I normally avoid A Current Affair like the plague but I sometimes tune in for a jenkem-like snort of tabloid methane. Tonight’s ludicrous beat-up was on those Moooslims, those ones who come to Australia in, like, their thousands and don’t, y’know, integrate with normal people? The rationale for this ’story’ was a town meeting in the Sydney suburb of Camden - but it was a fairly thin premise, and the ‘town meeting’ ended up looking more like the carpark at a rodeo than rational democracy-in-action.

ACA then went straight to an objective source on the issue of Moooslims: Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party. The justification for this was that the CDP is now the voice-of-the-people because its vote has “skyrocketed” in NSW (which it has, they now register almost half the vote of the Greens). Fred claims we’re at risk of being swamped by Moooslims and besides, there are Christians being persecuted in Moooslim countries who deserve to come here first! He wants a ten-year moratorium on new Moooslims coming into the country.

Amongst the other damning evidence:

* Twenty years ago there were 30,000 Moooslims in Australia; now there are 300,000. They must be breeding like rabbits.
* Sydney now has 40-something mosques. Melbourne has, erm, a lot too. And if you look at these mosques on Google Maps, it looks even worse.
* The Moooslims want to build a Moooslim school in Camden. Absolutely appalling.
* Vox Pop Man says Moooslims aren’t like ‘us’ because they “…don’t come up, shake ya hand and say ‘g’day’, mate.” (If you could see Vox Pop Man, you’d probably understand why.)
* And Keyser Trad has… nine children!

My guess is that Nine will be screening a few anti-terror ads tonight.

Kevin Andrews on why gang-forming types shouldn’t be allowed into Australia:

Under pressure to explain his latest reasons for closing the door to new African refugee applicants until next year, Mr Andrews yesterday blamed gang-based violence…

(source)

Some recent gang violence:

[P]olice in the western suburbs [of Melbourne] yesterday appealed for witnesses to the bashing in Melton on Tuesday of 17-year-old Ajang Gor.

The Sudanese-born high school student was riding his bike home from his job at a fast-food restaurant with his brother at 4pm when he was set on by four men, who shouted racial slurs, then punched and kicked him and hit him with a bottle.

The attackers stole his wallet and phone, then sent racist text messages and made abusive phone calls to Ajang’s brother, cousins and friends.

(source)

Kevin Andrews talking about the importance of English proficiency for life in Australia:

“[T]he bottom line is if you wish to achieve your aspirations in Australia then it is quite crucial that you can speak English… the language of this country is English and we encourage people to actually be able to competently speak English.”

(source)

The English spoken by the (presumably white) Australian gang members who attacked Sudanese migrant Ajang Gor:

Wats up u black dogs ya mate jst got knocked da fuk out we jst jackd him welcome 2 australia u jigaboo fuks melton blood gang we from melton u pieces of shit

If this wasn’t so embarrassing and serious it would be hilarious.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has inflamed tensions with the African community by releasing a dossier claiming African refugees were involved in gangs, nightclub fights and drinking alcohol in parks at night.

Let’s see:
Gangs– Melbourne’s gangland war involving almost exclusively the Italian-Australian community
Nightclub fights– Almost every single AFL and NRL footballer
Drinking alcohol in parks at night– Almost every single 15 year old white kid in Australia’s suburban history

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said it was “contemptible” to suggest the Government was playing the race card.

I find Kevin Andrews and John Howard contemptible. End of story.

I was heading out to Kevin Andrews’ electorate in Eastern Melbourne this morning so I took my video camera hoping to get a few vox pops in response to his recent African immigration remarks. Most people on the streets of Templestowe were unaware of Andrews’ controversial comments, and those who did know about them were reluctant to talk about the subject of immigration, especially on camera. I did manage to get two people to share their thoughts on camera in addition to the independent candidate for the seat of Menzies, Dr Philip Nitschke. Click here to view the video if it doesn’t appear below.

Catherine Deveny perfectly sums up GrodsCorp’s attitude towards the government’s populist, xenophobic and divisive citizenship test.

