George Negus claims that Brisbane is "god fearing" but does not provide any evidence of this. Having lived there, I was not aware of any great religious fervor. Nor does he point out that our Deputy PM is an atheist as are a lot of other politicians. Religion is usually not an issue when running for office in Australia. George knows this and should have pointed it out.

Before that previous PM, thier religion was not considered an issue. I'm old enough to remember them back to the 1960s, and the PM's religion was raised only in reference to one of them before Howard. And that was because he was an avowed atheist while his father had been an ordained minister. People thought the contrast was amusing but not relevant to his ability to do the job.

For anyone interested, Richard will be on Q & A on ABC1 at 9:30 PM 8 Mar 10 (AEDST, UTC 11).