Two points to emerge from our friends in the polling community, which passed notice while I’ve been diverted by close counts:
• ReachTEL has published a helpful table illustrating pollster accuracy, which is sporting of them given the attention it calls to the eye-watering accuracy of Newspoll. However, all concerned did very well in predicting a two-party preferred result which, by my back-of-envelope reading, will ultimately settle at around 50.5-49.5 to the Coalition. Essential and especially Ipsos overshot on support for the Greens, with the latter landing around 2% too low for both major parties, but the only other substantial errors involved the balance of support between the Liberals and the Nationals, which I don’t regard as particularly important. Electorate polls were a different matter, and will be looked at in greater detail when all the results are in.
• On the Tuesday evening following the election, Roy Morgan conducted an SMS poll poll from 3587 respondents on leadership approval. The poll had Malcolm Turnbull with a narrow 51-47 lead as preferred prime minister, which the Morgan release sets up for comparison with a 57-24 result from May. However, the May result was an interviewer-administered phone poll, a method evidently less conducive to a “neither/can’t say” response. The poll also found Malcolm Turnbull leading Tony Abbott by 71-25 as preferred Liberal leader, and Anthony Albanese leading Bill Shorten 49-48 for Labor.
Now to an exercise I’ve conducted to get a clearer sense of what sort of areas did and didn’t swing. The chart below shows results of a regression analysis on 6582 polling booth results in which two-party swing data was available, which excludes the 14 electorates where the AEC’s two-party count is not between Labor and the Coalition. The purpose here is to discern if the swing to Labor was more or less evident in areas with particular demographic characteristics. The results record a big move back to Labor in the ever-volatile mortgage belts; an apparent failure of the Abbott-to-Turnbull leadership switch to improve the Coalition’s standing in ethnic communities; and better swing results for the Coalition where voters were wealthier and better educated, and – perhaps more surprisingly – older.
After the constant and starting with “Age”, the table lists the associations between polling booth swings to the Coalition, which in practice usually means negative results recording swings to Labor, and five demographic variables for the census districts in which the booths were located. All but one of these variables, English spoken at home, records a statistically significant association with the swing, as indicated by a score of less than .05 in the significance column on the right. The “B” coefficient of .001 for “Age” tells us that areas with a median age of 40 would generally swing 1% more favourably for the Coalition than areas with a median age of 30. “MFY” stands for median weekly family income and is measured in thousands, so the coefficient means swings tended to be 0.3% stronger for the Coalition for every $1000 of average household income. “School” represents the percentage of the 18-plus population who had completed high school, every point of which associates with nearly 0.1% of swing in favour of the Coalition. Conversely, Labor did 0.02% better for every percentage point of mortgaged dwellings.
The five demographic variables are followed by geographic ones that are there to ensure the results for the demographic variables aren’t influenced by regional differences in the swing, particularly those from state to state. Sydney is excluded so it works as a baseline, so the coefficient for Melbourne tells us that the Coalition would typically do 2.6% better there than at a demographically identical booth in Sydney. Finally, two variables are listed to control for retiring member and sophomore surge effects, which prove to be significant in both cases. “LNPgain” was coded 1 where the candidate was a Coalition sophomore and -1 where a Coalition member was retiring; vice-versa in the case of Labor sophomores and retirees; and zero where neither applied. “ALPloss” was coded 1 where Labor lost the seat in 2013 and 0 otherwise, to measure the boost to the sophomore effect in seats where Labor had a sitting member defending last time. The results suggest Coalition members who won their seats from Labor in 2013 did 2.2% better in swing terms than other Coalition candidates, which reduces to 0.5% in seats where they were replacing retiring Coalition members.
To observe these effects in action, the four tables below identify the 15 highest and lowest ranked electorates by the four statistically significant demographic indicators, and show their two-party swings to the Coalition where available. The lowest education electorates, all of which are regional, were 4.0% worse for the Coalition than those at the top of the scale, of which all apart from Fenner in the ACT are near the centres of the largest cities. Median age was more of a mixed bag — old electorates are regional, but the young ones encompass inner cities, mortgage belts, enclaves, a defence town and the largely indigenous seat of Lingiari. Nonetheless, the distinction here is as great as it was for education, and not in the direction that might have been anticipated from a touted backlash over superannuation policy.
