Straight Talk Costello: Fast Track to Prime Minister
Transcript from ABC Australia Lateline Show.
This cropped up all over the net in the form of chain-email and is now worldwide. It’s about an interview with Australian Treasurer Peter Costello making some hot comments about radical Islam and it’s desire to return to the Caliphate and Sharia laws worldwide. Apparently few others in these sorts of leadership positions have the guts to say what he says. In fact it’s quite sensible.
excerpts:
What I’ve said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don’t feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they’d feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.
But there are some clerics who have been quoted as saying they recognise two laws. They recognise Australian law and Sharia law. There’s only one law in Australia, it’s the Australian law. For those coming to Australia, I think we ought to be very clear about that. We expect them to recognise only one law and to observe it…if you can’t agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps then that’s a better option.
I’d be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It’s not the situation in Australia. It’s not the situation under our Constitution. There’s only one law in Australia. It’s the law that’s made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There’s no second law. There’s only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it.
Australia, especially with this current Howard Government has often been more pragmatic as opposed to Politically Correct when it comes to matters of immigration, and asylum.
Sometimes this is good common sense as in now, he is dead on saying you should accept the laws of the country especially when you choose to live in it.
But other times this type of thing has become divisive and a bit rampantly nationalistic – creating “us and them” barriers that work against integrations and in part contribute to crap like the riots that occurred in Sydney last December – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots.
I’m an Australian and am pretty happy with the aussie government’s stance. There is a general consensus view (that not everyone agrees with) and the government (and opposition) pretty much stick to it – there seems to be a lot less philandering to political lobby groups and minority interests that seems to go in other places (not to say it doesn’t happen but definitely not as extreme as in the US).
I assume the same message applies to those who believe that we should live according to Bible as well as state laws. “if you believe in “one nation under god” crap, then go back to USA, you potential terrorist!”, eh?
There is nothing here in Australia stopping you from believing in or following God. Last time I checked, “biblical law”, if you can call it that, was be kind to your neighbours and stay out of trouble. In fact, a Christian friend of mine told me the bible tells him to obey the laws of the land.
When was the last time you heard a Christian clergyman screaming for the right to stone a rape victim to death?
Yeah, I’m not sure how a bunch of people descended from genocidally racist, ex-cons became such a likeable bunch of folks we tend to find ourselves aligned with so frequently on the issues.
Oh, right. We have a lot in common.
White power, diggers, white power!
At long last, we’ve finally found someone whose intolerance is inferior to our own!
4: So you’re saying that Catholics are preferable because they haven’t killed anyone outright or just because they don’t talk about doing so openly? Sounds like a courage of conviction issue.
Or is this an instance where I’m not supposed to be drawing moral equivalencies?
Forcing conformiality is the worst aspect of human kind.
In a Democracy you are free to speak against democracy itself… If it’s only speaking and not resorting to violence, that should be ok.
Now, if you’re in a country you must obey it’s laws. In Rome be like the romans. If you try to build a sub-country of sorts inside a bigger country, then you’re really asking for trouble…
Lets have some honesty here. Multi-cultural states just don’t work well. You have multiple groups always pulling a nation in different directions and competing for limited resources. Yes it would work if people would play nice together, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t understand why some people insists on living in this Utopian wonderland in their mind, while centuries of human history proves it to be just a fantasy. America was only a melting pot when new immigrants adopted the existing culture as their own. Newer groups wants to keep their own culture and force others to tolerate it or else. They just don’t want to come to America, they want to reinvent it.
All I can say is “Bravo” clap clap clap “Bravo”
We could use a little of this common sense here in Canada.
As intolerant as it seems, a tough stance may be the only way to weed out extremists.
Of course, the chuckle is that some folks supporting this position — are the first to whine because it’s been the law of the land for decades in France. Conservatives are as PC as Liberals. If it satisfies their own narrow preconceptions.
btw — I think the Oz gov has it right on this one.
