Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak in support of the amendment to the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 moved by the member for Watson and comment on some of the remarks that have been made in this debate to date. A number of speakers have mentioned recent statements by Sheikh al-Hilali. It is my view that those statements are not consistent with the position of a leader of a great religion in this country. They are not merely demeaning and insulting to women, although they are clearly that; they are insulting to men as well, the implication being that men are unable to control their sexual urges. The fact is that the vast majority of men are perfectly capable of doing that. They do not entertain the idea of rape for a nanosecond. They understand perfectly well that no means no and they are resentful of the proposition that all men are prospective rapists, a proposition to which the sorts of comments that Sheikh al-Hilali made gave some aid and comfort.

I also want to express my concern about the fact that we have been witnessing in this country one of the oldest political tricks in the book, which is gaining political popularity and advancement through attacking and denigrating an unpopular group in the community. No doubt Muslims are unpopular in Australia. Courtesy of the work of Osama bin Laden and the Bali bombers, I have no doubt they have a low ‘approval rating’. If you asked many Australians what they thought of Muslims, you would not get a very positive answer. There is a lot of fear, mistrust and misunderstanding about. The question is: what do we do about that? We can either turn away from each other in fear, mistrust and misunderstanding or we can turn towards each other, reach out and try to understand each other. But the government wants Australians to think that it does not like Muslims either. We look at statements by Prime Minister Howard. In August he said:

There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population ... which is very resistant to integration.

He went on to say:

Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don’t already speak it.

In February Treasurer Costello said:

There are countries that apply religious or Sharia law; Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind. If a person wants to live under Sharia law, these are countries where they may feel at ease, but not Australia.

The member for Mackellar said of the hijab in public schools that the headscarf was being used as an ‘iconic item of defiance’ and that although in an ideal society you should not ban anything:

... this has really been forced on us because what we’re seeing is a clash of cultures.

The member for Mackellar is on a unity ticket with Osama bin Laden on that one.

But, if you genuinely thought Muslims were a problem in Australia, what sorts of things might you do? You could try to reduce or contain their numbers, but the government has not done that. The number of Muslims has increased. Or you could take the view that things might improve if Muslims became more like the locals. The most obvious way to achieve that is to have young Muslim boys and girls going to the same schools as other Australian boys and girls, growing up together and learning about each other. This is how things happened at my primary school. We had never heard of multiculturalism, and we were guilty of calling the other kids wogs, dagos and so on, but the boy across the road from me was Hungarian, his mates, whom I also got to know, were Polish, another kid down the road who was a mate of mine was Greek, and so it went. But is the government doing this? No! We get more non-government religious schools springing up all the time. If the Howard government were serious about bringing Muslims in from the cold, it would be educating them in government schools.

Recently, the Treasurer very courageously lectured Muslims from the Australian Christian Forum about religion and politics. There was one thing he said in that particular lecture that did make some sense to me, which was about how Turkey has achieved success as a Muslim country where religion and politics are separated. Law and politics are in the public domain; religion is a private matter. I think he mentioned the role of the great and wise founder of the Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in securing this separation, bringing in the rule of law and creating a country where people do not seek to impose their religious convictions and beliefs on others. Mr Costello said:

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ... found modern Turkey as a secular state ... He should be held out as a model of leadership for the modern Islamic world.

The separation of the state from religion liberates both. It preserves freedom for religion. It liberates the church from the baggage of unpopular and difficult political decision making. It liberates the State from the religious dogma which at times, has held back scientific progress.

I agree with the Treasurer on this point, and I have been making the same point myself in numerous speeches at Muslim gatherings ever since 11 September, 2001 forced us to confront and think about these issues with real urgency. But what was missing from the Treasurer’s holding up of Turkey as a role model was any reference to the role played by education.

According to a background paper to a recent World Bank study on the Turkish education system, over 98 per cent of all students are educated in government primary and secondary schools. Less than two per cent are educated in non-government primary and secondary schools. Non-government schools do not receive any direct government funding at all. There is some indirect subsidisation of private outlays on education, but the actual sources of funding for the miniscule non-government school sector are private foundations and firms—and, of course, household funds. So, when the Treasurer holds up Turkey as a model of successful separation of church and state, he should also come clean about how they achieve it—basically, no non-government schools. But here we are headed in the opposite direction: a government whose hostility to government schools is giving us a fragmented community without common values.