The lowest income electorates, all of which are regional other than two in Sydney, recorded an average 3.5% swing to Labor, only slightly above the national result. But the results for the Liberals were well above average among the wealthiest electorates, over half of which swung in the Coalition’s favour. The mortgage effect is more modest, with 2.8% separating the averages for the top and bottom fifteen. Electorates at the top end of the mortgaged dwellings table are all in the outer suburbs of big cities, but the bottom end is a dissonant mix of regional and inner-city areas, producing a wide range of swing results.
The extent to which this exercise actually explains the results is illustrated by the chart below. For each electorate, the result the model would have predicted is plotted on the horizontal axis, and the actual result is plotted on the vertical. The electorates identified by name are those where the Coalition most under-performed or over-performed the prediction. Keep in mind that this accounts for regional as well as demographic factors, so Lyons shows up as a strong Liberal performance because the swing there was lower than in the other three Tasmanian seats included (remember Denison is not included due to its lack of two-party swing figures). Most electorates’ results were within 2% of the prediction, but a good many had results where alternative explanations are substantially required.
Just saw a great ad on TV from AusPost and AFL celebrating cultural diversity. Great to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BGgHdp_iYo
Essential Poll. Full results not yet on their site, but Bernard’s article is up.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/07/19/essentiall-senate-voting-changes-a-washout-and-voters-back-the-greys/
Jul 19, 2016
Essential: Senate vote changes a washout, voters back dishlickers
Malcolm Turnbull’s once unchallenged standing is coming under pressure. His election performance has elevated Bill Shorten.
Bernard Keane — Politics Editor
Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate voting reforms made voting more difficult, many voters say. And Julie Bishop is firming as the preferred leader of the Liberal Party, behind a diminished Turnbull, new polling from Essential Research reveals.
After Senate voting changes designed to make voting easier and reduce the role of preference deals failed to reduce the size of ballot papers in many states, 37% of voters say the changes made voting more difficult while 25% said it made no difference. Less than 20% said the changes made voting easier.
However, 20% of voters say they believe the changes made the Senate outcome — the final seat in several states is still to be determined — more democratic, compared to 15% who said the outcome was less democratic (39% said it made no difference).
The Prime Minister’s hitherto-secure position as by far the most preferred Liberal leader has been undermined in the wake of the election. Turnbull is considered the best leader of his party by 30% of voters, down from 39% in March and 42% in December. Sixteen per cent of voters prefer deputy Bishop, up from 12% in March, while Tony Abbott is steady on 9%. “Someone else” has also gained on Turnbull, up three points to 19% since March. Bishop leads Turnbull among Greens voters and “other” voters, while Labor and Liberal voters prefer Turnbull — the latter 50% to 17%.
Labor leader Bill Shorten, on the other hand, has gone from a figure of ambivalence in the eyes of voters to easily the preferred leader of his party. As late as March, just 15% of voters thought he was the best leader of the Labor Party, putting him only narrowly ahead of Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek (both on 14%). Now, 27% of voters prefer Shorten as leader; “someone else” is 17%, Albanese is 11% and Plibersek 12% (interestingly, Plibersek is more popular with men — 14% — than women — 11%).
………………….
On voting intention, the Coalition has lost two points on its primary vote to fall to 39% while Labor remains on 36% and the Greens on 10%. The Nick Xenophon Team sits on 4% (up one point) and “other” on 10%, washing out to an unchanged two-party preferred outcome of 51-49%.
Boerwar the chlorophobic.
Taking into account that Bernard let us know last week that the 51-49 to ALP was actually 50.6 to the ALP in unrounded TPP figures, I suggest this week’s might be somewhere between 51 & 51.49, given the primaries. At the least, it should be a bit above 50.6.
daretotread @ #999 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 11:58 am
lol
There is no basis for such a claim. This is a wild projection on your part. For the very little it’s worth, I repeat again that of course I harbour no such feelings for the Gs. I simply address myself to the content of their polemics. I have never passed a single insult at the Gs, let alone at their voters.
As for the claim that I might favour One Nation, this is a really puerile remark. It is the falsehood of a dribbling imbecile.
daretotread @ #995 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 11:53 am
But I wonder if this result might give the factional bosses the excuse to keep putting her down the bottom of the ticket in future elections. They might argue that since her personal following can get her elected she doesn’t need to be higher up.
