www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/23/1140670205134.html
Large font By John Garnaut February 24, 2006 THE Treasurer, Peter Costello, has criticised "confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism" and told Muslim immigrants to leave violent cultural baggage at the door. His criticism of Muslims who do not respect Australian values appears designed to present a conservative social image to repair his damaged leadership campaign. "Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes," he told the Sydney Institute last night. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks, don't enter the mosque. "Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don't come to Australia." Mr Costello said those who broke the compact should be stripped of citizenship, if another country would take them. His speech contrasted with an earlier warm welcome to immigrants by the Prime Minister. "I thank all of those who weren't born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia," John Howard told a Woolworths function yesterday, also in Sydney. "We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view." Mr Costello's speech was his first on a matter outside the Treasury portfolio since he renounced the right to challenge Mr Howard for the leadership. Embattled by the Robert Gerard tax-avoidance affair, he said on December 7: "I will be a candidate for the leadership if there is a vacancy, but there is no vacancy." Until then, Mr Costello's supporters had encouraged a belief that he would challenge Mr Howard before this year's budget. Last night he said Australia was an immigrant country whose success was built on respect for political and cultural institutions. He attacked Muslim Australians who supported violence or did not recognise the primacy of Australian law, such as those who supported violent protests against blasphemous cartoons of the prophet Muhammad "I do not like putrid representations like Piss Christ. But I do recognise they should be able to practise their offensive taste without fear of violence or a riot," he said. The speech was framed as a response to politicians who encouraged immigrants to maintain their old country's culture but neglected to ask them to respect the values of Australia. Among those values he listed were economic opportunity, security, democracy, personal freedom, the physical environment and "strong physical and social infrastructure". Those who did not pass the values test should "stay away", lest Australia face a cultural "twilight zone" among second-generation immigrants. "Terrorists and those who support them do not acknowledge the rights and liberties of others - the right to live without being maimed, the right to live without being bombed - and as such they forfeit the right to join in Australian citizenship."
|
http://csua.com/feed/