YOU can shove your citizenship test up your poxy date. No one has the right to decide what being Australian is. I was born here and I have no idea. But I do know what it isn’t, and what being Australian isn’t is testing people on what they know about some white pen-pusher’s idea of Australia. This is the country whose citizens pride themselves on not knowing the words to their own country’s anthem.

[…]

Who are we trying to keep out with this test? How will knowing the name of Australia’s first prime minister or the date of Federation keep out terrorists, wankers or bludgers? The citizenship test questions are irrelevant and offensive.

Read the whole article and take Deveny’s awesome alternative Aussie citizenship test.

UPDATE: Humourless Andrew Bolt reckons that Deveny’s first line is symptomatic of The Age’s inability to argue a case. Of course, it completely escapes Bolta’s attention that the line, “you can shove your citizenship test up your poxy date”, is a beautiful mixed example of the Australianism metaphors used by Deveny throughout her article as an illustration of what Deveny holds to be more “Australian” than anything in the government’s citizenship test.

By the way, did anybody else choke on their cornflakes when Bolta accused another journalist of “emotive and poisonous writing” on Insiders last week?

I’ve long banged on about how infuriating it is for our government (and opposition) to try and force “Australian values” on prospective immigrants. I’ve also agreed before with John Roskam and today I’m agreeing with him again after another excellent piece in The Age.

THE problem with the Howard Government’s new citizenship test is not the requirement that applicants must learn English… Of more concern is the obligation on candidates for citizenship to uphold “Australian values”. The problem is that these are impossible to define. No one, ever, should be required to commit to something as subjective and vague as “Australian values”. The only obligation that is reasonable to impose on new citizens is the responsibility to obey the law — nothing more and nothing less.

While we like to believe that “a fair go” and “mateship” are part of our national culture — and perhaps they are — these sentiments can’t be turned into a set of administrative rules. Yet this is exactly what the Government is suggesting should happen.

A fortnight ago, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Kevin Andrews spelt out some of what he believed were part of the country’s values. They included freedom of speech, freedom of religion, support for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, equality of men and women, tolerance, compassion for those in need, and peacefulness.

The first thing to notice is that there’s nothing uniquely Australian about many of these values. They exist in any liberal democratic country.

But insisting that immigrants hold unmeasurable and undefinable “values” before they enter the country, that many natives fail to hold themselves, makes for an awesome dog whistle to those Australians who hold other values: xenophobia and racism.

If somebody put a gun to my head and forced me to choose one Liberal politician with which to have a boozy session at the pub I would choose Amanda Vanstone.

Let me explain.

Like many Liberal politicians I strongly dislike much of her personal politics and the policies she supports, but there’s something about her personality that I respect.

Let’s look at it this way: even if Philip Ruddock, Kevin Andrews, Tony Abbott, John Howard and Peter Costello had identical political opinions to my own I wouldn’t go out of my way to have a beer with them because I think they’re soulless, slimy bastards. I’ve never fallen asleep in a pub before (well, maybe just once but it was 4.30am — long story) but I reckon John Howard would have me snoring before I finished my first pot of draught.

However, the glimpses of Amanda’s non-political persona over the years have revealed that she’s got a wicked sense of humour, doesn’t mind a good session over a few bottles of wine (eg. one extraordinarily boozy lunch/ dinner with a Bulletin journalist, if memory serves me correctly), and she’s not afraid to speak her mind, often coming out with some absolutely brilliant one-liners. Who can forget the “sandwich and a milkshake” jibe at her own government’s tax cuts, or the “let me put my dancing shoes on” remarks after Christopher Skase’s death.

I get upset at how callous and heartless she is when defending current Australian immigration policy, and think she showed a frightening lack of remorse over cases such as Cornelia Rau, but on the flip side she continues to support an Australian republic and this week has been arguing that Australia should legalise voluntary euthanasia. You gotta respect that.

Which Liberal politician would you have a piss-up with and why?

Prime Minister John Howard has demonstrated the unquestionably superior nature of quintessential Australian values in his reaction to the Australian soldiers in Iraq who posted internet videos of themselves pointing guns at other soldiers dressed as Arabs. For your convenience I’ve isolated Aussie John’s Aussie values:

Tolerance
He is tolerant of Australian soldiers’ gunplay bringing the defence force’s professionalism into disrepute, along with the soldiers’ aggressive racism bringing Australia into disrepute.