Poor old Julie Bishop. The last thing she wants to do is become Prime Minister or even leader of her party, because she knows, deep down, she’s just not up to it. But she might be plucked from behind a curtain and paraded before the public.
Most punters back the dishlickers? That must have been hard for Bernard to write. But, didn’t that genius Kristina Keneally tell us that Luke Foley was a fool for backing the greyhound industry.
It is on already.
From Owens in the Oz:
‘Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis has been referred to police after telling colleagues yesterday about questionable campaign tactics by a Liberal activist in her NSW south coast electorate.
Ms Sudmalis, the MP for Gilmore, yesterday told the joint government party room that she had won in a particular booth because a supporter had removed all of Labor’s Medicare campaign material and hidden it in a car boot.
Interviewed today on ABC radio, Ms Sudmalis said she was reporting an anecdote from her campaign and she could not say whether it was true.
Asked if she knew the culprit’s name, Ms Sudmalis answered: “No. No, no, no. That’s the sort of thing you don’t ask the details for.”
Ms Sudmalis said that, if she did know, she would “talk to them quietly” about the transgression.
“You don’t touch other people’s stuff. Even though I’m appalled by what they did, I wouldn’t touch it,” she said.
Fiona Phillips, the narrowly defeated Labor candidate, today said she was “surprised” by Ms Sudmalis’s comments to the party room and questioned why the MP had not raised it earlier.
“I’m really concerned by those comments and I certainly will be referring them to police for investigation,” Ms Phillips told The Australian.
“I am surprised that it’s come out but, in some ways, I’m not surprised as well.”
Ms Sudmalis, who endured a swing of 3 per cent in the Shoalhaven-based seat, won Gilmore by only 1560 votes — a razor-thin new margin of 0.8 per cent. There were swings of almost 15 per cent recorded in several booths.
There were 5109 votes still to be counted, according to the Australian Electoral Commission, although they are unlikely to push Ms Phillips over the line.
Ms Phillips, who previously stood for the NSW parliament, said she was planning to contest Gilmore for Labor at the next federal election.
NSW Labor general secretary Kaila Murnain today wrote to the Australian Electoral Commissioner and the NSW Police urging the authorities to investigate the “admission of theft by Ms Ann Sudmalis”.
Ms Murnain’s letter to Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers noted federal law provided up to six months’ jail or a $1000 fine for anyone who hinders or interferes with the free exercise or performance by any other person of any political right or duty that is relevant to a federal election.’
A heart beat or a jail sentence away…
colton @ #956 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 10:34 am
I think you have completely left the reservation.
So Malcolm has just ‘won’ an election but is behind in the polls within a couple of weeks. A lot of regret among voters out there, I’d say. If Mal ends up with a one seat majority (as is likely) he better hope that there aren’t too many by-elections soon.
KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN – he means back the dogs, not the industry. “55% of voters support a ban — 28% strongly — while 27% oppose it. Labor (57%), Liberal (51%) and “other” (53%) voters aren’t much different, but 71% of Greens voters support a ban.” I suspect KK is right, in fact as soon as it happened I though it would be hugely popular. Foley probably thinks he has to back it as its ALP heartland or whatever, but even then not sure how many people care about the sport.
‘Trog Sorrenson
Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Boerwar the chlorophobic.’
Ooooh, Greens wit….
… not bad… but, at bottom, your usual Greens unicorn.
If the Greens cannot argue their case, they badmouth their interlocutor.
Waters is on the Q&A record.
She lied repeatedly about Labor last night. Her lies were:
1. Liberal and Labor are the same.
2. Labor went backwards in this election. (This is the equivalent of the Greens’ Light on the Hill – destroy Labor and…)
3. Labor does not have a climate policy.
The Greens have one thing right here: lie often and lie big.
LL – Ta. Well, I got that wrong. I don’t mind them getting rid of the dogs if they get rid of horse racing as well, but that won’t happen.
kevin-one-seven @ #1007 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:08 pm
I cannot stand Julie Bishop due to how easily she bare-faced lies and her fake smiles. She scares my kids and it has nothing to do with her looks but her facial expressions during Hockey’s announcement of the 2014 Horror Budget. It’s about what she communicates. They were 11 and Hockey’s words along with her facial expressions rocked their world. I still remember my daughter saying Mommy, that lady is scary. I don’t like her. Hahahaha
An interesting article on the prick who murdered those people in Nice – and the implications for peace in France:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/18/nice-attack-has-a-bisexual-muslim-hustler-put-france-on-the-path-to-civil-war.html
I read too much. Can’t believe I just spelled Mummy mommy. How un-Australian of me. Opps!
