POLITICS/CRIKEY: Northern Qld politics no place for wusses, sheilas

Politics in the central Queensland mining town of Mackay isn’t a game for wusses. Or women for that matter. Which might explain why not a single female candidate showed up to the Dawson "Great Debate" last night at the Mackay Entertainment & Convention Centre. It’s not that chick candidates wouldn’t have been interested. It’s just that there were no sheilas running this time around.

Unlike the LNP candidate George Christenson, few conservative women I know would be stupid enough to spend their university days writing stuff that single-handedly offends Jews, women and gays.

When asked about the remarks published in The Student Advocate in 1998, Christensen said sorry to everyone for his "pretty stupid and quite frankly offensive" comments he made "when I was a teenager" and emphasised how he had never believed his mum was stupid. One prominent academic, Heather Nancarrow from nearby Central Queensland University, told Christensen she had asked each party for their policies on reducing violence against women and children. She’d received stuff from all other parties present (Greens, ALP and Family First) but not from the LNP. Christensen replied words to the effect of "I’ll get it to you before the election. It’s been a busy week".

On the other hand, how many left-of-centre women would you know who, like ALP candidate Mike Brunker, would end up in a fight with the president of a local turf club and be facing criminal charges a week out of the election? Brunker denied it all and told us about how he’d "copped it on the nose" from the said Cyril Vains (himself an ALP member) and merely defended himself. The editor of the Daily Mercury, who was chairing the debate, noted that the defence involved Vains receiving cuts to his eye and a bruised face. Brunker responded that he had lots of witnesses including a minister of religion. At this point, one lady screamed out: "Good on ya Mike. We still love ya!".

Apart from this heckler, there were very few sheilas in the audience. Or indeed blokes. The hall must have had a capacity of about 1500. Hardly a fifth of that number showed up. Among the no-shows was a candidate from the Citizens Electoral Councils. I doubt he’d have been missed.

The Greens chap Jonathan Dykuj began his presentation by acknowledging the traditional owners of the area. This caused a tiny ripple of applause up the front and a much larger groan around the rest of the hall. Perhaps Christensen should have just focused on the blacks and left the sheilas and poofters alone.

Speaking of the backwardness of black fellas, some bloke representing the local branch of a forestry lobby group got up and lectured us all on the evils of world heritage listing before reminding us of how "white man had discovered the value of our forests". No one took him seriously except Christensen, who reminded us that people should be able to chop down trees on their property.

Christensen also kept going on and on about the mining tax, which was killing local businesses and sucking millions of dollars out of the local economy each week. "Talk to the mining contractors and ask them about how they are suffering." Then one bloke stood up and declared: "I’m a mining contractor and my business is going gangbusters. Which mining industry are you talking about?"

Some bloke surnamed Kelly lambasted the ALP over its broadband plans in Tasmania and then asked Christensen a dorothy dixer about the LNP’s NBN proposal. Christensen then lambasted the ALP’s proposal as being based on outdated technology like optic fibres. He must have been a little perturbed to see on Lateline Tony Smith says that the Coalition’s plan is built upon the same outdated technology. And the questioner, Mr Kelly, wouldn’t have been happy to be identified by the Greens candidate as being the husband of former National Party MP De-Anne Kelly

The only sombre moment was when one brave woman stood and said she was a consumer of mental health services. She wanted to know what each party was doing to attract mental health service providers to the area. On this issue, the candidates decided to stop verbally punching each other and address the issues.

As I walked out with the crowd, I could see some Convention Centre staff looking rather desperate to get home. "Full house?" I asked one. They sniggered and responded: "Should have advertised it as a mass debate."

First published on the Crikey website on 19 August 2010.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: ALP can mine marginal seats

Julia Gillard has impeccable working class credentials. Her parents were one of many “ten-pound Poms” migrating to Australia in 1966. Her first speech, delivered on Remembrance Day 1998, referred to her identifying with local communities of families on low incomes and possessing a fighting spirit.

Gillard's own father was a coalminer. He must have had many a tale of hard work, sacrifice and danger in the mines. And of terrible working conditions and poor remuneration.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Gillard's grandfather was injured in a mining accident.

My father was one of seven kids in a coal-mining village and their father was injured in a mining accident, which means he could only do surface work, which was not as well paid.

Mining seats are crucial for Labor to retain or win if Gillard is to be elected and remain Prime Minister. One such seat is the very marginal central Queensland seat of Dawson, currently held by retiring Labor MP James Bidgood.

