared to the “muscular” prosperity gospel and “talking in tongues” Christianity of today.
To quote a devout High Anglican — the poet TS Eliot — Nile leaves Parliament “not with a bang but a whimper”.