Leroy
Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate voting reforms made voting more difficult, many voters say. And Julie Bishop is firming as the preferred leader of the Liberal Party, behind a diminished Turnbull, new polling from Essential Research reveals.
I commented on Sunday that Fran Kelly was doing pr for PM interview with Bishop on insiders
If Mal gets majority government, can anyone say how many votes it would have taken in his most marginal seat to have finished with hung parliament
Shea McDuff was another Green who tried to prove Larissa Waters proposition that Labor had gone back wards in this election, when they picked up 13 or 14 HOR seats and The Greens not one extra.
Shea used lies, lies and damned statistics, trying to impute that The Greens were +1.48% and Labor ‘only’ +1.33% that somehow equated to Labor not doing as well as her beloved Greens.
However, that was The Greens coming off a lower base, so the % can seem greater. Just compare the pair though:
Labor 34.71% or 4,581,028 votes
The Greens 10.13% or 1,337,392
So, yeah, Waters was engaging in Truthiness. Seems to be one of their emerging skills.
player one @ #988 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 11:36 am
Indeed. Though there are additional reasons for the second one, like the inherent social conservatism of farmers.
TPOF
I did say the other day that we could be at a tipping point.
In article linked by you above
Two months ago, the head of France’s General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), Patrick Calvar, warned a commission at the National Assembly that after the January 2015 massacres at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket, and then the Nov. 13 carnage at Paris cafés and the Bataclan concert hall, followed by the related attacks in March in Brussels, society is at a tipping point. And the problem is not just with Muslim extremists, but with anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant extremists on the “ultra-right.”
“Europe is in great danger,” Calvar said in testimony on May 10. “Extremism is rising all over and we are—we, the internal security services—are in the process of redeploying resources to focus on the ultra-right that is waiting for nothing but a confrontation.”
Douglas and Milko,
I had to use the More tab on the cartoons page to figure out a way to capture the cartoon, even though I have a subscription! Fairfax just don’t seem to want to share the love. : )
“Extremism is rising all over and we are—we, the internal security services—are in the process of redeploying resources to focus on the ultra-right that is waiting for nothing but a confrontation.”
You just had to look outside the ABC last night and at the Pro and Anti Immigration rallies in Melbourne which have turned violent to see a similar scenario building up a head of steam here.
“I think misattributing Hanson’s success this election to Turnbull or the Greens is a failure to understand where her voter base comes from.
Under a DD she actually got more than a quota, which automatically counts for a 6 year seat.”
I’m not sure if that’s correct Philip Coorley suggests that Labor and Liberal persist with the Countback provision Hanson will only serve three years in the senate before going to re-election.
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/election/election-2016-pauline-hanson-and-derryn-hinch-may-not-be-around-for-long-20160704-gpy204
TPOF
Pauline Hanson is not being helpful. we dont need the likes of her and others to stoke the flames
TPOF
The Far Right in France is, IMO, quite capable of, and quite prepared to, resort to civil war.
C@
Precisely
Re Islamophobia, yada yada yada
It’s important to clearly understand what we are talking about when we talk about Islam and why some of its tenets and the practices of some of its believers post such a problem for people in Western countries.
First of all, we are talking about mainstream Sunni Islam, including its most zealous subsets such as Wahabism.
Shia Islam, including its various sub-sects, is much less of a problem. Sure, Iran spent a period of being intensely hostile to the West, and the Hizbullah has conducted significant terrorism in the Levant, but these activities always had a strong tactical political element to them: they typically weren’t just mindlessly destructive acts of terrorism of the type regularly practiced by the Islamist Sunnis.
Secondly, we are talking about a sort of fundamentalist Sunni Islam that emanates from the Arabian Peninsula and the eastern part of North Africa. Islamic people at the periphery – the people of Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey to some extent, the former USSR, indigenous European Muslims (Tatars, Bulgars, Bosnians) – even if they are very devout, do not typically subscribe to this form of Islam (although, unfortunately, the poison of Wahabism and related doctrines is slowly spreading into these societies).