The seat takes in Mackay, a large coastal city, as well as the popular tourist destination of the Whitsundays. While there are no coalmines within the seat, Mackay and other cities are home to a large number of people employed by mining companies or their contractors.

One cannot overestimate the importance of mining in providing jobs and livelihood to the people of Mackay and the rest of Dawson. During the past decade, Mackay has become the location of choice for many mining service companies supplying and consulting to mine operators.

The fighting spirit of many mining families isn't the same as that referred to in Gillard's maiden speech. Fly into Mackay and you might find some of the same issues miners have always dealt with. The airport walls are strewn with advertisements for personal injury solicitors, many specialising in industrial accidents. The Daily Mercury, the local newspaper, regularly prints front page stories of industrial accidents and fatalities.

But living dangerously is also very lucrative. Mining is no longer a working class game. John and Moira Gillard would not have had it so tough had they found themselves in central Queensland today. In Sydney or Melbourne, an auto- electrician can earn $60,000 per annum. In the Bowen Basin coal reserve in central Queensland, the same tradesman earns more than double this amount.

For a Sydney-slicker like myself, landing in Mackay felt like landing on another planet. I'm used to working in a snobbish, highbrow place where the number of figures on your paypacket is almost always determined by how many letters you have after your name. A perusal of the MyCareer jobs website showed advertisements for a maintenance supervisor ($115,000 per annum), a drill and blast crew member ($140,000) and a production supervisor ($150,000). These jobs are all based in Mackay, the largest city in the seat of Dawson.

In Mackay's city centre you'll find shopfronts for RBS Morgans and Bell Potter Securities. Parked outside are hotted-up utes and trucks, the luxury vehicle of choice in this part of Australia. With even contract dump truck operators earning $60 per hour, it's little wonder the stockbroking firms are doing a steady business here.

In his maiden speech on March 17, 2008, Dawson MP Bidgood said:

The Labor Party is the miner's friend always has been and always will be. The coal industry has a true friend in the Labor Party, a true friend that will not give up on the industry. Dawson's economy relies on a sustainable coal industry ...

Mining companies would have you believe that a super profits tax could lead to the sky falling down on communities such as Mackay. To what extent has this campaign worked?

One would expect that miners and contractors might feel shocked to learn just what small proportion of mining company profits is taxed. But anecdotal evidence shows that miners have little concern for how much tax their employers pay. They know they’re on a good wicket, and arguments about limited resources aren’t going to help.

What could help the ALP's chances is offering to pour money into infrastructure in these areas. The sad reality is that multinational mining companies see local resources and communities as fodder. Regional councils such as Isaacs, Mackay and Whitsunday are struggling to provide sufficient infrastructure to keep up with the growth in economic activity arising from the mining boom.

The nature of mining work has its social costs. Miners work long shifts, spending between four and seven days away on site or underground followed by a roughly equivalent period of time at home. The resulting strain this places on marriages and relationships (especially on children and youth) is then picked up by poorly paid community sector workers.

Politics is all about numbers. Key seats like Dawson need to be factored into the equation. At the heart of this is the mining tax. Mining companies need to pay their fair share, and they have often failed to contribute to the infrastructure and social mess their operations leave in our regional areas.

If Gillard cannot create a wedge between mining workers and their bosses over tax, she can at the very least sell to workers the idea that mining company dollars are desperately needed to improve the quality of life for residents and to properly resource services desperately needed.

In other words, any tax must be directly linked to improved services in mining communities. Perhaps mining companies could be granted tax concessions if they could show substantial investment in community projects beyond what little is already done. Perhaps some kind of community development fund could be established. This will not only be smart marginal seats politics. It will also be sound policy.

Most importantly, it will show that mining companies are being slugged not just to pay nebulous public sector debt but rather to benefit the communities that benefit them.

Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and author currently based in Mackay. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Friday 2 July 2010




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OPINION: Santa Claus is an Australian politician ...

With Christmas coming up, and before the tabloids start printing stories about nasty non-Christians conspiring against nativity scenes in shopping centres, I thought I'd write something about Santa Claus.

Now before you all start exclaiming three words beginning with the letters 'W', 'T' and 'F', read this. As Conservative American humorist PJ O'Rouke puts it in the Preface to his 1991 classic Parliament of Whores - A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government:

Conservatism favours the restraint of government. A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.

