A dose of Tuesday truth In a blistering column by Mark Latham. When you read this and consider that Latham was the leader of the Labor party you can get a clear indication as to just how far and how dangerously the party has moved to the left.
“….The question of Muslim immigration has become the X-Files of Australian politics. The truth is out there. To its credit, the Essential Research Poll flushed out the facts last week when it reported 49 per cent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration (with 40 per cent opposed to such a move).
The majority opinion included 34 per cent of Greens voters — a rational response from “progressives” upset by the homophobia and sexism of fundamentalist Islam.
Forty per cent of Labor voters also supported the ban, earning the ire of party leader Bill Shorten, who said he didn’t want to “see this country scapegoating minorities”.
But that’s not how the True Believers look at the issue.
They have legitimate concerns about the compatibility of fundamentalist Islam with the values of our open-minded, egalitarian democracy.
Perhaps the most bizarre response to the Essential Poll came from the Racial Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane. Whatever happens in Australia these days, he has just one reaction: to blame Pauline Hanson.
The elites talk of Muslim Australians as if they can still be regarded as newly arrived migrants.
Why are so many of his soulmates from the Greens and Labor willing to support a discriminatory policy? The standard response from the elites has been to say that historically, similar results and resentment would have been recorded against earlier waves of migrants: the Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs in the 1960s, the Vietnamese in the 1970s, the Chinese in the 1990s. I don’t believe this is accurate. There was never any majority movement to stop these groups coming to Australia. Most elites making this argument live in wealthy monocultural neighbourhoods.
Even though they preach the language of “diversity”, they have forked out big bucks to get away from ethnically diverse communities, especially those which settle large numbers of refugees.
Yes, I’m thinking of you, (insert name of any ABC presenter, Fairfax columnist or all-round big mouth).
Yet here in Western Sydney, we have seen significant numbers of Muslims arriving from the mid-1980s onwards. The Essential Poll comes after 30 years of Islamic settlement and interaction with the broader community.
After a similar time period, the southern Europeans and Asians had overcome any “teething problems” and been comprehensively welcomed into the Australian family.
What’s gone wrong with perceptions of Islam? In short, Australians are judging Muslims on the evidence around them, and on two fronts, the Arabic work ethic and hard line religious values, the verdict is unfavourable.
It must be terribly annoying for the inner-city elites, but out in the suburbs and regions people are resolutely empirical. If they see a problem grounded in fact and lived experience, they respond to it negatively.
Let me pass on an inconvenient truth from my 18 years in elected office in southwest Sydney (1987-2005).
Invariably, when southern European and Asian constituents came to see me they wanted to either establish new businesses or expand existing enterprises. I grew to admire their strong work ethic. Conversely, the emphasis among Middle Eastern Muslims was on accessing welfare payments and government grants. The extraordinary level of welfare dependency in such places as Lakemba, Punchbowl and Merrylands is further evidence of this phenomenon.
If Arabic Muslims want to be better regarded in the Australian community, they need to make a bigger contribution to the earned economy.
Now, more than ever, we need to actively promote the virtues of Western civilisation.
In their response to the Essential Poll, the elites have blamed non-Muslim Australians — to spin the result as a Hansonite “scapegoating” of a helpless minority.
In truth, our MPs and Islamic community leaders need to find new ways of putting Muslims to work and modernising the teachings of Islam.
Then and only then will the polls reflect greater public support for Muslim immigration….” The religion of Islam is in need of change