By Aurelia George Mulgan*

In Japan, the Unification Church (UC) is a religious corporation known formally as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and for its unique interpretation of Christian theology and practices widely criticised for being similar to those of a cult.

Its founder and long-time leader, South Korean Sun Myung Moon, certainly fits the archetype of a cult leader. He was narcissistic as a self-professed messiah but also charismatic and convincing in his quest to brainwash members from whom he demanded unquestioning loyalty in order to acquire money and power as head of both a religious and business organisation. Such ‘organisational totalitarianism’ has often been harnessed for political ends, particularly as the children of believers were taught that ‘instructions from above are absolute’.

In the 1950s and 60s, the basic connection was ideological. The UC was built on anti-communist ideals, particularly the political organisation set up by Moon in 1968 called the ‘International Federation for Victory over Communism’. These ideals underpinned the close connection established between Moon and Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who facilitated the importation of the UC into Japan, as well as its offshoot political organisation.

Kishi facilitated the close historic ties between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the UC, perpetuated the connection through his son and Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe, and established the faction that Abe inherited. Once in Japan, the UC sought legitimacy and influence through political connections and building networks with national and local politicians. These connections brought legal protection as well as social and financial benefits and policy influence despite UC’s record of financially destroying families through ‘mind control’ and other ‘cult-like’ aspects.

Abe shared the ardent anti-communist ideals espoused by his grandfather and the UC, cultivating close tiesbetween himself and UC-affiliated organisations. In September 2021, he addressed a virtual forum, held under the aegis of the Moon-organised ‘Universal Peace Federation’ branch, one of the ‘friendship organisations’ of the UC. Abe called for ‘solidarity between countries sharing freedom and democracy’, demonstrating shared ideological principles with the group.

It was Abe’s video attendance at this event that convinced his killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, that Abe was connected to the UC and nurtured Yamagami’s hostility towards him.

Shared political ideology was also backed up by shared conservative values with policy implications. These include opposition to same-sex marriage, gender equality and diversity, as well as support for ‘traditional family values’ and ‘paternalistic family systems’, which both the UC and conservative politicians, including Abe, the ‘chief flag-waver of conservatism’, sought to promote and protect. The UC’s strongest connections have been with the LDP’s most conservative right-wingers.

The second and main attraction underpinning the connection between Japanese politicians and the UC was practical — daily support work by UC members as secretaries for parliamentarians — and electoral support such as votes, money, voter lists and campaign workers. The UC was particularly valuable because it could offer ‘group support’, namely ‘bloc votes’ for particular politicians, because of its persuasive powers over its members.

Indeed, UC votes were so secure that they could even be allocated to particular candidates in an organised fashion in order to maximise the number of politicians elected from a certain party — principally the LDP, almost half of whom had links with the group. The UC would tell members at gatherings or through online messengers to vote for certain candidates.

Financial support for election candidates was also secured by UC members’ buying tickets to politicians’ fund-raising parties and through donations from UC-affiliated organisations, although the amounts that individual politicians admitted they received were not huge. Still, UC members and their friends were particularly useful as ‘volunteers’ on the campaign trail, a boon for individual candidates as the cost of hiring the required number of election workers is very expensive.

Abe himself is believed to have funnelled UC followers’ votes to his former executive secretary, Yoshiyuki Inoue, as a UC ‘supporting member’ in the July 2022 Upper House election. These group votes almost doubled the number of votes that Inoue received in the 2019 election from 88,000 to 165,000. Abe reportedly ‘managed the allocation of the Unification Church’s votes and volunteer work’ among the LDP’s candidates in election campaigns while his brother, former Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi, admitted to receiving various kinds of assistance from individual UC volunteers during election campaigns. The Abe faction also had the highest number of members (37) with connections to the UC.

Taking advantage of the strong familial, ideological and historical connections, both Abe brothers continued to cultivate ties with the UC primarily for electoral reasons. Abe encouraged this by actively appearing at UC-sponsored events and by addressing various fora organised by the group. The Kishi/Abe faction, as a non-mainstream conservative faction, was more dependent on UC votes than other LDP factions, such as the Tanaka and Ohira (now Kishida) factions, which gained strong support from the construction and transport industriesand business leaders.