He then goes onto explain how conservatism is a political philosophy ...

... that relies upon personal responsibility and promotes private liberty ...

... as opposed to its opposite which focuses more on feeding cake to the peasants. And those familiar with last-minute Christmas shopping will certainly relate to O'Rourke when he writes:

Everyone with any sense and experience in life would rather take his fellows one by one than in a crowd. Crowds are noisy, unreasonable and impatient. They can trample you easier than a single person can. And a crowd will never buy you lunch.

Now here's where Santa Claus comes in. O'Rourke writes that he has ...

... only one firm belief about the American political system... God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

Naturally, if O'Rourke was familiar with Australian politics, he would declare that God is a Coalition supporter while Santa Claus wears a Kevin-07 t-shirt. After all, the ALP is all about the welfare state. They fit O'Rourke's description of Santa Claus:

He gives everyone everything they want without a thought of a quid pro quo... Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

Or rather, Santa Claus seems to have abandoned the ALP. With all this me-tooing and fro-ing, it's nice to hear Kevin Rudd prepared to remind himself of the need not to spend too much of our money. Because let's face it - if Kevin Rudd had spent one cent beyond the $47.4 billion he has committed in election promises since the Federal Budget, many of us could be forgiven for believing that he wasn't exactly the most fiscally conservative chap this side of the North Pole.

Liberals (or should that read Conservatives?), on the other hand, are supposed to be about keeping government's grubby hands out of our pockets and our lives.

At least that's the theory. In a desperate attempt to get re-elected, John Howard has thrown conservative political theory (read consensus) off the sleigh for Rudolph to munch on.

According to the Australian Financial Review's spendometer, Mr Howard has committed around $62.6 billion since the last budget. Some $9.3 billion of this was spent just in his campaign launch speech. As Laura Tingle notes in the Fin Review on 15 November, that's $667 million per minute.

Now feel free to shout from the rooftops those three words beginning with 'W', 'T' and 'F' respectively.

Now apparently Santa Claus rewards good kiddies that go to school. But Santa Howard goes further, rewarding their parents as well. Around $6.4 billion in tax breaks is being awarded to parents for school expenses including private school fees and uniform.

So if you are one of Howard's battlers sending your child to one of those Struggle Street schools (such as Kings, Sydney Grammar or Wesley College), you can rely on Santa Howard to come to the rescue. And anyone who doesn't like it, even if they be private school principals, can go join Julia Gillard at the Socialist Forum Alumni Collective.

(Where they might also bump into Peter Costello!)

To make matters worse, it seems the Coalition has a habit of dishing out the dough in an effort to win the most marginal seats in regional and rural areas. The ALP refuses to scrap the regional grants program. I wonder why.

Of course, the ALP are being totally responsible also. Santa Rudd only spent $135 million a minute in his election launch speech.

So there you have it, folks. With all this upper-middle class welfare being thrown around by both major parties in the current campaign, many wealthier voters must feel like it's Christmas already!

This article was first published in The Drum Unleashed on 16 November 2007.



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: From peacenik to IDF promoter ...?

How did an undergraduate peacenik morph into a spokesman for the Israeli army?

The Guy Spigelman I remember was a long-haired hippie-type affiliated with the Labor Students Club (controlled by the Socialist Left faction) and was elected to the Macquarie University Students’ Council on a ticket entitled "Students Against Racism", his number two being a female student of Jordanian background.

Though active in the Macquarie Uni branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), Spigelman was despised by Jewish members of the Liberal Club who saw him as too wishy-washy and too pro-Arab. Spigelman actively sought dialogue with students of Palestinian background.

In 1992, well before the Oslo accords and at a time when Palestinians were still regarded as a nation of terrorists, at a debate organised by AUJS on the topic of whether Israel should withdraw from the West Bank (or as some rightwing AUJS apparatchiks called it, “Judea and Samaria”) and Gaza, Spigelman supported Israeli withdrawal. Admittedly the reasons he used were more to do with Israeli security (he argued that a survey of retired Israeli generals showed most believe that holding onto the territories didn’t palpably increase Israel’s security) than with any right of Palestinians to a homeland. But he did hack into one Jewish student who made some racist remarks suggesting Arabs were inherently irrational and violent.

A 2006 post on Spigelman’s Australian Jewish News blog speculates on the factors that might affect support for Israel in Australia:

Another scenario - and this has been identified by polling undertaken in Europe - is that the world is becoming increasingly concerned with Islamic Fundamentalism and terrorism - and while there is no great love for Israel, there is less love for the Arabs.