A fair go
He wants a fair go for the soldiers, calling for everyone to lay off the lads because they were just “letting off a bit of steam”.

Mateship
He feels mateship for these soldiers because they’re white, male, English speaking Australians fighting his dodgy war.

“She’ll be right, mate”
He believes that she will, in fact, be right, saying that “the military is quite capable of dealing with this without a whole lot of gratuitous advice from me or other people in the political arena”.

Respect for traditions
He notes that soldiers have always let off steam through time (presumably an acceptable tradition) but the only difference now is that there are video cameras and YouTube.

Heard Andrew Robb on ABC774 with Jon Faine this morning (ahh, uni holidays and lazy weekday mornings in bed). He was talking about the government’s new proposed citizenship test and the possible questions that might be on such a test. When asked how one tests for an understanding of “a fair go” Robb got all confused and blustery, starting to waffle on about how it’s a “quintessential” Australian quality and it’s all to do with tolerance and stuff. You know, it’s the vibe, it’s Mabo. Robb said that, you know, it’s all about how Australians volunteer to fight bushfires.

“Yes, but how do you test for this understanding of a fair go?” repeated Faine.

Apparently (if I interpreted Andrew Robb’s ramblings correctly) you just put “volunteering to fight a bushfire” as one of the options in a multiple choice question about “a fair go”. “But I don’t want the test to become like Trivial Pursuit,” qualified our Parliamentary representative.

Genius.

I realise I’ve been spending a lot of time laying into Kim Beazley recently and some readers may mistakenly believe I hold more positive feelings towards the Man Of Steel.

Wrong.

The jingoistic, xenophobic, tickbox race to the bottom continues. Prime Minister John Howard says that the Government plans to toughen up migration requirements, but they will not be difficult for “fair dinkum” migrants. Along with having to wait four years instead of three to apply (just in the nick of time, Billybob), citizenship applicants will have to pass an English test to be an Aussie.

Says Howard:

“I mean the great unifying thing about this country is language, I mean our culture, the culture of any country is heavily defined by its language.

“Because along with the language comes the literature and the cultural history bound up with it.”

“It won’t become more difficult if you’re fair dinkum and most people who come to this country are fair dinkum about becoming part of the community,”

But as the recent history-in-schools debate has shown, only the Liberal-approved literature and culture will come in the bundle. It’s not fair dinkum to question the official version of the past. It’s definitely not fair dinkum to have any sort of “black armband” view of history.

So, there’s another useless and loaded term to add to our list of citizenship requirements. You must respect hard work, have mateship and be fair dinkum. Basically, don’t be different to us, even though there’s no single description of “us” and many Australians don’t possess those qualities anyway (whatever they are).

Billybob, being too lazy to actually log in and write a proper post (he’s probably forgotten his password), has raised some interesting questions in this comment. As a native Londoner who’s only been an Australian for a couple of years his observations of this country are valuable. I also think they would make for some useful debate fodder so here are two of the points:

Can someone please explain what the Aussie work ethic is?
My belief is that this statement is based on the 1950s immigrants from the Med., who to quote Starship, ‘built this city’. It is not based on the current 25-40 year olds that I come across, who all seem to be in Marketing and work a 25-hour week. Added to this, the ‘true’ hard workers of this tax paying generation all seem to be ‘new’ immigrants, (last 15 years or so). Regardless of whether they have ticked a declaration to work hard, speak English and pour beer onto their onions on the BBQ, these are now the people many Australians rely on to get through their daily life. I for one require my local 7-11 to be open when I fall out of my taxi at three in the morning after falling in love with the barmaid.

Where is middle Australia?
I know who they are in theory, but I look through the real estate prices and think is middle Australia really where people think it is. Look at the number of restaurants and bars there are. They all seem to be full, even on a Tuesday night… Booking is not an option.

Get thee to comments and let’s get to the bottom of this stuff.

After being reported missing yesterday Kim Beazley has been sighted on the opinion pages of The Age. Accusing Amanda Vanstone of distracting attention from work visa issues by calling him a racist, Kim does the same, distracting attention from his being called a racist by focusing on work visa issues. Apparently it’s a race to the bottom in the brave new world of WorkChoices — and I can’t much argue with that.