The other thing I think the government could do if it were serious about tackling the problem of fundamentalist jihadist Islam is to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims. There is no doubt that the struggle being waged by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda is every bit as targeted against moderate Islamic leaders and countries as it is against the West. Tony Blair pointed this out very clearly recently, and sometimes Howard government ministers say similar things as well. But, when Tony Blair said it, what you heard was a loud groan from the aforementioned moderate Muslims, because his actions in going into Iraq and parroting George Bush’s foreign policy have not helped moderate Muslims—they have undermined them.

It is the same thing here. The words of the Howard government might be about supporting moderate Muslims in their war with the fundamentalists, but their actions are all in the opposite direction. Iraq is the most spectacular example of the way we radicalise Muslims and drive them into the arms of Osama bin Laden, but there are others. The West will not put a fraction of the time, money and effort that it has put into Iraq into securing a Palestinian state. That is something which would help the moderate Muslims. And when Muslims get singled out for criticism by Howard government personnel which is not based on logic—for example, there are the comments that Muslims need to speak English, when in fact it is true that there are people from many non-English-speaking background nations who struggle with English in the first generation, and it makes no sense to single out Muslims in this regard; and there are questions about Muslims and the hijab, where the member for Mackellar singled out one particular group and made no reference to others and their particular attire—then, again, the position of moderate Muslims is undermined.

Treating Muslims as whipping boys and girls may be smart politics, but it does nothing to build a functioning, tolerant, successful society. What it does is play into the hands of Osama bin Laden et cetera, who are trying to foment a religious war by persuading Muslims that non-Muslims are engaged in a religious war against them, and, therefore, that terrorism is a form of self-defence.

We have, both in Australia and in other countries around the world, a problem not with Muslims so much as with religious fundamentalism in whatever form it appears—Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, you name it. Anyone seeking to impose their religious convictions on others ought to be resisted and politely, but firmly, informed of the importance of the separation of church and state as well as the rule of law. From this ground there can be no retreat.

I have a number of Islamic constituents on trial for alleged breaches of the antiterrorism laws. I make no comment on the individual cases. The rule of law through due process is at work here, as it should be. I also have a number of Exclusive Brethren constituents. I do not know how many people watched the ABC’s Four Corners report about the activities of the Exclusive Brethren or have read some of the numerous newspaper reports in recent times about the activities of the Exclusive Brethren both in Australia and in New Zealand. But those who have seen the reports could not be other than very concerned about them. For the benefit of those who have not followed them, the media reports raised issues of tax exemption being used for personal enrichment, tax exemption being used for an organisation which is political in character, tax fraud, social security fraud, flouting Family Court orders, mental abuse and running on to the political playing field.

Exclusive Brethren members do not vote—in Australia we have always regarded voting as one of the responsibilities of Australian citizenship—but it is now apparent that they are intensely involved in the political process. There is a strong undercurrent in the reports that they put political money and resources towards supporting the conservative parties—the Liberal and National parties. There has been a deafening silence from the Liberal and National parties on the revelations about the Exclusive Brethren. I think two things need to happen: the Liberal and National parties need to cut off any campaigning or financial links they may have forged with the Exclusive Brethren and there need to be some inquiries into the allegations of tax fraud, social security fraud, flouting of Family Court orders, and government bankrolling of schools which ban computers and progress to university, among other things.

I have no doubt that, if similar allegations had been made concerning a mosque, we would have had government ministers falling all over themselves to get up in parliament and denounce the mosque and announce various inquiries and action. And do not think that Muslims do not notice this kind of double standard. A woman by the name of Irfan Yusuf in the Canberra Times on 10 October described the Prime Minister as condemning:

… certain isolationist practices of Muslims before defending a fringe Christian sect with even more isolationist practices.

So they do notice.