This should not provide us with much comfort. We should not rely on the problems the other side has in order to better our position.

The other side? Maybe Spigelman wasn’t as inclusive and ecumenical in his thinking as I may have thought. Still, Spigelman does have some good advice on how supporters of Israel can help their cause:

...I believe the best advocacy is one that is vigilant in engaging all sectors of the society – from the left to the right – combined with encouragement (and not stifling) of informed debate – including criticism when it is warranted.

It’s advice ignored by Israel’s own ambassador in The Age today.

The author is a former Macquarie University Liberal student. First published in Crikey on Friday 16 January 2008.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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ELECTIONS/HUMOUR: The great Auburn kebab konspiracy ...

Local government elections have just been concluded across New South Wales. There have been no clear winners, with the ALP obvious losers in most areas. Minor parties and independents have also done well. This was largely an election about local and state issues.

But according to one candidate for the Greens, this election was also about the leadership of his local mosque flouting secular traditions and allowing one candidate to address its congregation after Friday prayers.

Kuranda Seyfi Seyit, chair of an organisation calling itself the “Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations”, has spat the dummy after he was out-polled by community independent Izzet Anmak in the elections for one of two wards in Auburn Council. Seyit has approached ABC and claimed that Anmak was endorsed by the executive committee of the Auburn Gallipoli Mosque to run as their candidate, allowing him the opportunity to speak at the mosque on the Friday before the elections.

Mr Seyit is quoted by ABC as alleging that Australian Turks have a proud secular tradition, the obvious implication being that the mosque and/or Anmak were part of a plot to introduce political Islam into local government.

This is a serious charge to make against a mainstream religious institution that has in the past allowed candidates of all major parties to visit the mosque and address parishioners during local, state and federal elections. Past speakers and visitors have included former Mayor Le Lam and State ALP Member Barbara Perry.

Mr Seyit was endorsed by the Greens, a party whose leaders have spoken out against stereotyping of Muslims and other racial and religious minorities. The Greens have supported the cause of asylum seekers and have opposed anti-terrorism laws on the basis that these have been passed in an environment of hysteria.

Now, one of their candidates is generating hysteria, accusing a Turkish religious institution of attempting to influence a council election.

The imbecilic nature of Mr Seyit’s allegations is obvious. On the one hand, he states that Australian Turks are proud of their secular nature. Turkish secularism places strong emphasis on separating mosque from state. If Aussie Turks shared this passion, surely one would have expected any attempt by the Gallipoli Mosque executive to support a candidate to backfire. Surely any attempt by the mosque to support Mr Anmak would have worked against him.

Mr Seyit’s outburst isn’t without its unintended humour. In a recent e-mail sent out to a Muslim yahoogroup, Mr Seyit stated the real reasons for his anger at the mosque executive.

Politics in the mosque should not be tolerated. Not because I am secular … The mosque cannot take sides. when the Mosque allowed Izzet to make a speech to the congregation it really hurt me as that mosque is something that my father worked towards building. My father was sent to Turkey in 1982 by the mosque building committee to raise funds. My father used to teach Quran courses there and we were all a part of the mosque's history. In fact my father was the first Turkish man in Australia to lead the Eid prayer in a small house in Redfern in 1970.

By his own admission, Mr Seyit is no great lover of secularism. His main concern is to benefit from mosque resources he believes he is entitled to because of his father’s efforts.

In the same e-mail, Mr Seyit makes this extraordinary claim:

Now we await the result and although prior to running I had done the calculations I knew that I would get in without difficulty. Instead, as it stands many of my votes went to Izzet and there is a very high chance that both of us will miss out. I was invited to run by former councillors and that is why I ran, I was assured of their support and knew that I would get the majority of the "Muslim" vote in ward one.

Yes, Mr Seyit clearly would have been Auburn Council’s answer to Saladdin, liberating Ward 1 from the nasty crusaders and leading the mythical Muslim voting bloc to political glory. Mr Seyit saw himself as becoming perhaps Auburn’s first Caliph.