Just like the French.
Max, You’re suggesting that the Islamic people are right? There are two laws in Australia?
You can’t have it both ways… On the one hand, you’re saying the Christians shouldn’t be spouting religious beliefs, while on the other, you’re saying that it’s OK for Islamic folks to do it.
So, which is it?
Way to go, aussies!!! Personally, I’m fed up with the damn political correctness that rules here in Europe.
If a nation has to enforce sharia law then what about french law, chinese law, canadian law etc. What about separate laws for the rich and another for the poor. You choose to live in a country because you respect thier laws. If not find another country. There’s lots to choose from. There is one set of laws so everyone gets treated equal.
Might not have been the most eloquent speech, but his jist is correct. Of course, if enough Muslims get elected to power in parliament, the can in fact change the course of the law. That’s what’s great about democracy, you only need a majority, not a reason or sense…
As for religious law, in Canada, the Christians and jews were allowed to practice their own religious laws for family affairs. Until the muslims started bringing up their own issues in family law affairs were they all struck down. Which is a “good thing”. There should only be one law to live under… No religious law should be allowed to set the course, for a family or a nation… You can choose to live by God’s law, whatever that is, but you shouldn’t expect it to supercede the nations law.
Nick: We’re the same, you and me. We’re the same, don’t you see?
Bill Foster: We are not the same. I’m an American and you’re a sick asshole.
–Falling Down, 1993
Dean:
No, that would be a false dilemma. The intolerance professed by radical Imams is self-evident to me, so much so that to even acknowledge it is to strain the obvious.
That said, I simply don’t think it’s rational to respond to intolerance with intolerance. I don’t care if someone wants to propose the solution to the world’s problems is to eliminate all people like myself; being maternally Jewish alone I’ve lived with the literal consequence of this kind of thinking since birth, and it remains as relevant as the prospect of being nuked by the commies.
Certainly I wouldn’t want to been seen on the street in Gaza with a bottle of Manischevitz any more than I’d cut holes in a sheet and parade through Crenshaw. I’ve also hung out with Klansmen and cons with Nation of Islam and shared Southern Comfort and menthols without having to agree with the folks in question.
Is Prime Minister Howard less intolerant than the demographic he addressed in this interview? Love it or leave it has fewer long term effects than “we will drive you into the sea” or “we will bury you”.
Riots, bombings, explosive shoes and paranoid schitzophrenics gunning down people at the Jewish community center downtown in my city notwithstanding, when it comes to prioritzing my concerns about the liklihood of finding myself subject to or threatened by violence, all the radical clerics in the world are one blip on a radar that looks like someone kicked over a bee hive.
Not only has this subject been blown completely out of proportion to me, but I find overwhelmingly that those most vocal in their concerns tend to have much in common with those responsible for it. I’m just as much the great Satan as anybody; that said, I’m also not down with killing off the leaders and converting the remainder to Christianity, deporting them, or even discussing the subject in terms of an “us or them” proposition.
If somebody shows up at my house, they’ve hopeful either come for coffee or armed. The former is no big deal; the latter is a bridge I’ll burn when I come to it, something I’ve come to terms with personally, having done it a few times already.
#17…Max….sorry dude….but first, this wasn’t the Prime Minister who made these remarks. But, it is the view of his goverment.
No one is saying love it or leave it here. Whats being said is, that there can only be one law in a land and in Australia, it’s a civil law. It’s not the law of the Christian, Jew or Hindi or Muslim, it’s a CIVIL law that applies to one and all who choose to live in Australia.
And there’s nothing bigoted about saying it. If you move to Saudi Arabia Max, then tell them you choose to live under the laws of the U.S. while in S.A. you might be told just where you can put those U.S. laws.
It’s to be expected that if you move to another country, any country that you follow the laws of that country….if you don’t like those laws, you can(if it’s a democracy) stay and work to change them, or you can go to another country that suits your lifestyle better.
