THE ALP has a profoundly serious problem when a pledge to uphold the Australian freedoms of democracy, freedom and gender equality threatens to undermine the party’s values.
Yet NSW Labor MP Robert McClelland, the Opposition defence spokesman and former Opposition spokesman on homeland security who holds the southern Sydney seat of Barton, and Victorian Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou, whose Melbourne electorate of Calwell has a high Muslim population, are among a number of Labor MPs concerned about Opposition Leader Kim Beazley’s support of just such a pledge.
McClelland believes there is a danger that this sort of statement might alienate or ostracise a section of the community - and no prize for guessing which section of the community he had in mind.
“We have to be very careful. The most likely course of a terrorist attack in Australian is from disgruntled youths who have been alienated from the broader community,’’ he said yesterday.
Now, which disgruntled youths are most likely to be involved in a terrorist attack here, or the UK, Spain, the US, Indonesia, Africa or Israel?
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/southern_cross_to_bear/
A pledge can be a good thing at a primary school, where children can come to discover issues of allegiance in a natural way.
For an adult, however, a pledge is more of an impost. Something to be ridiculed. Being asked to challenge an adult's ideals, an adult is likely to behaviourally oppose the pledge.
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Perhaps those who belong to or sympathise with any of the 17 terrorist organisations proscribed by the Australian Government - a list which has drawn the ire of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network for targeting Muslims.
That’s right, this group, which supports self-confessed al-Qaeda recruit Jihad Jack Thomas and a group of alleged terrorists currently on remand, believes the list is unfair.
AMCRAN is not alone. It has the support of the civil liberties lobby and is taking a lead from people like Vamvakinou, who see a pledge for Aussie values as an attack on the ALP’s outmoded multicultural policy.
Well, if a pledge in support of freedom, democracy and gender equality is an attack on divisive multiculturalism, where do we sign?
Last February, Treasurer Peter Costello, in a speech at the Sydney Institute, referred to the radical Muslim cleric Ben Brika’s view that Australian law posed a “big problem’’ for Muslims.
Costello said he didn’t see a problem - there is one law we are all expected to abide by - the law enacted by the Parliament under the Australian Constitution.
“If you can’t accept that, then you don’t accept the fundamentals of what Australia is and what it stands for,’’ he said.
He went on to say: “Before entering a mosque, visitors are asked to take off their shoes. This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks, don’t enter the mosque.
Before becoming an Australian, you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don’t come to Australia.’’
This principle is understood by most Australians, even by the deluded expatriate Germaine Greer, who despite her recent ill-chosen remarks about the late Steve Irwin, still believes that when invited into the homes of others: ``You are honour bound to accept the house rules.’’
“Before entering mosques, mandirs and gurdwaras I take off my shoes. This is not because I believe in the god of the Muslims, the Hindus or the Sikhs, or any god, but because my hosts will be offended if I don’t,’’ she said earlier this year when explaining why she curtsied to the Queen at a Buckingham House reception.
“There have been occasions when I have been taken as a VIP visitor to holy shrines, and nothing but arrogance was expected of me, but I have offered reverence just the same. And I fancy the priests and the faithful have both appreciated it.
“I don’t go into cathedrals in shorts and, if I remember, I wear a long skirt to Henley. Part of it is me wanting to show that, though I am a hick from the sticks, I do know how to behave.’’
Unfortunately, there is a small group within the Muslim community who have demonstrated time and again they don’t know how to behave in a liberal Western democracy.
Worse, some of these people are self-appointed religious leaders who preach contempt for the West and its culture, particular the relaxed rules that relate to women’s clothing and believe that the sight of hair, or a naked arm or leg, will unleash the beast that lurks within the breasts of devout believers.
If they believe their views truly reflect global Islam, instead of those of a narrow, Arab Wahabbist sect, they would be seriously mistaken, as travellers to the world’s most populous Islamic nation, our near neighbour, Indonesia, would be aware.
It is remarkable that anyone would find difficulty in subscribing to a set of general principles, let alone believe that references to such values could be construed as an attack on Islam, but that is the divisive effect of 30 years of multiculturalism.
If Beazley’s idea helps immigrants understand the sort of values they are expected to uphold, well and good.
If such a pledge will deter those who oppose such values, it should be made compulsory immediately.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/southern_cross_to_bear/
Was motor racing ace Peter “Perfect” Brock a wife beater? Melbourne’s top talkback radio station 3AW has been split over claims that Brock, who will be honoured at a state funeral on Tuesday, had bashed at least one partner in the past. On one side is afternoon presenter Derryn Hinch, who on Tuesday went to air with allegations that Brock had badly beaten at least one previous partner. On the other side is station heavyweight and morning presenter Neil Mitchell, who hit back at Hinch on air yesterday, saying he had put the rumours directly to Brock and his former wife Bev in an interview last year and they were denied.
Springing to Hinch’s defence yesterday was general practitioner and Mitchell program regular Dr Sally Cockburn, who had a heated exchange with Mitchell on air. She said she knew first hand a woman badly bashed by Brock in the past. Mitchell revealed that Dr Cockburn had unsuccessfully tried to convince him on Monday to broadcast the wife beating allegations. He challenged Dr Cockburn to bring the woman on air to tell first hand what happened. Dr Cockburn said the woman “wasn’t ready”.
Hinch also stood his ground later in the day, repeating the allegations and replaying part of the on air exchange between Mitchell and Cockburn. Later in his show a talkback caller said she worked at Melbourne’s Box Hill Hospital in the 1970s, where one of Brock’s partners had required medical treatment for “horrendous” injuries after being bashed.