Mr Seyit also argues in his e-mail that there was a kebab konspiracy involved, with kebab manufacturers plotting against him:

The owwner of the Ozlem Kebabs told me that they wanted to run their own man … and that is why they did not endorse me. They used the every trick in the book to get votes from the Turkish community, with a bottomless pit of money, they placed pressure on most of the kebab shops to vote for their man, they convinced the ALL the Turkish Newspapers to promote their man (because Ozlem and the kebabs are all big advertisers) , they ran large ads every week, and they worked on each every Turkish organisation and soccer club, first and foremost they had the support of the Gallipoli Mosque and the president campaigned hard for their man.

Clearly this was a foul-smelling kebab konspiracy, filled with extra garlic sauce. Both Mr Seyit’s ego and his political career seem to have died with a felafel in his hand.

UPDATE I: Writing to the same yahoogroup referred to above, a certain Gazza, who admits to being an ALP member and addict of non-alcoholic beer, has made the following important observations ...

I have read the to and fro of messages about Seyfi’s unfortunate loss in the Auburn council elections and am disappointed in the sniping and backbiting that has resulted. All this serves to demonstrate just how nasty politics can get ...

Lets all take a Valium and go to sleep till the next election.

My response to Gazza is this - I'll be happy to bring the Bavaria if you supply the valiums!




Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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POLITICS: Watkins walks ...

What a time for my State MP John Watkins to retire. You’d think he would take advantage of the Labor ascendancy in our local area.

Watkins is virtually invincible in Ryde. He won the seat in 1999 even when it was a notionally Liberal seat. The man Watkins first defeated in the seat of Gladesville in the 1995 State Election, Ivan Petch, has never forgiven the Liberals for dropping him in the last preselection. Petch delivered crucial preferences to Watkins in each subsequent state election, and will probably go on doing so. Even now, Petch is dividing the Liberal vote on Ryde Council. Watkins now has a 14.8% margin, making his seat very safe.

Just last November, the locals had given John W Howard the kind of electoral kick Prime Ministerial nightmares are made of. As Member for Ryde, Watkins has the benefit of a friendly Federal Member for Bennelong, an ALP-friendly Ryde Council and a divided Liberal opposition.

The Sydney Morning Herald claims Watkins’ departure was caused by his assessment that a member of the Left faction had never been Premier of the Premier State. That excuse never stopped Anna Bligh in the Sunshine State, even if she has copped flack from her own faction at times.

Watkins should feel like he is sitting in the box seat. Why is he suddenly walking? The answer is quite simple. John Watkins knows that Iemma is on the nose big time. And so is NSW Labor. If someone as clean-skinned as Watkins cannot defeat the NSW Libs, who can?

Without O’Farrell’s opposition to electricity privatisation, grassroots ALP voters would have been hung out to dry by the Iemmafia. With Watkins gone and no real alternative to a weak Iemma, the NSW Libs need only keep their factional warfare under control to win the next State Election. And they also need to win back Ryde.

Still, one should never underestimate the ability of NSW Liberals to politically shoot themselves in the foot.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: Not the first time ALP candidates have been "smeared" with Islam

If there’s one person who won’t be surprised at senior Liberal Party figures being caught red-handed distributing allegedly Islamic material in a marginal Western Sydney seat, it is former ALP candidate for Greenway Ed Husic.

The nominally Bosnian Muslim background of this Australian-born ALP staffer was used as a wedge by various people on the conservative side. In a speech to the Sydney Institute on 19 October, 2005 (the full text of which can be read here), Husic told his audience of this experience:

Just before election-day, I learned about the distribution of another pamphlet, this one claiming that I was a devout Muslim fighting for a better deal for Islam in Greenway.

The sheet was a dummied version of one of my campaign ads, designed to mislead a reader into believing it was put out by me.

I was also told there was a phone banking campaign that repeatedly rang voters with identified strong religious beliefs to let them know that I was Muslim ...

These events just reaffirmed in my mind a thought that had travelled with me through the campaign – the way that continual, sometimes supposedly neutral, references to religion were conveniently helping to underscore what people believed to be my big negative.

Husic doesn’t openly blame his Liberal opponents for this ugly incident. He couldn’t see members of the NSW Liberal Party State Executive or spouses of retiring Liberal MP’s distributing this material.

The Daily Telegraph described the pamphlet as

... clumsily worded and ended with 'Ala Akba', a dismal attempt at the traditional Islamic salute of 'God is Great' - 'Allah Akbar'.

Perhaps pamphlet authors had taken Arabic lessons from Tele columnist Piers Akerman, who himself has used similarly clumsy wording in the past.

