by REX WIDERSTROM – SENATOR Fatima Payman’s resignation from the Labor Party has ignited debate about the capacity of political Parties to represent people of different faiths.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have offered similar opinions on the issue, but expressed differently.
- A group like The Muslim Vote is more interested in international issues.
- “We’re going to make a change and you’re going to hear our voice.”
- The Muslim Vote group said it may also back lower house candidates.
Mr Albanese emphasised that Labor was inclusive of all faiths, and that any move towards faith-based politics risked damaging national unity.
“My Party has … people who are Catholic, people who are Uniting Church, people who are Muslim, people who are Jewish – that is the way that we’ve conducted politics in Australia, that’s the way you bring cohesion,” he told reporters.
FAITH-BASED POLITICS
“I don’t think, and don’t want, Australia to go down the road of faith-based Political parties because what that will do is undermine social cohesion.”
The prospect of Mr Albanese leading a minority government in his next term caused Mr Dutton to similarly reject faith-based politics, saying that such a scenario would be a “disaster” because it would include “The Greens, the Green-Teals … and Muslim candidates from Western Sydney”.
The latter is a reference to the group, The Muslim Vote, set to run candidates in western Sydney Labor strongholds.
The group has met with Senator Payman, who denies she has any intention of joining it.
But Mr Dutton’s comments have angered some in the Muslim community, with Australian cricket international Usman Khawaja describing them as “an absolute disgrace” and accusing him of “fuelling Islamophobia” on X.
The opposition leader did not back down saying a Parliament with such a mix of candidates could be bad for the economy.
“If you’re a senator for NSW, your first charge is to look after residents in NSW,” he told the Today show on July 5, saying a group like The Muslim Vote was more interested in international issues.
Ms Payman, who breached Labor’s unity rule by crossing the floor on a vote about Palestine, eventually quitting the Party to sit on the crossbench, has said it would be wrong to assume her religion was the motivation rather than human rights.
“Religion is something that’s private to me; it determines my moral compass, and it’s a matter for me to hold myself to a higher standard,” she said.
“That being said, I don’t go around imposing my religious views on other people, and neither do I expect that they make decisions the way I do.”
MUSLIM VOTE
The Muslim Vote has announced it will target three Labor-held seats at the next election: Watson, Blaxland and Werriwa. All three are held by high-profile Labor MPs.
Tony Burke, has held Watson since 2004 and is Leader of the House, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for the Arts.
Education Minister Jason Clare has been the MP for Blaxland since 2007. And the MP for Werriwa since 2016 has been Anne Stanley, the government whip.
Watson has a Muslim population of 27.2 per cent and is held by Labor with a margin of 15.1 per cent; in Blaxland the figures are 35 per cent and 14.9; and Werriwa has a 17.2 percent Muslim population and a margin of just 5.8.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 of the 151 federal electorates have five per cent or more people of Islamic faith. Of those, 27 are held by Labor.
Four seats with large Muslim populations are considered marginal: Werriwa, Parramatta, Fowler – which Labor lost to Dai Le at the 2022 election despite fielding Kristina Keneally as its candidate – and the Liberal-held Banks.
Six of the 10 biggest swings against Labor at the election two years ago were in seats with large Muslim communities.
The Muslim Vote group has said it may also back lower house candidates in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT – yet these States have much smaller communities.
The group’s emergence comes after comments from Wesam Charkawi, a pro-Palestine activist and researcher at Western Sydney University.
In March he made a speech outside the office of Labor MP Andrew Charlton in Parramatta in which he said, “We’re going to campaign against you. We won’t forget the rivers of blood [in Gaza] you allowed to unfold on your watch … we’re going to make a change and you’re going to hear our voice.” PC
Carole. Are you aware that the Australian “Peaceful” Muslims have already developed an Australian Sharia Law constitution to govern Australia by when they take the country over. Canberra, they say will be the centre of the caliphate and the flag of Islam will fly above our parliament house.
Islam is an ideology and they do not recognize democracy.
I don’t know much about sharia law although I think there are things about it that might be improvements on we have in Australia at the moment, especially regarding the financial side of things (usary). We are over-taxed and a lot of money isn’t spent well.
Our democracy is constantly undermined and engineered and I don’t know how to stop that either except to vote in some political party like UK’s Nigel Farage’s Reform Party which seems to have some good key points. The following key points were taken from Benjamin Fulford’s newsletter of June 24, 2004) –
REJECT the WEF agenda
Cancel WHO membership
REJECT cashless agenda
Laws to stop woke ideology
Free speech bill
Stop cancel culture
SCRAP Net Zero
Fast-track nuclear energy
Support farmers
SCRAP bans on fossil fuel cars
Tax system to support marriage.
Nigel’s Reform Party didn’t get in but he did get 5 members elected to parliament. This is one to watch as these points are what the people want. Governments in Europe are trying a lot of stuff on the people but they are fighting back.
