ACL is non-party partisan, and scores were not based on who the party was overall but on a consistent scoring approach for each question on the merit of the answer provided. Had different questions been chosen, overall scores may have differed for parties and between parties. Questions were also not chosen to achieve a particular outcome. All parties achieved some high scores, and different parties scored highly on different questions.
There are many different topics that could have been chosen, and individual Christians have varying policy interests. This is why we have selected a sizeable 18 questions from across a broad spectrum of topics that may be of interest to the Christian community, and where policy information on these specific issues may not have been available. We started with a bigger pool of potential issues and refined these down based on our detailed research. In addition, there has been considerable focus in the media on some other important issues that are of concern to many Australians, such as cost of living, energy policy and healthcare. Given the policy information that was already publicly available on these issues, it was considered that there would be more value-add to the Christian community to include questions focused on other topic areas. The questions also are focussed on federal issues given it is a federal election. Whilst many supporters, and ACL itself, are passionate about protecting the lives of the unborn, most of the current issues relating to abortion are state-based issues or affect only some, not all states. This election, both major parties have indicated that abortion is a state-based issue. A mention has been included in the Greens analysis because they have a pro-abortion policy at the federal level for the election.
Whilst Christians are a community, they are also discerning individuals who can make up their own minds freely. ACL’s score is only a guide, and we encourage all Christians to weigh up the issues for themselves and decide which party and candidate reflects their values the best, and to vote accordingly at the federal election.