This incident shows just how marginalised Muslims have become in Australia. Both major parties happily court fringe Christian groups, yet neither party answered the survey of one (albeit tiny) Muslim political action group. In the popular mindset, building mosques and suicide terrorist attacks are all linked.

Returning to Ed Husic:

[On] election-day, I heard voters being told they should support my opponent because she is a "good Christian". Obviously there was a big, organised effort to keep this issue alive. Was Ed a real dinkum Aussie? Could he be relied on? Would he be fighting for you or for Islam?

First published in the Crikey! daily alert for Thursday 23 November 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: It's good to see someone is benefiting from the NT intervention ...

Apparently the only way a government can fight child abuse in indigenous communities is to put aside the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act. Yep, welcome to 21st century Australian conservatism. Where 3 decades of bipartisan legislative consensus can be thrown aside with little complaint from either side.

This exraordinary legislation was passed at lightening speed through both Houses of Federal Parliament in mid-August. We are told that indigenous Aussies are benefitting from the intervention. That may well be true. But there is one group certainly benefitting.

The Weekend Australian Financial Review reported on 18-19 August 2007 that ...

Commonwealth public servants have leapt at the offer of a $37,000 allowance to work as "business managers" in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, but there are concerns about whether they have the commitment and expertise for the job.

At $37K a pop, who needs commitment? The report continues ...

The business managers will be the government's representatives on the ground following the takeover of NT Aboriginal communities.

Heck, I'd jump at the opportunity of grabbing a $37,000 payrise just to 'represent' the Commonwealth up north. Here, Mr Brough, you can have my CV!

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough said this past week that 300 applications for the positions had been received, far more than the government was looking for ...

Placements are for a period of up to 12 months, with the managers given the opportunity to return home every three months.

And what to the people on the ground, most affected by the intervention, think of all this?

But indigenous communities, which have to hand over control to these outsiders, have questioned how these public servants will perform and complained of lack of details regarding their duties ...

At one of the targetted communities, Yirrkala, council co-ordinator Adrian Rota expressed frustration at a lack of detail regarding the business managers.

The Laynhapuy Homelands Association represents 19 "outstation" Aboriginal communities in north-east Arnham Land ... Deputy CEO Ric Norton said the recruitment could attract ambitious but unsuitable public servants.

Kevin Rudd has already committed the ALP to continuing with the intervention should his party win next Saturday. Let's hope a Labor victory leads to a greater degree of consultation with the communities on the ground.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf



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POLITICS/COMMENT: Why Debnam's ethnic crime ploy makes little sense ...

On Thursday 12 January 2006, the Member for Vaucluse and NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam accused police of effectively behaving corruptly.

He said police had not been consistent in their patters of arrest during and following the Cronulla riots. He said they had not arrested a single person for the reprisal attacks, allegedly carried out by Middle Eastern youths from the Canterbury and Bankstown area, in the days following the Cronulla riots.

Mr Debnam suggested that various ALP MP’s, including the Premier himself, were telling police to go soft on Middle Eastern gangs. He even went so far as to state that the ALP was letting ethnic branch stacking of the late 1990’s to affect law enforcement.

Further, Mr Debnam suggested that certain ethnic communities pressured police and politicians to go soft on criminals. He said ...

The Labor Party seems to be indebted to certain ethnic groups ...

... without specifying which groups these were.

Basically, Mr Debnam was suggesting that police and politicians were allowing criminals to get away with all sorts of activities. He suggested some ethnic communities themselves were involved.

If Mr Debnam’s claims are correct, they should provide ICAC with enough work for it to take up another 5 floors of CBD office space. If Mr Debnam’s claims are untrue, he should do the decent thing and resign.

Debnam has decided to play ethno-religious wedge politics. He realises he has little chance of winning the next state election without some high-risk strategy that he hopes will yield high electoral return. Frankly, I think the whole thing will blow up in his face. For the sake of the people of NSW, I hope it does,

Before Mr Debnam starts playing the race card, he should consider having a few words with the former and current Federal Members for the Federal seat of Cook. This seat takes in Cronulla. He should take advantage of the combined wisdom of Bruce Baird and Stephen Mutch, both of whom have a string understanding of the area and are exceptionally astute in state and federal politics.

Bruce Baird’s assessment of the situation in Cronulla was one in which race was but one of a range of factors. ALP branch stacking is perhaps among the least relevant of these factors, presuming it appears at all on Mr Baird’s list.

