Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is apposite that Senator Lundy is talking about blogs because I noted a piece today in the Australian by David Burchell which was spreading a lot of venom about what he says is all the venom on the bloggersphere. I have no doubt that there is plenty of venom on the bloggersphere; I think Senator Lundy herself has a blog out there. In fact, I think that we are both speaking at a conference on Wednesday morning about some of these sorts of issues. You can see plenty of it around, but it was curious to have those sorts of accusations made in that column that the entire arena of people that express their views online through things like blogs and political blogs are all somehow just engaged in vitriol.

It is particularly ironic given the sorts of approach that comes from some of the people that write for the same paper that Mr Burchell was writing in, the Australian. One example that I was wanting to highlight this evening that really concerned me but I did not respond to much at the time, because it was clearly such a level of hysteria in regards to the coverage being put forward in the Australian that speaking out against it too strongly and continually would have done little more than just contribute to all of the hysteria that was being generated. I speak specifically about a whole series, in fact a huge number, of articles written over the space of a week attacking Griffith University—in my home town of Brisbane in my home state of Queensland—and the Islamic research unit because of funding that they have received from the government of Saudi Arabia, and specifically attacking individuals who ran the Islamic research unit.

The articles attacked the Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University, Professor Ian O’Connor, and generally ran a lot of insinuations and some quite inflammatory and plainly wrong quotes from people suggesting that, purely as a consequence of taking this amount of funding from the Saudi government, the Islamic research unit at Griffith University was somehow allowing itself to be used as a front for spreading Muslim extremism, fundamentalism and Wahabism. There were about 16 articles, including front page for three or four days in a row as well as inside. One of them was an edited op-ed response from Professor O’Connor, the vice-chancellor. It was a continual steady stream doing nothing more than just trying to repeat and reinforce this initial insinuation that Griffith University and its Islamic research unit was being used as a front for Islamic extremism.

As I said in the one public comment that I did make as well as the letter to the editor that I sent to the Australian, which was not published, there are legitimate issues that are raised in universities receiving funds from foreign governments. I have seen examples of foreign governments using pressure on universities who, of course, we all know in Australia, for better or for worse, in many cases are very heavily dependent on the income they make from overseas students. I have seen examples of foreign governments using that pressure and applying that pressure to universities in regards to them running seminars on topics they are not comfortable with, that are embarrassing to them. That is inappropriate, whatever government does it, whatever country it is from. It is inappropriate even for the Australian government to apply pressure to universities if they are doing things that the Australian government does not like. That is not something that is beyond the realms of possibility; it has happened. And it is never appropriate. Academic freedom is very important.

So of course there are issues to be raised and I do not in any way criticise the Australian newspaper for raising these questions. What I do criticise is the nature of their coverage, the absolute hysteria generated clearly quite deliberately and consciously and repeatedly day after day and, in the process, smearing some extremely capable people and some hard-working people who have put a lot of effort over a number of years into addressing and trying to work on precisely the issues that many people, including the Australian, quite rightly have called for, which is strengthening understanding about Islam and building connections between Muslim communities in Australia, in this case particularly in south-east Queensland and the wider community.

The head of that research unit, Dr Muhammad Abdullah, is well known, within Queensland and more widely, for the work he has done in building links, in sharing understanding, and in quite openly being willing to explore the difficult issues that undoubtedly exist in deciding how to best tackle extremist, violent Muslim fundamentalism. He is doing precisely the job that so many people say needs to be done and he is doing it about as well as I have seen with regard to the Muslim community. I am not saying he is above reproach or above questioning, but for him and his unit to be clearly, deliberately targeted in the way that they were, purely so that the newspaper could keep stretching out this tenuous thread about one donation from the Saudi government, was irresponsible.

I have spent a lot of time working with many people in Muslim communities, particularly in south-east Queensland, and there is a real apprehension amongst them about sticking their heads up, because they do not want to get targeted in the media. When they see something like this happen, the signal that sends, particularly to younger Muslims around Australia and to anybody that knew and worked with Dr Abdullah, is: ‘Well, hell; look what they’ve done to him. He’s done precisely what they’ve been asking him to do for years and then they just trash him—publicly, repeatedly, deliberately and unfairly, and in a totally unbalanced way.’ How do you think they are going to react to that? Will they think, ‘I’ll go out there and try and increase understanding as well; I’ll stick my head up’? That would mean that they would be likely to get targeted as well. It was incredibly irresponsible.

At no stage in all of the 15 or 16 articles did the Australian examine in any sort of meaningful way the actual work that the research unit had done. They could not have pointed to any seminars that they had run and funded on Wahabism, extremism and fundamentalism. The best they could do was point to a forum that Tariq Ramadan—and also I and Mr Laurie Ferguson, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services—for multiculturalism spoke at. That was a fabulous conference over three days that examined all these sorts of issues. It sure as hell did not promote Wahabism. There were speakers there that specifically criticised it. That was the best the Australian could do. Not surprisingly, the same newspaper had run a smear job on Tariq Ramadan as part of him coming to Australia to talk to that conference. Whatever happened to the idea of freedom of speech? Whatever happened to shining a light on these things, to sunlight being the best disinfectant against extremism and ignorance? It is simply ludicrous.

What if every institution that received funding from any foreign government was subject to the same scrutiny and the same sort of thing, with a whole series of front page articles? The articles included inflammatory quotes from a couple of people who clearly had no knowledge of the university’s work on the issue. They were happy to simply be rent-a-quotes, to say: ‘They’ve got money from Saudi. Saudi is bad; therefore, Griffith University is bad.’ That was the level of logic. They found somebody who had a title after their name but had no actual engagement with the university or their work to make some extreme quote, and they then just kept running it over and over again.

It is so destructive. The unfairness of it annoys and frustrates me, but much worse is the destructiveness with regard to what is an important and difficult issue, which needs some degree of balance, sensitivity and reason attached to it—not this massive, deliberately hysterical, deliberately overblown, deliberately unbalanced and deliberately misrepresenting approach that we saw in that series of articles. Irfan Yusuf—a blogger, I note—highlighted, another university had funding come from the Chinese government not too long ago—one government that I have known to pressure universities repeatedly when they have held forums on issues like human rights. Where were the 16 newspaper articles about that university?

Of course these are difficult issues; of course they need to be scrutinised. But, unless we are going to provide enough public funding for universities not to have to seek funds from foreign sources, these are going to be challenges that those places are going to have to balance. And let us not forget that those links with overseas countries, corporations and bodies also can be extremely beneficial in terms of broadening our understanding. Raise the questions, but do not shoot the people who are trying to work on those difficult issues, and be a bit fairer along the way.