Pakistan is a good example of a nation trying to live under civil law and Sharia law, and it’s not working. The Pakistani courts just recently freed a man from prison for a crime he committed 10 or 15 years ago. But upon his release he was taken to Sharia court and condemned to death. A huge struggle went on for months and the man had to be allowed to leave the country for his own protection because the Sharia court ordered him to be killed by any good Muslim that came across him.
Is that what you expect goverments to do by allowing sub-laws to operate?
No, sorry Max….you live in some parralell universe apparently if you think this sort of thing can be condoned and tolerated by any goverment any where.
Joshua:
Aw, hell; did I mis-attribute a source? Good thing I’m not even a blogger anymore; I’d have to publish a correction.
Other wise, the key points that prompted my response stand. the treasurer *Ahem* was saying that people with idealogical differences should leave the country.
Sure, he demurred in spinning the position as merely excercising the other portion of certain residence excercise the other portion, and wouldn’t be nailed down when Sheik Omran and Abu Bakr were suggested as examples. It remained that the area of concern was not in light of specific criminal cases, but as a hedge against Anti-Americanism “morphing” into “Anti-Westernism”.
Otherwise, you can talk civil law all day and it remains that you can say whatever you like and not be found at issue with it until it’s broken.
As for religious law, in Canada, the Christians and jews were allowed to practice their own religious laws for family affairs. …
Comment by Named — 8/24/2006 @ 8:50 am
Sorry Named, but that just isn’t true. Civil law has never been supplanted by religious law. In fact, the only religious organization with their own court is the Roman Catholic Church. But even their court ruling have never even influenced civil law. Muslims advocated for a mild form of Shiria Law for civil affairs. Even that would have been subservient to established civil law.
BTW, I grew up and lived in Canada for 40+ years.
It is possible to follow (personally) two codes of law. But one must have precedence. Example: Christians are asked to obey the government except when it directly contradicts their belief. (if murder is legalized, do not do it, but if not murdering becomes criminalized, still don’t do it). If a Christian is caught in a situation where he must disobey the government, he should fully expect said government to uphold its own laws. To relate this more nearly to the subject matter (although I do not know Sharia law at all) – if you are Islamic, and the civil court tells you to give your neighbor a fine because you looked at him strangely, go ahead and do it, follow the law – just do not expect the Australian government to enforce this matter. They will enforce their own laws, and leave it to you whether or not you additionally follow another code – the representative here is merely saying that Austrailia does not recognize said other codes, and if you violate Austrailan law in following them (say stoning a criminal) then they will enforce their own law, and not let you away with the cop-out of “Allah (or God, or John Wayne, or whoever) told me to”
Interesting dialogue. Some comments show the truth in FREE SPEECH.
Long live freedom. Two laws? Secular and religiuos? Never can happen in a real democracy. Religious dogma is for the non-thinker, being too lazy to realize the danger in religious dogma. Democracy allows thinkers to flourish, civilization to advance, and the human condition to improve, not equally for all. The reason is simple, too many lazy non-thinkers falling back upon religious dogma. “If GOD had meant for man to fly…,”
If Muslims want thier Sharia, then why can’t it be used to create paradise here on earth for all? Why do Muslims preach peace, then act intolerently towards other religions of THE BOOK? Religious Dogma blinds them to the TRUTH of thier evil ways, when they kill in the name of ALLAH. Muslims pick and choose what they read and remember, for the ease of thier wrongness. That is the DEVIL’s way.
And what is the difference between JAHID and CRUSADE?
What is your native language? Think about it! There is no difference other than the language of the person trying to justify murder!
JIHAD equals CRUSADE! It is the intolerent person’s way of justifying criminal acts against humanity! CRUSADE equals JIHAD!
Of course, if you are enlightened, you will see the TRUTH of this, but if you are a non-thinking religious dogma follower, work those brain cells before it is too late. I’ve had my say, thankyou.
Way to go Australia, now please help Europe grow some balls