Further, Mr Debnam’s comments show a complete ignorance of the various factions that make up the Lebanese communities. Lebanese Australians are not one monolithic community, and religion is not the only dividing line amongst this ethnic group. Further, most crime gangs include members from a range of ethnic and religious groups.

And why on earth would members of any ethnic community want thugs and gangs operating in their backyard? The prevalence of crime affects the quality of life of all people living in the Canterbury Bankstown region. The suggestion is almost as absurd as suggesting that the Vietnamese community benefits from criminal activities of criminals such as those involved in the murder of the former ALP State Member for Cabramatta.

When crime goes up in an area, property prices go down. I am no expert in real estate, but as far as I know, it’s impossible for any ethnic group to influence the property market so as to avoid such trends.

On Saturday January 14, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan attempted to show links between the ALP and even terror suspects, including the very non-Lebanese Willie Brigitte.

Sheehan and Debnam are trying to paint a picture of some deep dark Lebanese and/or Middle Eastern and/or Muslim conspiracy to protect criminal gangs. In doing so, they display both ignorance and hypocrisy.

Mr Debnam is quoted as saying he visited Auburn and saw a church burnt down. Which part of Auburn is he talking about? I lived in Auburn for a number of years and having even run as an endorsed Liberal candidate for a federal seat that takes in Auburn. I am in Auburn at least twice a week visiting friends and clients. I feel qualified to comment on the area.

As far as I know (and I have had this confirmed by locals), no church in Auburn was burnt down. Rather, a hall adjacent to a local church frequented by an Islander community was torched. Whether this attack was aimed at the adjacent church or the equally adjacent Islamic independent school is hard to say.

And it’s a bit rich for Debnam to talk about ethnic and religious branch stacking. Debnam knows the long history of links between the NSW Liberals and fringe ethno-religious groups. These groups include some of the most extreme elements in the Lebanese communities, both Christian and Muslim.

During my 10 years of involvement in Liberal branches in the seats of Canterbury, Bankstown, Auburn and East Hills, I was frequently approached by power brokers in the Right Wing of the NSW Liberal Party. At the time, some of these people were on State Executive. One is now in State Parliament. All form the backbone of Mr Debnam’s support base in the NSW Parliamentary Liberal Party.

I was often encouraged to use my personal contacts to recruit local Lebanese Muslims to branches, including those known to have been recruited to ALP branches during the preselection battle between Morris Iemma and Tony Stewart. Some of these people showed me their ALP membership cards. I mentioned this to the Right Wing power brokers. They said it didn’t matter so long as the State Director or the “Group” didn’t find out.

I was even told to use the line that we conservatives hated Jews, homosexuals and others. On one occasion, a right wing power broker (now a State MP) told me to use this reason to recruit members into the Auburn branch. He gave me this instruction following a meeting he arranged between myself and Auburn branch officials following my nomination to be the Liberal Candidate in the September 2001 Auburn by-election. The meeting took place at the Mado Turkish Restaurant in Auburn.

Thankfully, anti-Semitism was not the source of membership growth in our local branches. Rather, it was our consistent array of high profile guests such as the Mayor of Sarajevo and former Pakistan test cricket captain Imran Khan which led to most new members joining.

Of course, we all know about the ethno-religious wedge politics and stacking that Mr Debnam’s supporters tried to pull off at the Croatian Club in May 2004. That meeting was designed to revive the Bankstown Young Liberals.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on May 7 2004 of substantial violence at the meeting, resulting in police being called. Around 230 people attended the meeting, which erupted into an all-out brawl in which even a pregnant woman was attacked.

Eyewitnesses reported racial and religious taunts being made at certain persons applying to join the branch. One NSW Right supporter complained to the Herald that their factional opponents ...

... brought people along who have written articles against the government, a lot of people who are Muslims.

In the aftermath of the brawl, the Party’s head office promised a full investigation. The then State Director Scott Morrison told the Herald:

Anyone found to have engaged in misbehaviour through police inquiries can expect swift and sharp action from the party.

To this day, no such swift and sharp action has been taken.

The attempted reformation of the branch was undertaken at the request of then Young Liberal President Alex Hawke. It was widely seen as an attempt by the Religious Right to undermine the pre-selection chances of moderate Liberal Upper House member John Ryan. Ironically, Mr Ryan is himself a committed Christian.

The NSW Liberals seem prepared to do anything, including play racial and religious wedge politics. In doing so, they do themselves, their supporters and the people of NSW a grave disservice.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf

POLITICS/COMMENT: Not the Best Party?

