COMMENT: I Write Whilst Others Lie and Spy

“Why does Irfan always have to attack Muslim organisations publicly in the media? What does he gain?”

I may as well lay my cards on the line. I received a total of $0 from the Australian Financial Review and the Sydney Morning Herald. From the Canberra Times, I receive $165 per article. The same amount I receive from the Daily Telegraph, though this has only been after my submitting 3 articles for free.

From ABC and Channel 9, I received a few cab-charge dockets and 2 rides in a limousine.

These payments are hardly going to blow the budgets of the various media organisations. However, if one were to believe reports in The Weekend Australian Financial Review, it appears that Muslim community figures are receiving so much for their information to ASIO that the domestic intelligence agency have had to call in experts to curb this budgetary excess.

What makes things even worse is that much of the information is useless to ASIO. As a result, former ASIS chief Allan Taylor has been called in ...

... to crack down on the amount of money wasted by ASIO on agents receiving payment for concocted information.

This followed an internal review which revealed that ...

... many part-time agents in Australia’s Islamic community were being paid for information that had not been properly evaluated.

Some would like us to believe that Australians can be convinced that Muslims are all united and one big happy family of over 300,000 people. Well guess what. It just isn’t true. And Brian Toohey from AFR knows it. He writes what we all know and what most Australians know ...

... that Australia’s Islamic community is riven by religious, political and personal rivalries, which often prompt informers to take advantage of ASIO’s cash to make up damaging accusations against their opponents.

Call me cynical, but I reckon my few hundred dollars and a few cab charge vouchers are nothing compared to the perhaps tens of thousands many Muslims take from ASIO to dob me and others in. And what makes things worse is that inevitably I pay for it all through my taxes.

What I write or say is public. My allegations can be seen, read and heard by everyone who cares to access the information. But what some lying Muslim leaders and others tell ASIO in return for a share of my hard-earned tax dollars cannot be seen.

It makes me think that somewhere in Bankstown or Lakemba or Zetland, some bludger is making truckloads of cash at my expense. Myself and other Muslims are being investigated and our reputations tarnished just because we happen to find ourselves on the wrong side of an informant.

These lying cheats take ASIO cash and waste ASIO resources by providing false leads. As a result, ASIO are diverted from more fruitful work which might actually stop a terrorist attack.

In short, some Muslim informants are being paid to threaten national security. And the money comes out of my pocket. That makes me angry. It should make all Australians angry. Our security is being compromised by charlatans growing fat and rich at the expense of our tax dollars and.our security.

If even ASIO can be deceived by charlatan Muslim leaders, how much more careful should the Prime Minister be about which people in the Muslim communities he consults on the eve of a national summit on terrorism. Surely those who take money to tell lies to ASIO will have little hesitation in telling a few porkies in return for a photo opp with the PM.