I wonder if you caught the words of Sir Gerard Brennan in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald. The former chief justice of Australia called for a more noble and visionary nation, arguing that we are falling short of Christian values.

Questioning the direction of current laws and policies, Sir Gerard said:

■ It was appropriate to question laws that might maximise corporate profits, rather than maintain the common good.

■ He said Australians should examine (I quote) "how we have tolerated for five years now the barbarous treatment of the Australian David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay, still waiting to be charged, it seems, with an offence under a law yet to be specified, and tried by a process which mocks the civil rights sense of justice".

■ Arguing that peace is essential to human dignity, Sir Gerard said "if peace were the primary aim of our public policy, we would not now be confronted by the tragedy which is Iraq".

■ He added that if 20 per cent of all Australian households had an income of less than $400 a week and more than 600,000 children lived in jobless households - while government budgets were in large surplus - it was a Christian duty to try to secure the dignity of the disadvantaged.

■ And the social isolation of many Aboriginal people, refugees, the poorly educated and many who suffer from a mental illness showed that (I quote) "our laws and policies do not reflect the Christian value of the Good Samaritan".

“We have grown so accustomed to this focus on material possessions,” Sir Gerard said, “that we tend to judge people not by what they are but by what they have. We rate our own success not by the humanity we display but by the wealth we possess… We know that there are the poor, the marginalised and the disabled but we may not be greatly moved by their plight."

Sir Gerard’s words came as he inaugurated the Centre for an Ethical Society this week—a new think tank to promote Christian social justice with the aim of developing a more just and compassionate Australia. I’ll be interested to hear more from the group.

What do you think of Sir Gerard’s words? Is Australia falling short of Christian values? If so, could we be seeing a resurgence of interest in them? It’s been interesting to see the rise of the Family First party in the last few years—with its emphasis on family values, no doubt inspired by a Christian outlook. Yesterday Victorians gave the party around 4% of the vote. About 7% of Queenslanders voted for the party in their last election, and South Australia already has two Family First members in its Uppper House. Then there’s Stephen Fielding’s Federal seat.

Perhaps Sir Gerard’s words are going to resonate with a growing number of Australians wanting laws and policies in line with Christian values. As long as those Christian values extend to the disadvatanged and marginalised—and not just families—we could be onto something.