Kurt Kennedy is an Australian from Canberra who has recently made headlines as founder of the first proposed Islam-based political party. He is seeking registration with the Australian Electoral Commission of the clumsily-named “Best Party of Allah”.

He claims to be secretary and president of this party, and was a candidate in the 2004 elections for the ACT Legislative Assembly. Kennedy is reportedly an Australian of Vietnamese origin. He is initially having the party registered in the ACT only, but will be seeking national registration.

So who is Mr Kennedy? Where is he from? What standing does he have in the ACT Muslim community?

Mr Kennedy’s website for his 1994 campaign in the Mononglo electorate states that he is a lawyer and composer. On 11 September 2004, he issued a press release which gives more details about his background. It describes Kennedy as arriving in Australia from Vietnam in 1979 at age 7. He is currently 33 years old, and is completing a postgraduate degree in law. He is married with 2 children.

Mr Kennedy claims that his party represents “believers in Allah”. Yet many Muslim leaders have neve head of him. Former Islamic Council of Victoria chairman Yasser Soliman sent out an e-mail to various groups seeking information about Mr Kennedy.

The party apparently has around 100 members. There are 400,000 Muslims in Australia. There are over 400 mosques across the country, with most mosques having their own governing body. Mr Kennedy is not known to have been a member of any mosque society, nor does he list membership of a mosque society in his promotional materials.

In the ACT, the Canberra Islamic Centre has an excellent relationship with members of the ACT Legislative Assembly across the political spectrum. ALP and Liberal MLA’s regularly attend CIC functions and events.

Mr Kennedy seems to be outside the mainstream Canberra Muslim square. Having lived in Canberra for some 6 months, and being a life member of the CIC myself, I cannot say I have ever met Kurt.

Further, I spoke with Mr Kennedy on 6 September 2005 in my capacity as a columnist for the Adelaide-based Australian Islamic Review. From my discussions with him (which lasted around 10 minutes over the phone), it seems that Kurt does not have much idea about the relationship between Islam and government or Islam and politics.

Worse still, Mr Kennedy has not had any formal exposure to Qur’anic and other theological sciences. He acknowledges that he does not have any substantial knowledge of classical Arabic, nor does he have any formal exposure to classical works of Qur’anic exegesis. At best, his understanding of Qur’anic concepts is shallow and rudimentary.

Mr Kennedy believes (and in my view, correctly) that much of the Qur’anic law is already contained in the statute books and the common law of Australia. His view is confirmed by scholars such as Professor John Makdisi, Dean and Professor of Law at the Loyola University in New Orleans. In a 1999 article published in the North Carolina Law Review, Professor Makdisi writes about what he calls “The Islamic Origins of the Common Law”.

Some years back, a NSW Supreme Court Judge also wrote about the influence of Islamic law on the development of alternative dispute resolution procedures in modern commercial law.

In 2003, a representative of the Indonesian Muslim organisation Nahdhlatul Ulama told an audience at a lecture organised by the Centre for Independent Studies that Indonesian Muslims tend to associate sharia law with non-interest banking. Sharia-based financial products now represent a major activity of institutions such as HSBC.

Prominent industrial barristers such as Peter Costello would be well-advised to read the works of these scholars before speaking on matters pertaining to sharia law and its role in Australia.

Muslims have been at the heart of mainstream Australian life for over 150 years. Today, major financial institutions, university faculties and commercial law firms are being headed by Australians of Muslim background. Within the Liberal Party, Muslims play an active role. Liberal Party members of Muslim background are currently sitting local government councillors in Auburn and Canterbury City Council.

Yet recent examples of irresponsible political rhetoric have made many Muslim Australians feel unnecessarily marginalised. In particular, comments made by my former colleagues in the conservative wing of the NSW Liberal Party have been most unhelpful.

Perhaps Mr Kennedy is one of these marginalised Muslims. His party website does refer to recent comments by Parliamentarians in relation to hijab and other issues. Comments made recently by Ms Sophie Panopoulos in response to the formation of Mr Kennedy’s party do little to reverse that process of marginalisation.

However, formation of a party specifically targeting Muslims will simply provide more fuel to the fires of Islamophobia which Messrs Panopoulos, Bishop & Co are seeking to light and burn. In this respect, Mr Kennedy could not have found a worse time to form his Best Party of Allah.

Words © 2005 Irfan Yusuf