“I don’t know much about sharia law although I think there are things about it that might be improvements on we have in Australia at the moment […]”
Clearly you know less than nothing about sharia law. Obviously you haven’t taken my advice to learn some history, so here’s a hint: what happened in Lebanon and Kosovo and what is happening now in countries like Britain, France and Germany will happen here in Australia. It appears that you won’t be able to understand this until you are about to be flogged, stoned, or beheaded for some supposed transgression (and I suspect that you may not realise it even then). It’s people like you who are the reason that we are going to be over-run and subjugated.
P.S. It’s also glaringly obvious that you need to bone up on economics and finance.
Personally, I don’t think the powers that be want Australians to know anything about islam except what they tell us. Despite the fact there are close to 1 million muslims in Australia we never hear firsthand opinion from actual muslims about what they believe. All we hear is heresay information about why islam is so bad. Maybe the reason they want to keep us ignorant is because islam doesn’t believe in usury, the lending of money for profit because so much of our western culture is based on making money from speculation. We seem to get all our opinions from the naysayers, those who talk islam down without giving islam a chance to defend itself.
Australia supposedly began its first islamic bank in June 2024. Is this what our western culture built on “capitalism” is afraid of? https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/no-interest-or-socially-harmful-business-australias-first-islamic-bank-explained/a6ceo9g51
“We seem to get all our opinions from the naysayers, those who talk islam down without giving islam a chance to defend itself.”
LOL; you should refrain from commenting about this subject until you have been schooled in history and theology (just to get you started, here is something germane: “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit” – I imagine that you don’t have a clue who said that).
“LOL; you should refrain from commenting about this subject until you have been schooled in history and theology…”
And you should do some unbiased research into the Khazarian mafia for one thing, and usuary for another.
“And you should do some unbiased research into the Khazarian mafia for one thing, and usuary for another.”
I’m sorry Carole, I must admit that I have no interest in usury.
Multiculturalism is a farce when you try to absorb people with an ideology that has zero tolerance for any other worldview and wants to subjugate anyone that does not follow their ways…oh that would be Islam would it not?
There’s no doubt we face a long march through the institutions by Muslims. With 57 member nations of the OIC, Muslim nations make up the biggest voting bloc in the UN. As we’ve seen with the International Criminal Court, and others, they’re stacked with Islamic activists. There’s clearly intetnationally co-ordinated action.
The same Muslim Voice we see here won five seats in last weeks UK general election. The UK boasts nearly 4 million Muslims or 6% of its population while we lag behind with just 3.8%.
It’s too much to expect our brainwashed pollies to recognise the obvious truth, let alone publicly admit it. But we now see empirical evidence that multiculturalism and social cohesion are mutually exclusive propositions.
John W thinks Australia’s head of state should be inferior to, and act for, and answer to the person who is the UK’s head of state.
Because John W is a colonial, who lives on his knees slobbering to a foreign monarch, too cowardly to back Australia.
All powers are vested in the monarch.
The GG has no powers of their own.
Everything the GG does is in the name of, and on behalf of the monarch, as the monarch’s appointed representative.
Every action of the GG is entirely conditional on the pleasure of the monarch.
The GG can be removed or overruled by the monarch at any time, for any reason.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is a lying fool.
Mate, sorry to cut in to your predictable rant, but this is a post about the influence of Islam in Australian politics. Unless we get this right, one day the King of Saudi Arabia may walk down a rose strewn path to the ecstatic ululations of the Ummah in Australia. Then you would be entitled to bleat about the influence of a foreign monarch. And no, he won’t have spent a year at Timbertop either.
It is about the influence of religion on our governance.
AUSTRALIA’S HEAD OF STATE IS HEAD OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
So it is directly relevant to this thread, and the insult of the foreign monarchy, and the disgusting hypocrisy of monarchists…who pretend to oppose religious governance.
Honestly Noel, If we gave you Tasmania and SA, would you just please fuck off there and try tó be happy.
On Islam: these 2 articles sum up it’s effect on Western host nations:
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2015/06/deradicalisation-of-militant-muslims-not-a-viable-option
Professor Kessler, an Australian and expert on Islam notes 85% of ALL muslims actively or indirectly support violent overthrow of Western laws and their replacement with sharia.
https://www.godreports.com/2015/09/how-islam-takes-over-countries/
Dr Peter Hammond shows that as the muslim population increases in the host country increasing strife and conflict occurs caused by the muslims.
Bringing muslims into a Western nation is an act of suicide and the people doing it are traitors.
A Lebanese friend told me “we fled our country to escape these people – they ruined our country, the Paris of the Middle East, now they’re doing the same here”. There are a number of coutries that were once free, open and flourishing with vibrant economies and peaceful living conditions. They must have all experienced this moment that Australia is having thrust upon it now.
During the Fraser Liberal-National Government terms arrangements were made to assist oppressed Christian minority group from Lebanon until Lebanese Muslims infiltrated masquerading as Christians to get to Australia and the Fraser Government ended that programme. During the 1980s Hawke and Keating Labor governments used Immigration for recruiting new members and that was described by media as “ethnic branch stacking”.
Two books worth reading are Confessions Of A Failed Finance Minister by Peter Walsh former Labor MP and Among The Barbarians by journalist Paul Sheehan.
Another irrelevant cut and paste, because you are too gutless to stand behind your own cop out: that Australia’s head of state should be appointed by, and act for, and answer to the person that is the UK’s head of state.