Not surprisingly, the Abe faction has been confirmed as having the largest number of members with UC links and the highest number of state ministers and parliamentary vice-ministers with connections to the group in Kishida’s recently reshuffled cabinet. Abe exemplified the way in which politicians could harness members’ loyalty and devotion to the church and the dictates of its leaders for political purposes. In return, the group gained credibility, political access and the ability to ‘show off’ its influence over particular politicians to its advantage through their speeches and interviews for group media outlets.

So while the connections between politicians and the group have been revealed as commonplace, those with the Abe–Kishi family were ‘special’. Abe was the key figure who connected the party to the church. The political utility of such groups was more broadly underpinned by their ability to attract the ‘unorganised’ — the social and economic ‘have-nots’ who were not grouped through economic organisations or strong employment connections.

Links to such organisations thus provided a mechanism for politicians to reach voters who were not members of established interest groups but who could be useful for those candidates who might need extra support if organised interest group support was insufficient for victory.

*About the author: Aurelia George Mulgan is Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of New South Wales, Canberra.

Source: This article was published by East Asia Monitor

Just ten weeks from polling day and we are left to ask, could the political outlook for Victorian voters be any more dispiriting?

For those voters actually engaged in the state’s democratic process – things are looking grim.

Very grim.

Neither the Government nor the Opposition presents voters with a credible (let alone compelling) case for governing what is now a state drowning in debt. Labor debt.

Consider this…

Victoria’s projected debt of an astounding $170+ billion is greater than the combined debt levels of New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania. Identifying an Australian state government more fiscally profligate than the incumbent Victorian Labor government is a challenge. There isn’t one.

Most eligible voters are, in all likelihood, blissfully unaware of the proximity of the election – on Saturday 26 November – in which they must cast a vote.

The sorry truth is that many first-time voters are clueless that Victoria is home to a State Parliament. They are so uninterested in ‘domestic politics’ that most would be unable to locate their Victorian Parliament building.

Worse, many long-time voters appear dismissive of the looming November poll.

Numerous voters do not appear to appreciate that state governments have a statutory four-year term, while the federal government has only three years in which to convince voters they ought to be re-elected.

Labor’s second four-year term is up and they must ‘face the people’ in November.

Setting to one side the alarming truths about the ramshackle state of the political scaffolding in Victoria – let us focus on the appalling choice confronting voters.

For those wishing to vote for an administration likely to take its fiduciary and democratic responsibilities seriously, they have a double dilemma.

Neither the incumbent (eight-year-old) Labor government nor the Liberal-National Opposition instil the slightest confidence, capacity, or inclination to govern in the voters’ interests as opposed to their party-political interests.

A ‘politically useful’ mix of voter ignorance and apathy is more likely than not to get the Andrews Labor government over the line for an undeserved third term – albeit with a reduced majority.

For two of the last four years under the iron grip of Daniel Andrews, voters and their families have been subject to Covid-related laws, restrictions, and impositions which have been amongst the most heavy-handed anywhere in the world. The impact on lives, livelihoods, businesses, and especially on the lonely, poor, and those in aged care has proven to be catastrophic. The consequential decline in our collective mental health will take years to correct and manage.

Andrews’ panicked handling of the early stages of Covid by mandating the harshest of lockdowns seemed, ironically, to provide many voters a sense of security that government was acting in their interests.

This sentiment rapidly proved to be a mirage, like so much else this government claims to have achieved during its long occupation of the government benches. In Victoria, it is evident that all is not what it seems.

When it comes to ‘state craft’ within Victoria, there has never been such a comprehensive and invasive operation to mislead and deceive the electorate about the true state of affairs confronting taxpayers. On top of this, chronic ALP rorting and branch stacking were identified in IBAC hearings during the last year. These have left a stain on Andrews personally, along with others in the ALP hierarchy.

This government has no peer when it comes to the employment of what feels like propaganda. A sizeable team of taxpayer-funded operatives assist the Premier’s Office in this task.

It is relentless. Bad news is smothered by puerile ‘good news’ stories from Spring Street or by careful management around the timing of their press releases. Take the 000 Report into Emergency Ambulance Services as an example – released in the early hours of a Saturday morning during the AFL football finals.

