The main theme throughout all of the nonsense that Access Ministries have been peddling, the one constant, immutable “fact” has been their claim to overwhelming public endorsement and support of their SRI and chaplaincy programs. In fact, their favourite number seems to be 98% – they even print glossy brochures about it (via SUQLD, 764kb .pdf). They throw all sorts of bogus numbers at you, but the magic 98% is by far their favourite.

These extraordinary boasts require extraordinary evidence, and Access have already thrown large amounts of cash at professional data torturers to extract the truth out of selectively harvested factoids – both Edith Cowan University and Social Compass, as previously discussed here. And to reiterate, I hold neither of these organisations to blame – they simply delivered product as defined by the customer scope, just a simple business transaction. Access wanted confirmation bias support, and that is what they got.

So let’s revisit this issue of the alleged massive support that Access have from the public then. Just over a month ago, with much hoopla, when the shit started hitting the fan, Access announced a new, improved Facebook Causes page and urged the masses to rise up and voice their disgust at the evil, child hating secularists. As observed at the time, this was hardly a roaring success. But never mind, it was probably a slow boil, and the people’s obvious support would arrive once the grass roots word of mouth campaign got in full swing. Wouldn’t it?

Here is a summary of the Cause since then –

Support Faith in Schools – members 2110

Up by about 200 since the current crisis first started (over 5 weeks ago) – the remainder being several years worth of members harvested from the old Access Ministries Facebook group.

This is their membership uptake from May 1 to now –

And the new sign ups over the last week –

Past Week

Date Total Joins Change from previous day
Sun, Jun 19 6 +20.0%
Sat, Jun 18 5 -54.5%
Fri, Jun 17 11 +83.3%
Thu, Jun 16 6 -40.0%
Wed, Jun 15 10 +100.0%
Tue, Jun 14 5 -37.5%
Mon, Jun 13 8       +14.3%

.

Impressive eh? And you have to bear in mind that this covers a period where Access CRE and chaplaincy have had almost daily media attention. In fact, these figures are so telling that Access Ministries no longer even advertises this Causes page on their own website’s support links. Now why would that be? Surely not embarrassment?

These figures all speak for themselves. Out of all the frauds and deceptions perpetrated by Access Ministries and the ACL, the mother of all lies is this steady stream of propaganda of overwhelming public support. This “support” just simply does not exist, and the endless proclamations to the contrary remind me of those of third world dictators boasting of their people’s love for them. Reality does not conform to delusion – the solution is to make noise that it does. And the greatest failure of our state and our system of government is that our politicians choose to believe them – lured by the serpent’s song that this will all somehow translate into votes.

I think you should inform your local members otherwise.

Footnote: On the main page activity wall there is a post from a mother regarding her concerns about Access’ activities at her childrens’ school. It was posted over a month ago. It has not had a single response.

Update 23 June (for the sake of Aragorn) –

I was pointed to an apparently Evonne Paddison moderated other Facebook Cause group –

Vote for Chaplaincy

which is hardly any more impressive. Another group flat-lining with single digit sign-ups that only make magical numbers like 98% approval seem so nonsensical –

Past Week

Date Total Joins Change from previous day
Tue, Jun 21 6 -14.3%
Mon, Jun 20 7 +40.0%
Sun, Jun 19 5 0
Sat, Jun 18 5 -50.0%

.

I mean really, this is Paddison’s own group. If anything, it makes the public support vacuum even more blatant. Total of 5 posts in the last month, 2 of them link spam from Nicholas Tuohy, one to a defunct Access Facebook page. Staggering.