More on Islamic Killing; Further Downturn in Newspoll

Morrison Confirms Serious Problems with Islamiscists

Last Sunday’s Commentary on the killing by a Somalian (Shire Ali) in Bourke St gave the gist of  PM Morrison’s reaction that   “I am the first to protect religious freedom in this country, but it also means I must be the first to call out religious extremism,” he said. “Religious extremism takes many forms around the world, and no religion is immune from it … But here in Australia, we would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat of religious extremism … is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam.”

Responding yesterday to queries, Morrison said that the terrorist’s past substance abuse and alleged mental health issues are an “excuse” and that he would continue to call out extremist Islam and that this is “the elephant in the room”. He pointed out that Shire Ali’s reported marital struggles and substance abuse did not deter from the fact he was radicalised.  “I think that’s an excuse. This bloke, radicalised in Australia with extreme Islam, took a knife and cut down a fellow Australian on Bourke Street,” he told the Ten Network’s Studio 10 this morning. “I’m not going to make excuses … he was a terrorist. He was a radicalised extremist terrorist.”

He added that he had consulted with a Muslim community leader before he made the initial comments, and that commentators accusing him of “dog whistling” are making excuses for terror. “That is the same lame, old, tired excuse for not dealing with this problem as has always been served up,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s where the majority of decent, hard-working, respectable Australian Muslims are at. They want their communities to be safer” (see Terrorist Had Communicated With IS).

Today’s Australian reports that Mr Morrison has urged imams to identify “infiltrators’’ in their mosques and to be more alert for and proactive towards any signs of radicalisation. It describes the Prime Minister’s “forceful rhetoric” as aimed squarely at imams he believed were “looking the other way’’ when confronted with extremism in their mosques. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has also called for Muslim community members to help bring potentially dangerous radicals to the attention of police. Morrison is reported as claiming that  the “active co-­operation” of Islamic leaders was required to prevent terrorism. “When you’ve got 400 people on an investigation program and 230 people with cancelled passports, there’s no way you can have active eyes on everyone,” Mr ­Morrison said. “No government can achieve that. This is about protecting their own communities, and their own religious communities’ integrity, because at some point a young person is always going to be ­vulnerable. “That’s when these infiltrators go to work. They can sniff it out and in they go. We’ve seen it time and again.”

By contrast, today’s Australian also reports Sheik Omran, the spiritual leader of the Islamic youth centre where Shire Ali ­attended prayer sessions, as ­accusing Morrison of “making the Muslim community a scapegoat to distract from the failure of police and intelligence services to prevent Friday’s attack”. Mohammed Omran, the emir of the Hume Islamic Youth Centre close to Shire Ali’s Meadow Heights home, dismissed the “bloody Prime Minister’s’’ call for imams to do more to stop Islamic extremists, saying the greatest power he had was to dial triple-0 when confronted with a threat. According to The Australian, “the HIYC, a sprawling mosque, cafe, gym and bookstore in the Melbourne suburb of ­Coolaroo, has seen a procession of jihadists and would-be terrorists through its doors, including ­domestic terror plotters and suicide bombers who killed themselves in Iraq” (see Muslim Leader’s Attack on Morrison).

Another report today confirms that Shire Ali had had contacts with Yacqub Khayre ( the man responsible for the Brighton siege last year and the murder of a receptionist) and his friends, as well as being an online friend of infamous Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf in 2014 (the man who posted a photo of his young son holding a severed head online in 2014) (see Ali Had Friends with Other Radicalists).

Judging by the foregoing activity of Shire Ali and his Islamic “friends” (of which more will doubtless be revealed), the anti-terrorist policies and the accommodative attitude adopted toward the Islamic community by former PM Turnbull and Victorian Premier Andrews have, even with the large increase in police and intelligent analysts, clearly been deficient. According to comments by Victorian Opposition Leader Guy,  while Premier Andrews ­ had four years to back the federal government on deportation “the government hasn’t recommended a single person for deportation in four years. Now he says this is on the agenda.” Yesterday Andrews declared the Victorian government “stands ready” to co-operate with the federal govern­ment on deportations and visas, in a break from past responses to ­federal intervention on state law and order (see Andrews Now Supports Deportation and Visas).

But policies need to extend much further into restricting statements by Muslim preachers et al endorsing all of the Koran. Freedom of religion is generally accepted but, in this day and age, it should not allow the preaching of death to believers  in other religions.An experienced analyst of the Koran, Bill Muehelenberg, argues that “the problem is not with ‘extremists’ but with the religion itself. The religion commands its followers to kill the infidel. Its founder led the way here, leaving all Muslims a perfect example of what they should do”… “The simple truth is this: if a Christian kills in the name of Christ, he does so in total opposition to the life and teachings of Christ, and the entire New Testament. However, if a Muslim kills in the name of Allah, he has full justification to do so from the life and teachings of Muhammad, from the Koran, and from the hadith and sira” (see billmuehlenberg.com/2008/11/21/jesus-muhammad-and-violence/).

As I argued in a recent Commentary, the government should publish a paper outlining the beliefs of Muhammad in the Koran, which was put together after the death of Muhammed in 632 but for which he left no records. And other new policies are also needed.

Further Downturn in Newspoll

Last Monday’s Newspoll showed a further drop in the Coalition’s polling to 54/55 on a TPP basis and a drop also in Morrison’s personal satisfaction ratio. As argued in previous Commentary, I believe this reflects Morrison’s failure to indicate policies on major issues. This view is also reflected in an editorial today’s Australian, viz

“Mr Morrison does not need to don baseball caps and give us the thumbs up to convince us he is a suburban dad. We get it. He needs to use the authority of the top job to deliver the reforms and arguments this nation needs. As a Coalition Prime Minister there must be more he wants to achieve on tax reform or energy affordability. He must be concerned about cultural issues such as our university sector rejecting a centre for Western civilisation or a Labor opponent refusing to call out Islamist terrorism. In short, Mr Morrison will win government in his own right only if he provides the central missing ingredient of this dismal past decade of politics: leadership”  (see OZ Says Morrison Needs to Deliver Basic Reforms),viz

“Mr Morrison does not need to don baseball caps and give us the thumbs up to convince us he is a suburban dad. We get it. He needs to use the authority of the top job to deliver the reforms and arguments this nation needs. As a Coalition Prime Minister there must be more he wants to achieve on tax reform or energy affordability.

He must be concerned about cultural issues such as our university sector rejecting a centre for Western civilisation or a Labor opponent refusing to call out Islamist terrorism. In short, Mr Morrison will win government in his own right only if he provides the central missing ingredient of this dismal past decade of politics: leadership”.