Category Archives: Australia

Howard and Hanson back Costello

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Prime Minister John Howard has backed his deputy Peter Costello over the treasurer’s call for radical Muslims to assimilate or move to another country.

Mr Costello made a host of radio and television appearances today to hammer home his attack on what he calls “mushy multiculturalism”. He also challenged Muslim leaders to pledge their allegiance to Australia before criticising his views on immigrants and the values they brought to this country.

Mr Costello’s remarks come three days after the publication of comments by Mr Howard, accusing some Muslims of bringing jihadist views and opinions about women that did not fit in Australian society. Last week Liberal backbencher Danna Vale warned that Muslims could be in the majority in Australia within 50 years.

Muslim leaders say they are concerned about a continuing government attack on their religion and called on Mr Howard to censure Mr Costello. Federal Labor politicians accused Mr Costello of playing politics and trying to distract attention from the AWB Iraq wheat bribes scandal.

But NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma said Mr Costello was right. And former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the treasurer had vindicated her own views.

Mr Howard said Mr Costello’s comments were fundamentally accurate and not designed to inflame or divide people. “What Peter was basically saying is that if people don’t like what this country is then they shouldn’t come here,” Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting. “That is an unexceptionable position to take.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 2006

Australian politician says: disloyal Jews should go home

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In a controversial speech to the Sydney Institute, Federal Treasurer Peter Costello warned that Jews should pledge allegiance to Australia or go home. Jews who value Halacha (Jewish law) over Australian law “should be refused citizenship if they apply for it. Where they have it they should be stripped of it if they are dual citizens and have some other country that recognises them as citizens.”

“Before entering a synagogue visitors are asked to put a yarmulke on their head,” Mr Costello said. “This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to putting something on your head don’t enter the synagogue.” He warned Jews, “before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objection to those values, don’t come to Australia.”

In a rebuke to “mushy multiculturalism” he said “there is one law we are all expected to abide by – it is the law enacted by Parliament under the Australian Constitution.” If Jews, and for that matter Aboriginies, wish to live by a different cultural or religious law then they should move somewhere else. The problem is what to do with the children of disloyal Jews and Aboriginies who were born here.

Dervish weblog, 24 February 2006

Or, for the actual story, see The Age, 24 February 2006

‘Muslim nation’ remark provokes anger in Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian politicians and a Muslim leader condemned on Tuesday comments by a government lawmaker who suggested that allowing an abortion drug could lead to a disproportionate growth of the Muslim population.
Australia’s main opposition Labor described the comments by former veterans affairs minister Danna Vale as “dopey”, ignorant, offensive and “seriously weird”.

Vale was accused of fueling racist, anti-Muslim sentiments after she said she was concerned about the ramifications abortion would have for the future make-up of Australia, where Muslims currently comprises 1.5 percent of the population of 20 million.

Vale said she had read in a Sydney newspaper a comment by an Muslim imam that Australia would be a Muslim nation in 50 years. “I didn’t believe him at the time, but when you actually look at the birth rates and you look at the fact that we (non Muslims) are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every year,” Vale told reporters late on Monday. “You multiple that by 50 years, that’s 5 million potential Australians we won’t have here.”

Vale’s remarks came ahead of a vote by the lower house of parliament this week on whether to scrap a government veto on abortion drug RU-486. The upper house Senate voted last week to remove the power of the health minister – conservative, Catholic, anti-abortionist Tony Abbott – to veto applications from firms and doctors who want to import and prescribe RU-486.

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Yet another right-wing attack on multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Thanks to an epidemic of similar law and order problems in other Western democracies with Muslim immigrant populations, even left-wing liberals are beginning to join the dots, and question multiculturalism. It is not the ‘culturally diverse community, united by an overriding and unifying commitment to Australia’ as the Prime Minister, John Howard, put it in his Australia Day address, which is being questioned, but a welfare-driven ideology, corrupted by politicians chasing the ethnic vote, which has encouraged separate identities.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 26 January 2006

Plaudits for Tatchell from right-wing racists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Another day, another tribute to Peter Tatchell from right-wing Islamophobes. Over at Western Resistance, a renewed attack on the Muslim Council of Britain – “Sacranie and Inayat Bunglawala are unapologetic anti-semites” – features a lengthy declaration of admiration for Tatchell as “a brave and committed individual”.

Scroll down to the first entry under 10 January, and you’ll find the racists of Western Resistance taking a very different view of another gay Green party politician, Australian senator Bob Brown – who, unlike Tatchell, has taken a clear stand against Islamophobia, condemning the Attorney-General for insulting Australian Muslims (see here).

“What is so weird about Senator Bob Brown’s position on Islam”, Western Resistance complains, “is that he is the first openly homosexual member of Australia’s parliament. Surely, he is not too naive to know that he would be one of the first to be metaphorically ‘thrown to the wolves’ by true followers of the rules and customs of Islam?”

Some of us might not find it so “weird” that gay non-Muslim politicians can take a principled position against anti-Muslim bigotry. Furthermore, by his actions Senator Brown undoubtedly makes a vastly more effective contribution than Tatchell does to encouraging more positive attitudes within Muslim communities towards the issue of gay rights.

Australian Muslim scholar denied entry to US

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Houston office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Houston) today called on the Bush administration to explain why a well-known Islamic scholar was denied entry into the U.S.

Yahya Ibrahim, a Canadian-born resident of Australia, was reportedly barred from entering the United States earlier this week while traveling to speak at a conference that begins tomorrow in Houston. He was denied entry when he landed in Michigan and was later put on a plane to Canada.

Ibrahim says he was not given a reason for the denial of entry into the United States. He spoke at the same event last year without incident.

CAIR news release, 21 December 2005

‘Muslim bigots impose blasphemy laws on Victoria’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“At the behest of Muslim bigots and multiculturalist fanatics the Bracks Government suspended free speech in Victoria by imposing a blasphemy law dressed up as an anti-vilification law. This has given Islamo-fascists a freehand to attack critics of Islam…. The provoked riots in Sydney are revealing what happens when Australians get sick of a minority trying to impose, with the tacit agreement of cowardly politicians and half-witted multiculturalists, its reactionary Muslim beliefs on them.”

Gerard Jackson takes issue with the prosecution of rightwing Christian pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot for inciting hatred against Muslims.

Brookes News, 19 December 2005

Cronulla riots caused by multicultural education

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In Western Australia, as evidenced by the Curriculum Framework document, students are told they must value ‘the perspective of different cultures’ and ‘recognise the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important’. The curriculum policy of the South Australian branch of the AEU is underpinned by ‘five core values’. One of the underlying values is that there should be respect for diversity and ‘no discrimination on any grounds’.

“The contradictions and weaknesses evident in the way multiculturalism has been taught in schools are manifold. Tolerance, the rule of law and a commitment to the common good are the very values needed if people are to live peacefully together. Cultural relativism and an uncritical acceptance of diversity denies such values…. Nobody should condone the violence in Cronulla perpetrated by those wearing the Australian flag or the actions of young Lebanese Muslims abusing women, destroying property and burning churches. But we also need to recognise that the PC approach to teaching multiculturalism in schools in part underpins the recent violence.”

Kevin Donnelly in The Australian, 19 December 2005