Fred Nile
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Frederick John Nile (born 15 September, 1934), Australian politician and clergyman, is a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. He was a member from 1981 to 2004, before resigning in an unsuccessful bid to be elected to the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election. He was subsequently re-elected to his still vacant seat in October 2004 (despite the fact that his party had nominated Ross Clifford to succeed him).
Early life
Nile was born in Kings Cross, New South Wales, the son of a taxi driver father and a waitress mother. He was educated at Mascot Public and Cleveland Street High School before attending a bible college. Fred Nile is married to Elaine Nile (who is also a former member of the Legislative Council) and they have four children.
Political career
Nile is National President of the Christian Democratic Party, a minor political party which espouses conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and pornography. He is best known in for his outspoken opposition to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Nile has made a number of highly controversial comments over the years. In the early 1980s he suggested that homosexual men should be quarantined to halt the spread of AIDS. After the Moscow theatre hostage crisis in 2002, he suggested a ban of Muslim women from wearing the chador in public to prevent weapons being hidden inside them. In 2005 he called for the repealing of New South Wales anti-vilification laws, in a response to a ruling by the Equal Opportunity Division of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The ruling involved two radio hosts, John Laws and Steve Price, who have said to have made vilificatory comments against a gay couple on a television show, saying "You make a joke about Baptists, Catholics, the Pope, Irish people... why can't you make a joke about homosexuals?".
Politically, Nile has set himself in opposition to The Greens and often attacks their secular views. He usually describes them as the "a watermelon party - Green on the outside but red and pink on the inside"; a phrase that has been repeated by other conservative Australian politicians, such as Family First. Nevertheless, Bob Brown publicly welcomed Nile's announcement that he intended to run for the Senate.
Nile is also the National Co-ordinator and NSW Director of the Australian Federation of Festival of Light, a conservative political lobby group. In 2003 Nile resigned from the Uniting Church in Australia when that church officially decided openly to allow for the ordination of practising homosexuals. He has since joined the Fellowship of Congregational Churches, a group of Australian Congregationalists who declined to join the Uniting Church in 1977.
Bibliography
- Fred Nile: A Biography: Sydney: Strand: 2001: ISBN 187682579
See also
- Christian Democratic Party (Australia)
- Family First Party
- Congregational Federation of Australia
- Uniting Church in Australia
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