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The case for assimilation

By John Stone - posted Friday, 19 August 2005


Since London's July 7 bombings, the Federal Government has been under pressure to address Australia's rapidly growing Muslim problem.

But it clearly still wants to avoid the real issues: the need to abandon outright our official multiculturalism policies and the need to sharply reduce, to the point of virtually halting, further inflow of people whose culture (Islam) is such that there can be no realistic hope of them ever integrating into Australian society.

Recently, I proposed six measures to begin addressing those issues. Even as that went to press, further London bomb attacks were attempted. A retired senior ASIO officer (backed by the Federal Police Commissioner) now says ASIO knows of about 60 Muslims resident here who have received training in terrorist activities such as bomb-making.

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Before I am accused of stirring up race hatred, the multiculturalism industry's invariable response when it lacks reasoned arguments, consider some figures.

In my article I mentioned "roughly 330,000 Muslims in Australia today". That was based on the 282,000 self-declared Muslims in the 2001 census (81,000 more than in 1996). But the census religious affiliation question is optional; 1,835,000 people did not answer it in 2001. So 330,000 clearly understates the reality.

A YouGov poll among Britain's Muslims immediately after the July 7 bombings (London's The Daily Telegraph, July 23) found 6 per cent believed them fully justified. A further 24 per cent, while not condoning the bombings, expressed sympathy with the feelings and motives of their perpetrators. Some 32 per cent believe "Western society is decadent and immoral" and "Muslims should seek to bring it to an end".

If we (complacently) assume that Britain's Muslim problem is three times as bad as ours, then "only" 2 per cent of our Muslims would find London-type bombings here fully justified. Even on that understated 330,000 figure, that means 6,600 murder-approving Australian Muslims. Likewise, another 8 per cent (26,400) will feel sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who, one day, will commit such atrocities here. On the same assumptions, more than 10 per cent (35,200) believe that Muslims should seek to bring our society to an end.

How do our multiculturalism apologists ignore such figuring? Even if they feel their own, typically comfortable lives aren't in much danger, don't they care about other Australians (for example, those using public transport) likely to be killed or maimed when calamity strikes? Don't they have children, or grandchildren, who will live in an increasingly Muslim-influenced Australia?

Here then are some more measures to help deal with the problem. First, cut back hard on giving welfare benefits to immigrants (genuine refugees excepted). The most powerful inducement to Muslim (and other) immigration into Britain has been the sheer munificence, for those involved, of social security benefits they receive. Anyway, why should Australian taxpayers foot such bills for those who, having chosen to live among us, then batten upon us?

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Second, debar funds from any country that denies genuine religious freedom coming to Australian religious institutions. Saudi Arabia, whose oil moneys have funded fundamentalist Islamic mosques, schools and media outlets throughout the world, is the obvious example.

Third, the Australian Defence Force should be ordered to put more resources (and be given the necessary extra funding) into sealing our wide-open back door across Torres Strait from Papua New Guinea (the route taken, incidentally, by Peter Qasim seven years ago).

Fourth, government spokespeople, federal and state, must stop bowing to political correctness and start calling ethnically-based crime by its real name. The Sydney Morning Herald editorialists tut-tutting about such truth-telling should read their own Natasha Wallace's chilling report (SMH, July 22) on the horrific series of 2002 Ashfield gang rapes by four brothers of Pakistani origin.

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First published in The Australian on August 15, 2005.



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About the Author

John Stone is a former treasury secretary and National Party senator.

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