2GB Nights with Steve Price and Andrew Bolt
Steve Price:
The Minister for Multicultural Affairs joined us last night, we got jammed for time. She’s been good enough to come back on the program. Minister, good evening.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Hello everyone.
Steve Price:
Is Australia getting strong enough political leadership on this issue?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Look, yes I think we are. Can I just pick up yesterday evening and I’m sorry that we didn’t get very much time, on the story that has developed today. I think it will be changing day by day. Can I cut to both of you and particularly Andrew, you asked me some questions yesterday evening, particularly about the religious angle here. It’s very, very clear certainly from the comments that Deputy Commissioner Burn made today that there is the suspicion of the influence of the ideological religious and the political. But what I want to do, if I could just step back here, whether it’s this incident or other incidents that may emerge as a consequence of this incident, I think our Muslim communities around Australia, need to deal with the public perceptions about Islam here in Australia. That’s really where the issue is going. It’s now a matter for the leadership of the Muslim communities to come together and to address the issues and the perception about their religion. As you correctly said Andrew, there are many, many Muslims in Australia, indeed 476,000 or about 2.2 per cent of the total population and basically the overwhelming majority of them are going about their business in a lawful manner, just like Christians and Hindus and other people of religious background. We have religious freedom and they are going about their business and practicing their faith in a lawful manner. What I think this incident is going to do is really bring to the fore a pressure on the Muslim leadership to deal with the perception about Islam here in Australia.
Andrew Bolt:
Merely a perception, or something in the faith that– unfortunately, some of the terrorist groups actually quote the Koran–leads it too easily to be seen as legitimising violence against unbelievers?
Steve Price:
And I might also make the point that this is the third incident that we’ve had in a year. We’ve had Lindt, the Numan Haider incident in Victoria; I mean this is not just this 15-year-old kid. We’ve been doing this over and over and over.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Look can I just say that since May, since Tony Abbott double-hatted me and gave me responsibility in both Social Services–because I look after social cohesion, multicultural affairs and settlement services in that portfolio–and also in community engagement in countering violent extremism, I took the opportunity to write to 160 Muslim groups around Australia. I’ve basically been travelling around Australia talking to a whole lot of different people who have opinions in this space. I’ve been talking to leadership, I’ve been talking to business people who are Muslim, I’ve been talking to a whole range of different people and I have to say that privately many of them have expressed concerns to me about the perception of their religion and the spectrum of Islam. That’s the other thing that is not clearly understood. Our Muslim communities are not homogenous, they come from many different countries, they speak different languages and they come from different spectrums of Islam. It is a complex issue and in many ways it is very similar to the Jewish community–displacement is quite common. I think that as part of the process the Muslim communities–and I say communities because there is so many of them–they need to explain to Australians so that Australians understand better. As you correctly said Andrew, most of them are law abiding and just going about their business and I don’t think it’s really fair that we blame the whole community. We can’t focus on the bad apples, because every community has its bad apples…
Steve Price:
To improve their English language might be a start…
Andrew Bolt:
Steve just going back to the Islam question, have you picked up at all in your consultations any desire or need for the reformation of Islam, much like what the Egyptian President said at the start of the year? There are extremist messages and passages in the Koran, ‘strike the unbeliever…kill him…strike him on the neck,’ all that kind of stuff. They actually use the Koran directly for justification for what they do. Do you sense any need, any concern with the Muslim community leaders here that the Koran needs to be reinterpreted for a new century?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
I think it comes back to the point that there have been people who have said there needs to be a better explanation…
Andrew Bolt:
To who? To us? To Muslims?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Let me step back. I am not a theologian and I’m not an expert. I’m not here to give a dissertation on Islam. What I have understood is the diversity of Islam, is that there’s a spectrum. It’s not like the Catholic Church where the Pope gives us an encyclical and everybody follows that teaching. There are many different teachings, many different interpretations. I think this is not well understood and my personal view here is that you have people who are hell-bent on criminal activity who are using phrases in the Koran for their own purposes, and their purposes are to radicalise people. That’s what I think is happening.