So some ticks for Kim’s efforts to turn the debate around and have it on his terms, but some crosses for his continued oversimplification of the IR debate with lines such as this:

And in the end, this is not about xenophobia or rogue bosses — this is all about the Prime Minister’s wages race to the bottom. Labor will halt the race to the bottom by ripping up the mechanism that allows it — Australian Workplace Agreements.

And Kim even found the space in his article for an opportunistic plug for his pathetic and xenophobic values pledge policy:

But I am strongly of the view that workers who come to Australia should understand the Aussie work ethic, and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

It’s one of the reasons I want these workers to sign up to these values when they come to Australia.

But most offensive is Kim’s ongoing pursuit of mediocrity, with his continued pitching of all policy to “middle Australia.” The article was bookended with claims that John Howard and WorkChoices are “delivering a one-two punch to middle Australia.” Can’t really argue with that, but I’d like to think that a Labor government would govern for all Australians, not just the middle, with a vision for greatness, not ordinariness.

Sorry, Kim Beazley, I’ve had enough. You’ve been opposition leader for the better part of a decade and I thought you’d have got your act together by now. Fair enough, you still feel bitter about having the win snatched from your waiting paws in 2001 but isn’t it time to move on? You’ve been leader this time around for over 18 months and we still don’t know what you stand for. John Howard’s advice on the weekend to state Liberal opposition leaders was this: “You’ve got to develop, over a longer period of time, an alternative policy, an alternative story as to how you want the state governed.” Good advice, Kim.

I’m a fairly keen political observer and all that comes to my mind when I try to think of your policies is: abolish AWAs, set up some sort of ISP porn filter, and boost politician superannuation to pre-Latham levels. Oh, and of course your latest split-second brainwave: put an Australian values checkbox on immigration forms.

That has got to be the lowest of the low, Kim. Instead of developing proper, considered and grown-up national security policy you put on your racist hat and populist pants and try to out-Howard John Howard.

You’re an embarrassment, Kim. Almost every single one of your policy announcements seems, at best, ill-considered and, at worst, totally reactive. It’s hard to think of anything you’ve said of any substance that wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the Government, the unions, or somebody within your own party. And worse is the distinct impression that I get of you being somewhat disinterested and lacking passion in the job. I know you started shouting more in Question Time earlier this year but it’s quite obvious that your increased volume is nothing more than an attempt to prove that you are in possession of “ticker”.

You see, Kim, I really want to vote for Labor. I desperately want to vote for Labor. It would take something very, very big to make me vote Liberal. But, Kim, you’re doing everything you can to make me cross to the dark side.

It’s time to go, Kim, before it’s too late. Quit now so that your successor has half a chance to establish themselves before the ‘07 election.

Say what you like about Mark Latham, but at least he had a vision for the nation and the entire electorate knew exactly what he stood for. And we knew he believed in it himself.

UPDATE (6.55pm): SBS News has just reported that about 3.5 million tourists arrive each year on electronic visas and don’t fill out any visa paperwork on the plane or upon arrival. So, Kim, did your homework then?

On September 11 the slippery argument of whether Australia is safer or not after five years of “war on terror” was always going to pop up. John Howard says yes, we are safer and has called on Muslims to learn English, integrate, and denounce terrorism. Kim Beazley says no, we’re not safer and has called for tourists and immigrants to sign up to Australian values (”respect for each other, mateship, fairness, freedom and respect for our laws”), along with the teaching of Australian values to immigrant children in schools.

You see, if only all of them Muslims would become more like Steve Irwin everything would be okay and you could throw your fridge magnet out. Steve Irwin was so Australian he even died like an Australian. Does anybody else find this populist and xenophobic attitude offensive that “if only they were more like us, instead of more like them” our Way Of Life™ wouldn’t be threatened?

And what is this Way Of Life™ anyway?

But back to the point, and the superiority of Australians and Australian values. All Muslims should became Australian (because, you know, Muslim is a nationality, not a religion) because no Australian’s ever done anything contrary to our Way Of Life™ before.