Andrews is well known within Labor circles as a communicator ‘par excellence’. This assessment takes no account however of basics such as honesty, truth, or the public’s right to know. All too often with difficult issues – Andrews dismissively refuses to answer questions or claims he won’t comment because inquiries are ‘in play’ or pending. He is one of the nation’s most accomplished political spinners. He is also fond of putting his political survival well above that of the public interest.

While the same cannot be said for Opposition Leader, Matthew Guy, his party has had some small successes in highlighting the appalling shortcomings in public health, mental health, aged care, and emergency service 000 failures leading to more than thirty deaths – especially in the last year.

Sadly for those voters looking for an alternative to Andrews, the pickings are lean. Guy – a second time Opposition leader – has failed to ignite the public imagination and voters are struggling to identify what positive alternative he and his colourless MPs offer the electorate. Getting ‘cut-through’ in Opposition is tough, particularly when the media tends to favour the incumbent and voters are simply not listening.

Against the horrors of what occurred during the Covid lockdowns and the evident shambles in the state’s public health system – no single failure of the Andrews Cabinet comes close to the grotesque level of debt to which young, and as yet unborn Victorians have been assigned.

Weak political leaders make unfunded promises to deliver infrastructure and services. Strong leaders establish robust financial parameters for all public spending and stick to them. The Andrews government has failed miserably to adhere to this doctrine.

For the Opposition, the challenge is to commit to a political agenda that is forward-looking and fiscally responsible while also reducing the obscene debt created by Andrews over his eight years in office.

As is so frequently the case with profligate governments they unleash a swag of surreptitious taxes, fees, charges, levies – call them whatever you like – in order to plug fiscal holes of their making. Backed by a bloated public service (in excess of 300,000 people) Andrews is content to tax virtually everything Victorians do – even bushwalking, rock climbing, and just being in state and national parks.

Voters will go to the polls with a terrible choice before them: to re-elect a Labor government that is mired in debt and deceit, or to opt for an Opposition that has manifestly failed to project a fresh, innovative, and positive agenda for the next four years.

Such is the desolation of the political landscape here that it may be time to join the 50,000 Victorians who quit the state last year and wisely moved elsewhere.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

After two monthly federal polls, the Age/Herald Resolve Strategic series has followed its pre-federal election practice of combining two polling samples to produce a state voting intention result for Victoria, which hopefully indicates a return to regular monthly federal and bi-monthly New South Wales and Victorian state polling. Consistent with the recent Newspoll, these numbers suggest another emphatic win for Daniel Andrews’ Labor government, which is up five points since the last such poll back in April to 42% and down only one point on its 2018 result. The Coalition has slumped five points since the last poll to 28%, down seven on the election result, while the Greens are up two to 12%, up more than a point on 2018. Of the remainder, 12% opted for an unspecificied independent and 8% went for minor parties.

Resolve Strategic does not provide two-party preferred results, but the primary vote numbers suggest a Labor lead of as much as 60-40, compared with 57.3-42.7 in the 2018 landslide. Approval and disapproval are not featured, but Daniel Andrews holds a 46-28 lead over Matthew Guy as preferred premier, out from 48-31. The poll was conducted, I presume, both last week and around a month previously from a total sample of 1107.

In other Victorian poll news, The Guardian reported last week on a RedBridge Group poll of the Mornington electorate for Climate 200, which is supporting independent candidate Kate Lardner. The seat will be left vacated after Liberal incumbent David Morris lost preselection to Chris Crewther, former federal member for Dunkley. The headline voting intention result suggested a win for Crewther with 43.2% of the primary vote, with Labor on 28.9% for Labor, 11.4% for a generic independent and 5.9% for the Greens, which much or all of the remainder uncommitted.

When it was put to respondents that the field would include an “independent candidate like Monique Ryan”, 20.3% said they would support that candidate compared with 39.3% for the Liberals, 19.2% for Labor and 6.5% for the Greens, which pollster Kos Samaras projects to a 53-47 win for the independent. The poll was conducted from a sample of 797 shortly after Lardner’s campaign was announced in August.