Pathetic.
Quote – see link below
The Australian Constitution does not contain the words “Head of State”, nor was the term discussed during the constitutional debates which resulted in the drafting of the Constitution and its subsequent approval by the Australian people. In the absence of a specific provision in the Constitution, we need to see who actually performs the duties of Head of State in order to determine who is the Head of State.
As discussed in this paper, these duties are performed by the Governor-General, and the Sovereign’s only constitutional duty is to approve the Prime Minister’s recommendation of the person to be appointed Governor-General, or, if the need should ever arise, to approve the Prime Minister’s recommendation to terminate the appointment of a Governor-General. Although the Governor-General is the Queen’s representative for the purposes of exercising the prerogatives of the Crown in Australia, when he exercises his constitutional duties as head of the executive Government of Australia he does so in his own right and not as a delegate of the Queen.
John W thinks Australia’s head of state should be inferior to the person who is the UK’s head of state.
Shame on him.
Quote;
Recognition of God and Religious Freedom
The preamble to the Constitution states, among other things, that the people agreed to unite in a federal commonwealth “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God.” When the Constitution was being drafted, several religious groups and denominations had advocated for the recognition of God in the Constitution [1]. Patrick Glynn, an Irish-Catholic delegate from South Australia, was its most articulate supporter. He put the case for a “simple and unsectarian” acknowledgement of God on the basis that religion is an important source of social cohesion. He said:
The stamp of religion is fixed upon the front of our institutions, its letter is impressed upon the book of our lives, and … its spirit, weakened though it may be by the opposing forces of the world, still lifts the pulse of the social organism. It is this, not the iron hand of the law, that is the bond of society; it is this that gives unity and tone to the texture of the whole; it is this, that by subduing the domineering impulses and the reckless passions of the heart, turns discord to harmony, and evolves the law of moral progress out of the clashing purposes of life… [2]
Although many of the framers of the Constitution were not as devout as Glynn, a majority eventually supported the recognition of God in the preamble. Some, however, were concerned that this might imply that the Federal Parliament had the authority to enact religious laws. If God were to be recognized in the Constitution, Henry Bournes Higgins argued, “a large number of good people” would need to be reassured that “their rights with respect to religion will not be interfered with” [3]. This concern about the effect of the preamble was exaggerated, as others pointed out [4], for the preamble could not be interpreted to confer power on the Parliament. However, the possibility that the Parliament’s other legislative powers might authorize laws that could interfere with religious faith and practice was a real one.
While not as secularist as Higgins, Josiah Symon considered it important to “protect every citizen in the absolute and free exercise of his own faith” and “to take care that his religious belief shall in no way be interfered with” [5]. Similarly, Bernhard Wise thought that each person should be free to “follow his own religious observances” and not be permitted to “impose his will on anybody else” [6]. The prevailing concern was thus twofold: that the Commonwealth be prevented from imposing religious observances, and that it be prevented from interfering with the free exercise of religion. After extended debate, a provision was inserted into the Constitution in the following terms, modeled substantially on the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth (section 116).
It has been argued in several cases that laws enacted by the Federal Parliament contravene this provision. However, in none of these cases has a law been found unconstitutional [7]. Notably, the High Court of Australia has held that the prohibition on establishing any religion only prevents the Parliament from making laws which constitute a particular religion or religious body as a state religion or state church [8]. The Court rejected the proposition that section 116 prohibits laws providing non-discriminatory support for religion, such as by funding religious schools, even though decisions of the US Supreme Court have come to this conclusion [9]. Members of the High Court noted that the preamble to the Australian Constitution contains an acknowledgment of “Almighty God” in the preamble, but declined to draw any legal inferences from this fact [10]. The preamble is not an operative part of the Constitution, but there are cases in which Justices of the High Court have relied on other statements in the preamble to inform their interpretation of the Constitution as a whole [11].
Australia’s head of state is the head of a church.
Yet you disgusting monarchist grovellers claim you don’t want religion in our governance.
The hypocrisy is staggering. You pathetic second class poms should be ashamed.
The Governor General is Australia’s Head of State, however there is no Head of State in the Constitution;
https://www.ourconstitution.org/aust_head_of_state.php
John W thinks Australia’s head of state should be appointed by, act for, and answer to a foreign monarch.
Shame on him.
The question for you is about maturity and intelligence.
The question is about your lack of national dignity, and why you are too gutless to back Australia.
Quote
Today dignity is one of the most significant constitutional principles across the world given that it underpins and informs the interpretation of human rights. This article considers the role of dignity in the Australian Constitution. The starting point is the 2019 decision of Clubb v Edwards, which marked the arrival of dignity in Australia. In that case, the High Court of Australia found that laws restricting protests outside of abortion facilities were justified under the implied freedom of political communication partly on the basis that they protect the dignity of persons accessing those facilities. The article argues that dignity was used in two ways in the Court’s decision: first, as a means of distinguishing natural persons from corporations; and second, as one purpose that a law can pursue that is compatible with the implied freedom. The article develops and defends the first use of dignity, while identifying some challenges that arise with the second use of dignity.