The core belief system of this sort of Islam includes propositions such as the following:
. Islam in its purest/best form is imposed by a Caliphate on all the people in a particular geographical area, with forced conversions of all non-believers (possibly except for Christians and Jews , although Wahabism doesn’t even seem to provide for this).
. Ideally, the whole world would be ruled by such a Caliphate, and a war to achieve such an end would be a holy war, and all violent acts committed towards that end are appropriate.
. Under such a Caliphate, all residents (with the possible exception of Christians and Jews) would be subject to sharia law.
. Any criticism/lampooning of Islam or the Prophet – indeed, any sort of discussion of the Prophet as a human being or his edicts as being anything other than holy writ – is deeply offensive to all Muslims and punishable by death.
. And (this is the most important bit), the above beliefs are absolute and unchangeable. Unlike Shia Islam or, say, the Catholic Church, whose adherents have a similar view as to the universality of its mission (albeit with a stronger sense that church and state need to kept separate as much as possible), Sunni Islam has no clerical elite who can progressively re-interpret teachings to enable them to retain relevance in an evolving world.
The result is that it is intrinsically difficult to be a devout, mainstream Sunni Muslim in most parts of the Middle East/North Africa and not subscribe to some of the above. If you don’t believe that sharia law is the best sort of law and that an Islamic state is the best sort of society in which to live, then you are moving towards the sort of theological ground occupied by the small sub-set of Catholics who don’t recognise the Pope as the head of their church.
Over the past 20-30 years, Western countries have collectively welcomed into their communities many tens of millions of people who, in their hearts, subscribe to some or all of the above set of anti-multicultural, anti-democratic beliefs. The overwhelming majority are not prepared to conduct acts of violence to further those beliefs. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t still hold to them.
What I’m saying, I guess, is that I simply don’t accept the view that the people who conduct violent acts such as those we saw in Paris, Brussels, Ankara Airport, Orlando, Nice and on the train at Germany are “unIslamic”. My fear is that there are large numbers of Islamic people living in our communities who don’t feel as negative towards these acts as I do: in the same way that most Irish Catholics I know had a sort of sneaking regard for the IRA and their horrendous acts of violence. It was only a century or so ago that Sunni Muslims around the world felt the same way about the Caliph at Constantinople that Catholics feel about the Pope. Many of their great-grandchildren probably feel a sentimental attachment to the idea of a re-emergent Caliphate.
And, worse still, I can’t see that Sunni Muslims living in a country like Australia have access to a fully-formed theology or language in which to express an alternative view of their religion: one which fully embraces the right of a society like Australia to be secular, multicultural and tolerant of all forms of religious belief/dissent.
So, to sum up, I fear we have a much bigger problem to deal with than simply that of a few deranged, ultimately suicidal individuals seizing on their religion as an excuse for their abhorrent acts. And because the problem goes beyond a few individuals, and cuts to the heart of the belief system of large numbers of adherents of Islam, it is going to give and keep giving to the likes of Marine Le Pen, Pauline Hanson, UKIP, etc, etc. As I have posted before, I really don’t know where this issue is going to end. But I fully expect the terrorist acts to keep happening, and for the Muslim communities of the West to continue to struggle to differentiate themselves from the people who commit them.
If the press gallery hadn’t run around telling everyone Turnbull would win easily, he wouldn’t have won. The electorate would have sent him to the knackery.
He’s under so much pressure now, he will crack within a few months. Nasty Mal will definitely surface, big-time.
Clarification to my post: when I talk about Irish Catholics holding a regard for the IRA, I mean Australian Catholics of Irish heritage. Most residents of the Republic of Ireland – be they Catholic or otherwise – seem to have long held a fairly negative view towards the rebels of the North.
Sudamalis really is a log isn’t she? What a dope.
Haters wanna hate. There are people who want to hate Islam, and will always find some reason. Facts don’t matter.
sceptic @ #1019 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:34 pm
Obviously not until all the vote counting is finalised.
victoria @ #1022 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:39 pm
But you did not / could not elaborate on a tipping point wrt to what?
It was just a vacuous statement with no context.
kevin-one-seven @ #996 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 11:55 am
…………………………………………..
Not many but some. He was shamed into at least one when a Labor MHA had a very sick small child.
Oh and talking about logs, or local ex-log Russell Matheson really was deluding himself about how well he was going. As well as spending about half a mil on losing the seat he had secured a high profile spot in the main street of Campbelltown for his new electoral office.
