Page 3271 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 August 2005
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quickly in the aftermath of the second wave of attempted bombing in London to flag new counter-terrorist measures in Australia.
In contrast, the local government’s first instinct, via Jon Stanhope’s vitriolic comments in an ABC radio interview on 26 July this year, was to declare state-wide government statements about tightening counter-terrorism laws as draconian and knee-jerk reactions. In that vein, the Stanhope government failed to call for the censorship of hate books and bomb-making books and the banning of hate preaching so influential on impressionable young Muslim men across this country.
Whether we have amongst our 5,000 Muslims a component of young men who feel that they are operating in a vacuum and therefore are vulnerable to that sort of hate preaching is unknown. It is probably not quite the case. But if we are going to conform with all jurisdictions in the country in tackling what really are national challenges, we need to see our Chief Minister locked in step with other state leaders and the federal government.
The Chief Minister apparently has accused me of wanting to see large-scale book burning. It is quite clear that I supported the removal of terrorist hate preaching and bomb-making books from bookstores and libraries. I did not call for book burning and I certainly did not call for the burning of the Koran, as purported by Mr Stanhope and some of his more radical supporters. Seeking an act of censorship against those sorts of books is exactly the same sort of thing as seeking to censor pornography in relation to young teenagers.
The Chief Minister thinks that these people should be allowed to spread their views and that their views can be dismantled by rational dialogue. Tell that to the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks on New York or of the Bali or London bombings and to the families of Iraqi victims of crazed Ba’athist and foreign al-Qaeda terrorists. You do not rationally discuss anything with extremists who have already made up their minds. The aim here is to help younger people who might become affected by that sort of extremist preaching.
Thankfully, the Labor government does encourage engagement through Muslim communities with young, disaffected Muslims. So there is hope yet. The government does do the right thing by demonstrating solidarity with the Muslim community. This could go some way to promoting tolerance and respect. But, given the golden opportunity to do so, Jon Stanhope failed to condemn unequivocally all forms of extremism by all faiths and communities against all other faiths and communities and he failed to call on all community and faith leaders to follow suit. I am talking about the public comments that he made on 26 July on ABC radio, which he chose to make from the Canberra mosque. He did not express the sorts of concerns that have been expressed by other state leaders.
Tolerance and respect throughout the community must be built on a bedrock of solid, sensible governance so as to remove the sorts of ambiguities that create tensions, intolerance and confusion. I would say to the Chief Minister that we all support tolerance and respect. These are confusing times. Events are moving quite quickly internationally, which sows seeds of concern and confusion. That simply means that we have to be unambiguous in stating that we support and respect all communities, we support, respect and defend the rights and the power of the Muslim majority to do what they want to do,
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