‘Don’t migrate unless you want to join our team’: Abbott meets Islamic community THE AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 18, 2014 TONY Abbott has called on the Islamic community to speak out against extremism and embrace “Team Australia”, and said the national flag should always be flown alongside any other flag. The Prime Minister today met with Islamic community leaders in Sydney to discuss his government’s national security strategy to combat the phenomenon of young Muslims joining extremist factions in the Middle East. The meetings are aimed at rebuilding bridges with community groups that campaigned against the government plan to scale back racial vilification laws, dumped on the day Mr Abbott announced the new laws to target terrorists. LAWS: PM reaches out to Islamic leaders “We’ve got a serious problem of radicalised people going to the Middle East to fight with terrorist groups. Some of them are going to want to come back to Australia and they do pose a risk if they do because they’ve been radicalised, militarised and brutalised by the experience,” Mr Abbott told Sydney radio 2GB. “We do have to be vigilant against it and my position is everyone has got to be on ‘Team Australia’ — everyone has got to put this country, its interests, its values and its people first. “You don’t migrate to this country unless you want to join our team and that’s the point I’ll be stressing.” Mr Abbott, abandoning the free speech reforms on August 5, said the proposal had become “a complication” in his effort “to work with the communities of our country as ‘Team Australia’”. Asked today about Australians flying the flags of radical Islamic groups, Mr Abbott said: “The only flag that should be flying is the Australian national flag. “If people want to be flying other flags — a corporate flag for instance — fine, but the Australian national flag should always be part of it.” Mr Abbott said it was important to “encourage the moderate mainstream to speak out”. “Overwhelmingly our country is comprised of good, decent people who want to put Australia and its people first,” he said. “It’s important that individual communities can’t be caricatured on the basis of a militant few rather than … the sensible majority.” Later, Mr Abbott told a “multicultural media conference’’ in Sydney that the proposed terror laws were not about protecting “one group of Australians from another group of Australians’’, in an apparent reference to concerns from the Muslim community. He said it was in the “absolute interests’’ of every community to “expose and to counter any potential for home-grown terrorism’’. “Because if there is one thing that could damage the rich and strong social fabric of our country, it would be a mass casualty event,’’ he told the forum. Mr Abbott is concerned that the 150 Australians involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq may bring their radicalised view of Islam back to Australia. “The last thing we should be is complacent about this,’’ Mr Abbott said. “We’ve been successful up until now in identifying and preventing potential terrorism. “I pray to God that we continue to be successful in this very important (area).’’ Included in the government’s $630 million counterterrorism package is a funding boost for the Australian Federal Police for its “community outreach” programs. But the Islamic community is more concerned about parts of the package that make it a criminal offence to visit a “designated area” without a valid reason, such as seeing family or doing humanitarian work. Islamic leaders told The Australian yesterday the Prime Minister should not finalise the new laws without detailed input from the community. President of the Sydney-based Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan, who said he would not be attending the meeting, called for community engagement and national debate about the laws. “We need to be careful we’re not going back to John Howard days with the first terror bills,” he said. “There needs to be clear community consultation that this isn’t targeting one group of the community, or as Abbott says ‘Team Australia’. “All team members need to be told what the strategy is.” Groups including the Arab Council of Australia and Lebanese Muslim Association were angered by the government’s election commitment to amend Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Mr Abbott dropped the reforms to 18C when he announced the counterterrorism powers on August 5. (theaustralian.au/national-affairs/dont-migrate-unless-you-want-to-join-our-team-abbott-meets-islamic-community/story-fn59niix-1227028006917)
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 07:17:20 +0000
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