I have been much taken by recent opinion pieces in the media that people are drifting away from the established churches and towards smaller outfits of the happy-clappy variety. And although they are ‘smaller’, they are muscular, growing, and roaring ahead like a bushfire.

The Pentacostalists, in particular, now have packed houses and number their adherents in thousands in Australia and millions worldwide. This is great news, as competition is good in any field of human endeavour. And it is particularly pleasing because the reports tell us that their members are socially conservative. As such, they are a fertile field for political harvesting by conservative parties.

But in all the reports, there is a notable omission from their statement of beliefs: they have no policy on major political issues. Without a charter on current affairs, the conservative churches cannot say to the political parties that they have policies on contentious issues that they want to see implemented and cannot argue publicly for their adoption, as other lobbying groups are free to do. In turn, a conservative political party cannot say to the churches that they believe in the same things and that their adherents should join the party and vote for it.

For example, the new churches seem to have no policy on the main issues that are tormenting the economy in Australia: the cost of living, inflation, wage claims and, the root cause of our troubles, the centralised wage-fixing system. But they are selling themselves short. If only they knew it, they have a ready-made charter on this vexed issue and a charter which has the advantage of a biblical endorsement, coming from no less a source than Our Lord Himself. All that the churches need do is adopt it and start campaigning for it.

The charter comes from the parable of the workers in the vineyard, a parable of wage fixing in the Roman empire that is found in the gospel according to Matthew 20:1–16. It tells the story of the owner of the vineyard who employed groups of labourers at four times during the day: 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m. and the last shift that started at 5 p.m. He entered into free bargaining and agreed to pay his workers a flat rate of one denarius, a Roman penny. During the day, he took on the other workers who were lounging around, no doubt waiting for a handout from some UN agency that was busy feeding terrorists, and agreed to pay them ‘whatever is right’. At the end of the day, the workers lined up for their pay. Those who had been taken on at 5pm were paid their one denarius. The previous lot were also paid one denarius, as were the other groups in turn, who complained that as they had worked longer they should be paid more, because they had ‘borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat’. But, as the landowner pointed out, they had made an agreement for a flat rate for the job and a deal was a deal: ‘Did you not agree with me for a denarius?’, he asked.

And there you have it, the free market, a charter for freedom of contract endorsed by scripture. All of the elements of sound wage fixing had been satisfied: an agreement, entered into by people with their eyes wide open, a fair payment spelt out in the contract, and no arguments.

You will notice what was not agreed and therefore not allowed in the workers’ claim: no jiggery-pokery of the sort the High Court engages in by reading implied terms into a contract; no claims for extra pay; no scorching heat allowance, no shift allowance, no cultural allowance because 46,000 years ago some woebegone tribe used to own the vineyard; no bereavement leave, no parental leave for the stress and strain of having children, no walkabout leave and no wage-fixing tribunal interfering in what the parties had agreed on. The only test in the vineyard, like the pub test, was whether the landowner was paying ‘what is right’, and the best judge of that issue was what the parties agreed on, not what Fair Work Rome thought was best for them.

The vineyard approach has great virtues that show it should be taken up both by the new conservative churches and the conservative parties, because it is good conservative policy. It makes individuals stand on their own feet and bargain for what is fair for them. It is sound economically, because the cost of the work is known beforehand, without the blowouts in wages that are embedded in our present system, especially with public sector work. It is quicker than the laborious and artificial proceedings before wage-fixing tribunals that are infested by time-wasting lawyers, backboneless employers and grasping trade unions. It is disciplined, and has its own checks and balances, because the employer will have no workers if he does not pay them properly and the workers will have no jobs if they demand unrealistic wages. It is ideally suited for an ever-changing economy, so that if Uber Chariots ever came along with independent drivers, they would stay independent, free from bureaucracy, paid for work they actually do and at rates they agreed to. And it is free from the brainless Albanese economics that the local vineyard employer must give the same wages and conditions as vineyard owners miles away in Samaria.

No wonder the Roman Empire was a triumph of prosperity. No wonder its public works projects were finished on time and are still standing after two thousand years. It had a wage-fixing process that guaranteed it.

This is an ideal charter for the churches because they will then have a policy that gives freedom to workers and employers alike, enhances prosperity and has a guarantee better than Bunnings, a biblical endorsement. Conservative parties should also adopt it, as any marriage with the conservative churches will not be complete until they do.