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I received this in a couple emails but thought it was just another "feel good" piece.

It's nice to know we aren't the only country that struggles with the politically correct police.

Let me let you in on a little secret: John Howard is not particularly popular and Peter Costello is even less so. The conservative line he touts is NOT in keeping with our attitude.

A Fair Go

Costello's statements, if anything, are a great example of what the above ethose is NOT about.

This idea of Australia being a multi-cultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. And as Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle." "This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom"

I find the above sentences to be very insulting. Mr. Costello has a very short memory indeed. Australia IS a multi-cultural society and is most certainly not diluted by our multiculturalism. Our culture, if anything, owes a lot to our multi-cultural roots.

Here is what The Age newspaper had to say on the matter: Link

I am as proud to be an Australian as the next Aussie. While I don't support the government's decision to be in Iraq, I do support the soldiers who are there doing as they're told, doing their job. The paranoia, the state of fear the government would have us live in is not the Australia where I want to live and not the Australia our soldiers are overseas 'protecting'.

Costello's comments highlight the ugly, conservative, racist side of my beautiful country and do nothing but increase this paranoia in some and add fuel to the flames, incensing both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Give it to him, Maso . . .

Costello's comments highlight the ugly, conservative, racist side of my beautiful country and do nothing but increase this paranoia in some and add fuel to the flames, incensing both Muslims and non-Muslims alike

Just as "you" highlight the "other" side of the line?

Just as "you" highlight the "other" side of the line?

Perhaps... I don't really think I stand on the other side of anything. Okay, so I'm not conservative, but I kinda straddle the fence on a lot of issues, which is why I tend to stay away from the political threads. I have as many right leaning friends as I do left leaning. Both 'sides' have valid things to say and issues to put forward just as they also have their fair share of ratbags. Costello, in this instance, proved himself to be a complete ratbag. I would say exactly the same of him if he were Labor, Green, Blue, Red or whatever.

Perhaps, in the sentence you quoted from me, I should not have used the word 'side'. I think I would have been better using the word 'minority' because I believe that is what Mr. Costello is. He is an anachronism, nothing more.

Actualy, I think the Aussie culture, like the American one, and the Canadian one, and the New Zealand one and all of central and south America - is a unique culture.  It is an amalgamation of all that came and settled the lands and made it not at all like the mother country, but unique and distinct.

I sometimes smile when my wife runs into a cultural barrier with the couple from Venezuela.  Although they share a common tongue, that is almost all they share (and the coloquialisms make even that hard at times), and she has to remind herself that Venezuela is not Mexico II

Costello's comments highlight the ugly, conservative, racist side of my beautiful country and do nothing but increase this paranoia in some and add fuel to the flames, incensing both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

I'd like to know how you find this as being racist:

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia and her Queen at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his Ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state, and its laws were made by 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", he said on National Television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia: one the Australian law and another Islamic law that is false. 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 practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option", Costello said.

All he's saying is that "if" you don't want to live by "our" laws that they should leave. That's not racist. All that's saying is either abide by the countries laws or leave. He not being intolerant against a race. He's being intolerant of a group of people who want to live outside of your contries laws and create their own laws. That is something that would not be tolerated in most of the known world nor should it be. That means the group sees themselves as being above the law. While even I find his views as being conservative, I do not find them ugly "or" racist. I wish the US government had more people like him.

I believe Mr. Costello's views are representative of much of what is wrong with Australia at the moment. Remember, I live and work here. I talk to a lot of people, and more importantly, I listen well too. Costello statements would only appeal to a minority of Australians.

I will contend that, according to strict, literal definition, Costello's comments weren't racist, per se, but as a learned man and a senior stateman, he wouldn't say what he did without fully understanding its implications. You and I both know what he really means. The average Aussie is not going to see much difference between intolerance and racism either. You say 'he is being intolerant of a group of people who want to live outside the laws of your country'. Dress it up any way you like it, intolerance of a 'group of people' based on religious beliefs is pretty damn close to racism.

Exactly, maso. In any case Australia is a democracy. Any citizen has the right to lobby for whatever kind of laws they like, even if that law is sharia. The only time we should be expelling people or imprisoning them is when they break our laws.

So far as I'm aware disagreeing with the legal system is not yet illegal.

Costello and Howard are just being their usual selves and sacrificing good foreign policy for a cheap domestic boosts.

Cacto,

Well said, mate. You have put it much more succinctly than I ever could.

I think this match has clearly been won by the Aussies, rather than the poorly informed American . . .

It is their country, after all.

I think this match has clearly been won by the Aussies, rather than the poorly informed American . . . It is their country, after all.

Match my butt! I guess all of you missed my point. I'll say it again for you...

This has been verified with both Snopes and the original broadcast network. Below are the links for verification. Why does it have to be that only the Aussies can get it? Way to go guys. I wish the US would do the same thing. This should apply to our "southern border" also.

So I doubt that I'm as ill-informed as you seem to think I am.

Do you know how Australia manages to keep unskilled and apparently 'undesirable' ethnic types out? The US physically can't use the same techniques.

We're an island, drmiler, and our navy intercepts approaching asylum seekers and deflects them towards either the pacific islands or back to Indonesia. You could potentially do something similar if you used army patrols to kidnap border crossers and let them loose at your border on the island of Cuba, but that would be a lot harder.

If instead you're talking about the rhetoric that Costello and Howard were spouting then I suggest you remember that words are just words; anyone can say them and no one has to do anything after saying them. What you really want are actions, and the US doesn't have the necessary environment to act like Australia does.

First, you are not an island, you are a continent. Second, the US Coast Guard does the same - with limited effectiveness (as I suspect the Aussie navy does as well).