In a new and disturbing first, immigrant communities are now driving Australia’s foreign policy in ways that are at odds with the national interest.
The Albanese government’s changing policy towards the Middle East is the result of pressure from Muslim activists. There are now three websites, which this paper reports are “circulating among political and community circles”, seeking to mobilise the country’s almost one million Muslims to use their local voting power to force the government to change Australia’s long-held and previously bipartisan support for Israel as the only liberal, pluralist democracy in the Middle East.
This was most memorably expressed in Bob Hawke’s immortal statement that if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.
Labor frontbenchers, such as Tony Burke and Jason Clare (whose electorates are more than 30 per cent Muslim), failed to condemn unequivocally the October 7 atrocities, have supported local councils flying the Palestinian flag and have told local Muslims that they’re advocating for them in cabinet. The Albanese government only briefly suspended aid to the UN agency active in Gaza, despite clear evidence that much of it has been channelled to Hamas and that staff were involved in the October 7 killings.
Anthony Albanese was very slow to make a solidarity call to his Israeli counterpart after October 7, despite the terrorist murder of an elderly Australian, but was almost immediately in critical contact when an Israeli drone strike mistakenly killed an Australian aid worker.
Worst of all, our Foreign Minister has called for the recognition of Palestine even though this would reward the apocalyptic death cult that has been running Gaza.
This is not the first time that foreign fights have seeped into Australian politics and it’s not the first time that religious activists have influenced our public life. But it is the first time in our history that religious pressure has been put on our leaders to take a position that’s at odds with our national interests and our national values. And this eruption of ethnic politics into what’s best for Australia should be a reminder that migration doesn’t just build the country; it can change it, too, sometimes in unwelcome directions.
It’s hardly surprising that cultural roots should play a part in people’s contemporary attitudes. Think Irish Australians and the 1916 conscription debates and the involvement of the Catholic hierarchy in the anti-communist campaigns in the union movement of the 1940s, later playing out in the ALP split in 1955. What’s new now, though, is this unabashed appeal to a transcendent religious loyalty, with partisans in a foreign quarrel trying to drive a change to our national policy.
Exhibit one is the Muslim Votes Matter website: “The Muslim community,” it declares, “is the largest and among the fastest growing minority groups in Australia. Our collective voting bloc is the most valuable, yet under-utilised asset we have.” Muslim Votes Matter aims to unlock “this highly influential tool”, as the website call it, in the “over 20 (federal parliamentary) seats where the Muslim community collectively has the potential deciding vote”. That may not sound like much, says the website, but “in the last 25 years no federal government has been elected by a margin of more than 15 seats”.
It specifies 32 federal seats (all bar two currently Labor held) where Muslim votes “have the potential to move the needle” and for each one shows the Muslim vote against the seat’s margin.
Unsurprisingly, the MVM website claims discrimination against Australian Muslims, complaining that “Islamophobes” have protested against the opening of mosques and declaring that Australian Muslims “have had enough” and “will no longer tolerate bias and veiled racism”.
Harnessing religious solidarity with Marxist militant minority tactics, and cleverly pitched to culturally adrift adolescents and young adults, the aim is to have the 4 per cent of voters who are Muslim change the national position, not just on Palestine but “on a broad range of issues … which resonate most with the Australian Muslim community”.
The most critical, of course, is “Australia’s foreign policy response to the growing atrocities in Gaza”. “A more engaged Muslim voter base,” says the website, “benefits all Australians, and in particular those from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds.” Even though the website also claims to be politically independent and “solely dedicated to serving the best interests of the Muslim community in Australia”.
Then there’s My Vote Matters, a website run by the Islamic Council of Victoria that says it has “run four successful campaigns”. It says 70 per cent of Muslims are “extremely” or “very concerned” about right-wing extremism and 82 per cent of Muslims think their political representatives “don’t care” about Islamophobia. Its 2022 Victorian election scorecard heavily preferred the Greens and Labor over the Coalition.
As well there’s The Muslim Vote, urging Muslims to vote in accordance with MPs’ position on the “genocide” in Palestine. Those stated to have shown “support for Palestine” include Labor’s Ed Husic, Graham Perrett, Tony Zappia, Julian Hill, Maria Vamvakinou and Anne Aly. The “our campaign is backed by” section of the website merely says “coming soon”, although it also says “our supporting organisations enjoy the support of hundreds of thousands of Muslims”.
Muslim leaders and community organisations are not the only recent immigrant groups seeking to change Australian government policy and, sometimes, foster grievances against broader Australian society. A decade or so back, the local Indian community felt not enough was being done to protect Indian students against attacks by gangs. There are various “united front” groups active inside the Australian Chinese community in support of Beijing that were thought to have used their influence strongly against the Morrison government, particularly in online Chinese language spaces.
What’s striking, though, in this push by Muslim leaders to change Australia’s policy on the Middle East is that there’s no attempt to appeal to Australia’s long-term national interest. It’s taken for granted that what matters most is local Muslims’ solidarity with their fellow Muslims abroad.
Australia’s Muslim leaders (and also much of their communities), it seems, aren’t thinking as Australians who happen to be Muslims but as Muslims who happen to reside in Australia. If they were thinking as Australians, there would be at least as much emphasis on the return of the hostages as on an immediate ceasefire. Perhaps this is to be expected given Islam’s lack of any notion of the separation of church and state and its “death to the infidels” instinct that many local leaders seem to be playing up rather than down.
Most troubling has been the pressure put on politicians and law enforcement to change the language on Islamist terrorism: first to drop any mention of “Islamist” and call it “religiously motivated extremist violence”, and now, as advocated by an alliance of peak Islamic groups, to drop any mention of religion at all and refer to it as ”politically motivated extremist violence”.
Even when the teenagers arrested in connection with the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel quote the Koran and have images idolising Osama bin Laden. Coupled with the hate speech spewing from influential mosques and websites, we can’t pretend away the links between radical Islamist theology and terrorism.
Right now, at 765,900 last year, immigration is far too high. It is depressing wages, boosting housing costs and clogging infrastructure. And without a much greater stress on the importance of migrants joining Team Australia, we’re at risk of importing all the troubles of the wider world, of which the Gaza conflict is just the most obvious immediate example.
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