Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If, like the member for Dawson, you represent an electorate where only three out of every 1,000 people are Muslim, you will have a different level of interaction and, I dare say, knowledge of these issues than a person like me, who lives in an electorate with 22.7 per cent of the population being Muslim and, nationally, represents an electorate which is 9.8 per cent Muslim, where, for the last decade, at least one of your neighbours is a Muslim family or your friends have children who go to the same school that Farhad Jabar, the murderer of that public servant in Parramatta, did. Quite frankly, sloganising and hatred are counterproductive.

Today, the member for Dawson conveniently takes one quote from the Prime Minister of this country to cloak his extremist position. I will quote further comments made by the Prime Minister of this country. As far back as 28 February 2011, he said:

It is important for us that we promote and encourage Islam ... Islamic traditions which are moderate, which support freedom, which support democracy and which support Australian values not in the sense of Aussie values but in the sense of democracy, rule of law, tolerance, freedom. That's what we're talking about and they are universal values.

Further, on 8 July, he said:

Now, just as it's important not to underestimate or be complacent about the national security threat … it is equally important not to overreact to that threat.

In this same speech, he also said:

The Islamic terrorist seeks to provoke the state to overreact because it creates a more receptive environment for the extremists' recruiting efforts …

He further added that the government had the right balance in its national security laws.

On 3 October 2014, the Prime Minister said:

Can I just say again as I have said here before, the terrorists want us to demonise and alienate the Muslim community in Australia. The Muslim community is part of Australia, they are Australians. We have to pull together.

The member for Dawson has tried to be moderate in his motion today in contrast to his own performance. Today, he described the Lindt Cafe murderer as a 'self-styled cleric'. However, on 11 December 2014, he described him as a 'cleric'. He did not reveal to the Australian people that that murderer had been rejected as a preacher at 10 Sydney mosques, including one mosque a kilometre from my home. Today, he has used the term 'extremist Islam'. However, on 19 July 2015, in one his many twitters, he talked about Islam itself 'coping' with Australia.

The situation here today is that we have to make sure that these extremist elements, these psychopaths, these murderers and rapists, these people with a very obscure interpretation of Islam, are not able to recruit people. It is interesting to note a very timely article in The Saturday Paper this weekend, which quotes Dr Joshua Roose, a research fellow at the Institute for Religion Politics and Society at the Australian Catholic University. Dr Roose made this assessment of Australian Muslims:

As best we can assess … only about 30 per cent of Australian Muslims are practising. Seventy per cent are not particularly engaged with their faith. They may have a basic respect for religious leaders, much as many people consider themselves Christian but don’t go to church, or maybe at Christmas.

They are the silent majority, who are just not engaged, not on the political spectrum. They are neither radical extremists nor moderates out there encouraging any particular view of Islam.

He went on to say:

Somewhat ironically, what we are seeing is the generation that has grown up in the post 9/11 context, now in their teens or early 20s, in a quite politically hostile atmosphere, where everything to do with Muslims is scrutinised and suspected …

Similarly, in TheHerald this morning were once again some very timely comments in relation to Mr Christensen's motion. Professor Kevin Dunn—who actually knows a few things about this subject, unlike the member for Dawson; he has actually done research—from Western Sydney University, following a survey of Muslims came up with the following conclusions:

Most Muslims surveyed ranked education and employment as issues most important to them; identified themselves as Australians and felt a sense of belonging to Australia; frequently mixed with non-Muslims; and felt Islam was consistent with Australian norms and society.

Ninety-seven per cent agreed that it was a good thing for a society to be made up of people from different cultures …

In conclusion, I refer to an article in the latest edition of The New York Review of Books where Max Rodenbeck makes this distinct comment:

The very shrillness of today's zealots may reflect an underlying fear that conservative orthodoxies are under threat as never before, facing a growing backlash not so much from the outside world as from within the faith.

What he is essentially saying is that ISIS and Boko Haram are making a desperate, last-minute attempt to enforce their interpretation, their narrow beliefs, on a world in which Islamic belief is changing. We are seeing that in surveys in this country and internationally.

Debate adjourned.

See this speech in context