Liberal Politicians Are Mad At ASIO For Asking Them Not To Say Inflammatory Things About Islam
What would ASIO know about national security anyway.
Post-Tony Abbott’s unceremonious booting from the Prime Ministership, the former PM and his most ardent supporters have taken to venting their hurt feelings by sneakily going against Malcolm Turnbull’s directives and daring him to call them out. Conservative Liberal MPs have made headlines a few times now by openly criticising decisions Turnbull makes that could be seen as a sign the government’s becoming more progressive; WA MP Dennis Jensen described the Paris climate summit as “essentially meaningless” even as Julie Bishop was talking it up in the media, and his NSW counterpart Craig Kelly even mocked the Paris Treaty on Facebook.
But the biggest issue by far where they’ve deliberately stepped on the new PM’s toes is national security; specifically, the threat posed by radical Islamic extremism, and the corresponding need to mend frayed ties between government, police, security agencies, Muslim communities and broader society. Turnbull’s call for “mutual respect” and an end to hateful extremist rhetoric of all kinds in the wake of the Parramatta shootings was a big contrast to Abbott’s demand that Islamic groups “mean it” when they condemn acts of terror.
In response, Abbott in his new ex-PM shoes has continued to stir the pot, saying that Australia is “in denial about a massive problem within Islam,” that “all cultures are not equal” and calling for “a religious revolution” in Islam. Abbot’s comments have already done damage — Indonesia’s Australian ambassador responded to them by saying that “a rhetoric boasting of cultural and religious superiority over other cultures and religions is unhelpful and divisive” — but his backbencher mates have been even more inflammatory. Former soldier turned newly-minted pollie Andrew Hastie, Reclaim Australia rally-frequenting Queensland MP George Christensen, Andrew Laming, Kelly and others have been dropping little thought bubbles about Islam all over the place, including this pearler:
Insightful stuff. But while it may give the rogue backbenchers some weird satisfaction to defy Turnbull, all the fightin’ talk about Islam is making it harder for security agencies and community workers to do their jobs. Last week former Australian army commander Peter Leahy warned that “political polemicism … [does] “not do us any service [and] diminishes our ability to understand what is happening,” while terrorism expert Abdul-Rehman Malik said inflammatory, divisive language of the kind employed by Abbott and co. “actually feeds in to IS propaganda” back in June.
It’s gotten so bad that ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis has taken the unusual step of phoning government MPs and asking them to tone their language down when they speak publicly about Islam and national security. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Lewis said he thinks “it behoves Australians to recognise the backlash is something very, very dangerous,” and that he doesn’t “buy the notion the issue of Islamic extremism is in some way fostered or sponsored or supported by the Muslim religion.”
Rather than take the advice of the guy in charge of Australia’s national security, though, conservative pollies and The Australian are accusing Lewis of “playing politics” and trying to censor debate. Quoted in the Oz, Jensen argued that “to say something is off limits and should not be discussed is extremely anti-democratic,” and that “free speech was not won easily,” while Christensen said: “If we can’t say there’s a problem within Islam and it needs to be sorted out by the moderate Islamic leadership and that is somehow anathema and will cause national security issues, well goodness me, where do we stop next?”
Head of ASIO sounds out of his depth. Worry. — Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) December 16, 2015
Today’s movie is Greg’s Choice, in which a teary newspaper columnist must decide between his two great loves: ASIO and Tony Abbott.
— Jeff Sparrow (@Jeff_Sparrow) December 16, 2015
Given the Abbott government was pretty happy to use national security as a political sledgehammer to get its way on everything from offshore detention to data retention, it’s a bit rich to suddenly start throwing accusations of suborning the national interest for political gain around. It’s also interesting that the politicians yelling the loudest about the “threat” Islam apparently opposes are the ones least interested in understanding the complexities and realities of the problem. As strategies to troll the Prime Minister go, picking a fight on national security with the guy in charge of national security probably isn’t the best way to go.