Piers Akerman: Our commitment to Australia no longer defines Australians

The social compact Bob Hawke praised as making us an exceptional nation is at odds with the actions of the Albanese government, writes Piers Akerman.

Australia, we have a problem, a very serious problem.

The social cohesion that Labor prime minister Bob Hawke celebrated in a landmark address on Australia Day, 1988, our Bicentennial year, is busted.

Hawke said the trait that made us an exceptional nation was our commitment to Australia. That commitment no longer defines Australians.

Hawke’s speech is no longer to be found on the official Australian Prime Ministers’ website because the social compact he praised is at odds with the actions of the Albanese government.

This government is rushing through citizenships this weekend in a transparent stacking of electoral rolls in marginal Labor seats in the hope their votes will cancel those who have had a gutful of the government.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke said the trait that made us an exceptional nation was our commitment to Australia. That commitment no longer defines Australians.

These newly minted Australians are in Western Sydney electorates, including that of Immigration Minister Tony Burke’s Watson, as well as in the neighbouring seats of Werriwa, Blaxland and Fowler.

Burke and fellow minister Jason Clare have been painfully reluctant to call out those from their electorates who have been protesting against Israel and demonstrating hateful anti-Semitism.

Tony Burke at a citizenship ceremony this week at Sydney Olympic Park. Picture: NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

As has been repeatedly stated by imams in Western Sydney mosques, the first commitment Muslims must observe is not to any nation but to their religion.

Long accepted Western values such as equal rights for men and women are an anathema to Islamic teaching.

The late mufti, Taj El-Din Hilali, even refused to sit and eat at the same table as a woman reporter from SBS when we met to discuss his interpretation of the Koran.

Many of the edicts spelled out in the Koran are at odds with the values Western liberal democracies have fought and died for since the Enlightenment – all forms of discrimination and slavery being among them.

Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali refused to sit and eat at the same table as a woman reporter from SBS when meeting to discuss his interpretation of the Koran.

Members of the Jewish community showed their disapproval of the Albanese government’s flaccid stand on Islamic terrorism when they booed and walked out when Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was addressing Sky News’ anti-Semitism summit on Thursday.

Among the attendees was NSW Premier Chris Minns, whose strong stand against anti-Semitism shows up his federal counterparts’ belated recognition of the growing crisis.

Teal independent Allegra Spender who, like most Teal MPs, supported Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s $20m contribution to United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has been shown to employ and shelter Hamas terrorists, was also in attendance.

Peter Dutton has vowed to backdate changes to visa laws to deport people deemed to have made anti-Semitic statements if he wins the upcoming election. Mr Dutton says he would change the Migration Act so anti-Semitism was grounds for visa refusal.

The act (section 36C) now permits the cancellation of Australian citizenship for those who hold dual nationality and have been convicted of one or more crimes. Significantly, the minister currently holds wide powers to deport people if they fail the character test.

Deportation can follow if an offence is so serious and significant that it demonstrates that the offender has repudiated their allegiance to Australia or if they have engaged in conduct that demonstrates a repudiation of the values, democratic beliefs, rights and liberties which underpin Australian society.

The act also covers the degree, duration or scale, the involvement, conduct and scale of the offence as well as its impact. Given that many members of the Jewish community fear for their physical safety from the rancid anti-Semitism preached in some mosques, it is high time the Albanese government acted to repair the social compact.

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