Steve Price:
Can I make a suggestion here? You said you were listening to the program last night and you may have heard some of the program tonight…
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
No I haven’t. I’ve been in a…
Steve Price:
So you heard some of it last night? Are you as a Coalition politician aware of the concern and anger of the non-Muslim community who ring us all night, every night of this week, worried that you and your fellow politicians and the police are not doing enough to protect them.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Well I can understand that, particularly when things like Parramatta happen, that deepens those concerns…
Steve Price:
So what are you going to do about it?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
We are doing everything that we can and Ministers’, certainly Minister Keenan’s been out there today and he is directly responsible for counter terrorism and countering violent extremism. He’s been making certain comments and the assurances have been given that our police are doing everything that’s possible to find people who are hell-bent. We have a whole system that deals with this and Australian authorities are doing the best that we can…
Andrew Bolt:
But people don’t believe that is the case…
Steve Price:
And then you see vision–like on television tonight–during those arrests this morning, of a young women in a Muslim veil snatching television reporters microphones, crunching them into the ground, calling the reporter an ‘f-ing slut’. I mean once that sort of stuff goes out on broadcast each night, Minister you can understand how the general population are concerned.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
I understand that Steve and I share those concerns. Of course we are all concerned. Our primary priority as a Government is to ensure that people are safe. We can do all and undertake all necessary steps in national security, policing, and the New South Wales authorities can take all the steps that they can take, but ultimately we have issues now that are pertinent to our Muslim communities. This is the point that I’ve been making over recent days. Our intelligence and the work of our authorities depend in part on intelligence from our communities. Therefore what I have been saying is that we need to work with these communities. We can’t go into the homes, we can’t go into the schools and the Government is not going to do this on its own. The problem has to be owned by the communities and they have to also own the solution.
Andrew Bolt:
The problem is that, as we saw with that woman today, and with other friends of the dead boy and the accused, is that when it comes to explaining Islam to us it’s no good because these people have a different idea of what Islam is. They feel quite justified in what they are doing, this is the problem. I don’t know that we get anywhere without a reformation of Islam.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Andrew what I do know, and you may well have a point, and I know that there have been scholars and various people who have called for a reform and those sort of issues. What I am saying to you is that it is a very complex issue given the wide spectrum of Islam. There is no, if I can put it this way, one common practice on the spectrum of Islam.
Andrew Bolt:
No, I accept that. What really, really concerns me is that there is not one single leading Muslim scholar in this country that has called for a reform of Islam like we see in other countries. Not one. Look at the Grand Mufti, completely absent from the public space since the shooting. Completely. If we were talking about the Catholic Archbishop they’d be dragged in front of the public square to account for themselves. This guy is silent I mean, he must be so desperately disappointed in some of these guys.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Andrew, can I just perhaps take it from another angle. Many communities that have come to Australia have had problems in their journey to integrating in to Australian society…
Andrew Bolt:
I don’t recall them having bomb plots and stabbing and shooting police.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Well Andrew, perhaps if you permit me to go on, I think each of them does come to what I term a ‘crossroads moment.’ Like other communities before them they need to really seriously look at themselves and I’m pleased to see comments like those from Dr Rifi saying ‘Muslims must tackle terror from within’–he wrote a piece yesterday in The Daily Telegraph–because we are now starting to see this sort of commentary where there are admissions that this needs to be tackled from within. Like other communities before them, each community needs to really look at themselves and say ‘we are part of Australia, our families have come here, in some cases left their home and their children were born here and we have made sacrifices to actually come here. Don’t let those sacrifices be in vain. Don’t let the actions of a few people in your community ruin the sacrifices and the positive things that your communities have done.’ Look in the mid-1980s I saw it with the Italo-Australian community and you’re now going to say ‘that’s very different,’ but today the Italo-Australian community is lauded for its contribution to the rich fabric of Australian society. It wasn’t always that way. There were events in the 1980’s that left the stigma of mafia over an entire community…
Andrew Bolt:
Yes, but it wasn’t religiously sanctioned. There has been a big change in the Government’s rhetoric from yesterday to today. I’m sorry it didn’t occur before my deadline for tomorrow’s column but anyway, that’s going to be a bit out of date…
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
I just didn’t get a chance to say to…[inaudible]
Andrew Bolt:
Why yesterday did you say–or the Government– ‘political violence’ and now you’re freely talking about Islam?
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Since you asked me that question yesterday Andrew, I thought that I would deal with that head on.
Steve Price:
And you have. Thank you for coming back on and giving us extended time. You’ve got a tough job and we appreciate you joining us.
Senator Fierravanti-Wells:
Thank you gentlemen and I’m always happy to come on.