Hinch told listeners that Mitchell had told him he should apologise for putting the allegations to air. “I have nothing to apologise for,” Hinch said.
Here is what Hinch said on Tuesday (you can find the original on his website):
“I know what I am about to talk about now will unleash the perennial arguments when somebody dies. On the one hand people will say: ‘Never speak ill of the dead’. And ‘Show some respect. Think of the family’. And ‘You are a coward. Why didn’t you say that when he was still alive’.
“The people who push that last argument don’t understand the laws of defamation. And you can’t defame the dead.
“On the other side is the argument that I have long adhered to: “All history owes the dead is the truth’. And I hope it applies to me and my faults and frailties as much as anybody.
“All history owes the dead is the truth. And the reason I bring it up today is because of the man they called Peter Perfect. Peter Brock, the racing car champion, who died tragically last week.
“In some areas, although most of the newspapers and the TV tributes, have not even alluded to it, Peter Perfect was NOT perfect.
“And cracks are starting to appear in the public persona. His partner of 28 years Bev – who took his name but never married him – wrote about Brock’s philandering in her book last year called Peter Brock—Living With a Legend.
“Then Brock left her and moved in with a family friend Julie Bamford who said at an understandably tearful and emotional media appearance ‘Peter and I were on an exceptional journey of love and growth within a committed relationship’.
“How committed is only just coming out. Julie is estranged from but still married to Brock’s long-time friend Ron McCurdy. The bitterness of the love struggle surfaced in court last year when McCurdy was fined $700 and ordered to undertake a anger management course after he punched Brock in the nose.
“In The Australian newspaper today McCurdy claims his wife and Brock had been having a clandestine, adulterous affair for fifteen years. His wife of 36 years walked out on him and their two children in May last year.
“He said he saw the relationship brewing ‘but I didn’t think it would go that far’. He also said that Bev and Julie and another close girlfriend would meet to discuss Brock’s extra-marital affairs.
“And in her book Bev Brock wrote ‘eventually, though, I made a decision. It was the early 90s and there had been one too many secretaries’.
“And then there was Brock’s brief marriage to a former Miss Australia Michelle Downes. In the sports and modelling worlds there were rumours that Brock was a wife-basher. Brock and Downes married in 1973 and divorced the following year.
“Coincidentally I received an e-mail overnight that said in part ‘Mr. Hinch, the public have a right to know that Peter Brock was not so perfect!! As a relative of Michelle Downes I have watched in amazement of how this creep got away with things over the years! Apart from the beltings he gave Michelle and the drunken rages and womanizer that he was, he certainly was no hero or role model.’
“All this in no way diminishes Peter Brocks’ status as a sporting champion. But it makes the nickname Peter Perfect sound a bit shaky.”
Hinch has also published emails (for an against) he has received on the issue.
Hinch, who revels in the nickname “The Human Headline” has previous form for such attacks. He was alienated at 3AW after going to air after the death of former Australian Test cricketer David Hookes in 2004 and dispelling the myth he was a happily married family man, revealing instead that he had left his wife. And last year he went to air with claims (they were wrong) that television legend Graham Kennedy died of AIDS.
So do we owe the dead any more than the truth?
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/crime/index.php/news/comments/brock_not_so_perfect/
Benny G
I'm fascinated about your ideas. I would like to know what your 'left' thoughts are on issues. So would the ALP. They need someone who might advise them on policy. At the moment, the ALP are struggling with policy.
For example, bearing in mind the ALP are obliged to have different policy to conservative policy or risk being conservative, what are your thoughts on Immigration? Should ALP policy throw the gates open for terrorists to walk through, or should they instead lock them to all but the wealthiest and devious? Remember, there policy must be different to conservatives who ensure identity is known and offer generous allocations for refugees.
How about health? Should the states surrender their constitutional rights to allow federal streamlining? Might that not also be good for Education? In fact, do we need states that are addicted to pork barrels? What about policing? Is it right that criminals can avoid punishment by going interstate?
Maybe streamlining isn’t your thing. Perhaps you think that federal powers are too strong. Should NSW maintain an independent military? NSW campaigned in ’03 on the single policy of not going to war in Iraq, credit to Mr Carr, he didn’t. The Liberals in NSW tried to get the ALP to divulge another policy, they suggested law enforcement policy which was heavily criticised by the NSW police chief in his role as cabinet minister. Libs suggested a schooling plan that the teacher’s federation opposed by spending over $1million in campaigns supporting ALP. Health was easy for conservative policy, promising to spend more efficiently where service was needed, but no one was fooled, ALP spend more than they earn, and who cares if it doesn’t all go where it is needed? There used to be a joke that you could hear the poor state of NSW roads until you reached the ACT or Victoria, but they now have ALP governments too.
Maybe your ideas aren’t left with respect to administration, but ideas. Perhaps you feel that religion plays too high a role in the decision making process of Australia’s leaders. It is true that morally bankrupt individuals collect to the left, but they have religion too, as Sydney’s Anglican Bishop Jensen, who has labelled the feds ‘cold and heartless’ on numerous issues may attest. If you don’t feel that public persons should exercise their private opinion, how do you explain the ABC or Sydney Morning Herald? Was it proper for the ABC journalist, who later became a member of ALP shadow cabinet to exclaim during an election “We’ve lost another one!” as the Libs took another seat from the ALP. Wasn’t it funny when the impartial Olle played his ‘Following the leader’ segment after Hewson was rolled by Downer?
Please share your thoughts.
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