He hadn’t moved in yet, but on the front glazing was a big photo of his big dumb mug and the words ‘Russell Matheson, Member for Macarthur, new Electoral Office coming soon’.
I really really want to print on of these up to stick on the door…
https://imgflip.com/i/17lxks
[url=
[/img][/url]
Sudamalis is one very silly Gilmore girl.
Even if Hanson is allocated a 3 year Senate term, I would expect the good burghers of Queensland to re-elect her at the next election anyway, given she’ll have three years of supine coverage from the media to boost her credibility.
tbf a few years of coverage didn’t help her retain Oxley.
She’s not really the sort whose ‘qualities’ become more obvious under exposure.
I would hope that Labor MPs take the time to reach out to Pauline Hanson one on one. Sam Dastyari and Anne Aly in particular could assist in getting her to understand that even muslims are against the extremists and Australians need to work together to maintain cohesion.
Hope you’re right ratsak. Eva Prawn should start to smell really bad after 3 years of exposure.
boerwar @ #1027 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:44 pm
We do not need to look too far into the past to find examples in Europe. The repression of the Moors – and the parallel persecution of Jews – by Christian Spain are a stand-out example.
Victoria: “Sam Dastyari and Anne Aly in particular could assist in getting her to understand that even muslims are against the extremists and Australians need to work together to maintain cohesion.”
See my (long, sorry) post above: it’s not an easy task for Muslims to convince non-Muslims that they are firmly opposed to extremism.
BTW re Dastyari: he seems to provide different stories about who he is and where he came from. I had long been under the impression – based on some puff piece or other from years back – that his father was an Azeri and his mother a Iranian Christian. But these he talks about himself as a sort of “non-practising” Muslim. Does anyone know the full story?
Pauline Hanson should be called upon to apologise to all Australians for increasing the risks to public safety; and she should be called upon to renounce the politics of fear, hatred and, implicitly, the politics of repression.
She should apologise not merely to our Muslim brothers and sisters. She should apologise to all Australians for aligning herself – whether unwittingly or not – with IS and, inexorably, elevating both the risks of violence in this country and abetting the war aims of IS.
victoria @ #1041 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 1:18 pm
Why!
Why should she be indulged? She can be courted by the voices and charms of reason and then reject them. Once upon a time, Hanson was merely a racist. These days she is an instrument of violent terror.
briefly: “We do not need to look too far into the past to find examples in Europe. The repression of the Moors – and the parallel persecution of Jews – by Christian Spain are a stand-out example.”
My impression was always that Christians were very badly treated by the one-time Islamic ruler of Spain: either forced to convert to Islam or else pushed to the very bottom of society. When the Christians seized back control, they paid out in kind on the Moors.
The Spanish Jews famously flourished under the Moors and, sadly, paid for this under the Christians.
Christianity and Sunni Islam are religions embodying the concept that they should be in complete charge of everything and everyone. The problem now is that, for the most part, Christians have come to terms with the idea that this isn’t going to happen (how often do you hear the term Christendom applied nowadays?) Sunni Islam has a long way to go.
Well done Lisa Singh who stared down the duds around her.
It’s an impossible task if people don’t want to listen. I don’t know how many times the Grand Mufti (who is not the chief religious authority anyway) or other leaders of the Muslim community have condemned Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism that promotes terrorism, Hanson still insists they have not. For too many Australians an inconvenient truth can be conveniently ignored.
There is no alternative but to show solidarity and not jump on the broad brush of fear bandwagon. I think Muslim fundamentalism is repulsive and dangerous. But no Muslim should be put through a random test of loyalty or be required to explicitly renounce fundamentalism and terrorism time and again to be accepted.
The simple and incontrovertible fact is that the vast majority of Muslims in this country and in every other western country are peaceful, law-abiding people who want to live safely and without fear – including from rabid radical Muslims. To paint them with the same brush and to expose them to suspicions that they are terrorists – indeed to require them to constantly show they are not – is how you create terrorists, not how you deter them.
kakuru @ #1033 Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 12:59 pm
This is a terribly fatalistic declaration. I am not a pessimist on these things. Australians have shown they can and they will renew their subscription to equality and our universal dignity; and they will reject the temptations of repression. Australians have done so in the past and will do so again. Hate and fear will recede as they always do; and our belief in each other will endure long after the enmities have faded away.