You can't take the hippy out of the political Bishop I don't recall Anglican Bishop Phillip Huggins saying a word of protest when the Gillard Government threatened News Ltd newspapers, successfully demanded entire stories about Prime Minister Julia Gillard be pulled off the Internet, subjected the "hate media" to a hand-picked inquisition, had Ministers repeatedly vilify the "Murdoch media," banned interviews with conservative presenters and proposed laws to put the private media under a government-supervised media policeman. Nor do I recall the slightest objection from Huggins when this pressure contributed to the sacking of two journalists who'd tried to report on a scandal involving Gillard that is now the subject of an extensive police investigation. Gillard insists she did nothing wrong. Yes, I cannot recall a period in my life when free speech and a free press was under greater threat in this country, but not a word was there from Huggins. Still, he's just an Anglican bishop, and I accept that it's not his job to preach politics from the pulpit. Yet when a Liberal Prime Minister simply criticises the ABC for its palpable bias and for treating as credible a highly improbable and now discredited allegation that the navy tortured boat people, Huggins claims in a press release our democracy is in peril: Renew, don't weaken, our democracy: stop attacking the ABC... Government attacks on the integrity of the ABC must cease. Weakening the ABC might be part of the policy platform of some so-called "think-tanks" but it is no way to sustain our democracy. Does Huggins realise how absurdly and crudely partisan he seems in his politics, and how much that must alienate his church's many conservative members, who would defer to his knowledge of Scripture but would feel he has no more claim to political insights than do they? Huggins was once a hippy who taught vedic meditation at the Nimbin festival. I suggest he not conform so obviously to the stereotype. Thanks to reader Paul.