I have no doubt that getting people from all racial and ethnic and religious backgrounds to live together in peace and tolerance and harmony is the most urgent task facing the world today. Indeed, it probably always has been. And taking on fundamentalist or jihadist Islam is part of that task—no doubt at all. And I am prepared to sign up for whatever reshaping or redefining of multiculturalism is necessary to rescue it from some of the ‘anything goes’ cul-de-sacs down which it has led us. But this can only be done by people with clean hands on a secular basis, not by people who want to pander to Christian fundamentalists on the side. The idea that you can get away with shining a bright light on some corners and leaving others covered up in festering darkness is just nonsense.

Australian citizenship must be about equality of treatment before the law. It has to be about tolerance and respect for others and an understanding that we are not all the same. But that tolerance and respect cannot be shown to those who will not show it in turn and who seek to impose their religious convictions on others. It does not matter what religious convictions we are talking about—the same standard has got to apply. But the government has done none of those things. In relation to Muslims, it has constantly undermined moderate Muslims. Now it seeks to profit politically from all this, scoring off the Muslims, saying, ‘Oh dear, the Muslims are a problem; they need to lift their game.’ Perhaps, but what is just as important is that the government lifts its game lest its political success comes at the cost of a society which is divided, fragmented and maybe, in the years to come, terrified.

What messages should the government be sending out to new citizens? At citizenship ceremonies, I have drawn attention to the pledge of loyalty to Australia and its people, which comes with the words:

... whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

These words are worthy of some reflection. They do not mean that you obey those laws you agree with or those laws that do not conflict with your religious views; they mean that you pledge to obey Australia’s laws without qualification and that you have committed to Australia’s democratic beliefs. The question that Australian citizens naturally ask is: what does Australian citizenship mean? I believe that citizenship and the present racial tensions in our society impose obligations on both new citizens and old citizens. Both new and old citizens have obligations to participate in and enrich Australian life, to reach out to each other and not to turn away from each other in fear, mistrust or misunderstanding. I believe in the kind of multiculturalism which says that everyone is valued and everyone is valuable and has something unique to offer to Australian society. I do not believe in the kind of multiculturalism that says that you do not make any kind of effort to fit into Australian society; it is good enough to seek out other people of your own background and live a separate, isolated existence largely in their company.

I think Australia is a terrific country. The first reason for that is that we have freedom of speech and expression. We have to really appreciate just how important that is and make sure that we do not undermine it with a veil of political correctness and do not create a climate where people are afraid to say what they really believe. Secondly, in Australia we have a great tradition of irreverence. We are not obsequious to authority. We are prepared to question and challenge those in power. As members of parliament—I know it is the same for others here as well—we are often on the receiving end of this culture, but I think it makes Australia a far better place than those countries where people line up and salute all manner of corrupt and evil rulers simply because, for example, they wear a military uniform. Thirdly, we have tradition of tolerance and no tradition of civil strife and conflict. This is a great blessing, and we should respect it by ensuring that people do not bring into Australia the fights and struggles of the old world and that they leave them at the door. Fourthly, as I said before, Australia has a very clear separation between church and state. There is no place for religious fanaticism or intolerance. No-one is entitled to impose or enforce their views on others. In Australia, there is strong support for freedom of religious expression and worship, and an equally strong understanding that religion is a private matter and is not to be confused with politics or the law, which are public matters. Someone’s right to freedom of expression and freedom of action stops at the point of their neighbour’s nose. You cannot interfere with others.

In closing, I want to say that I believe that Australian citizenship is a wonderful thing. We can reflect back on 1948, when the great Chifley Labor government introduced the concept of Australian citizenship. At that time it was a novel concept, and some people thought it might impair our allegiance to the British motherland—a view which should not be dismissed as frivolous but must rather be understood in the context of that time. In the wake of the sacrifices made during the Second World War and the decision to take into this country an unprecedented influx of new migrants, we appreciated back then and we have appreciated with increasing force ever since that we have a more independent role to play in the world. Of course, Britain remains the source of our legal system, our parliamentary democracy, our language and much of our culture, but we have, in the time since the Labor government legislated for Australian citizenship, been able to welcome 3½ million new citizens. We have become a nation of people from many different lands united in a distinctive Australian identity. I welcome that and hope that it continues for a very long time to come.

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