Why put terror suspects in “quotes” as though suggesting that they are not terror suspects. They are definitely suspected, and that’s why they are in jail. They may be found guilty or not guilty, but to suggest that they are not suspects is ridiculous, and who says that the evidence against them is pretty feeble? Perhaps he sees himself as Australia’s Noam Chomsky – that old lefty adorns everything he deems as wrong with quotation marks.

Fr. Smith seems to be the only person in Australia who doesn’t know what a person of Middle Eastern appearance looks like, but he insists on preaching to people who do: telling us what we already know and what most of us clearly approve of in the war against terror.

Smith gets the feeling that things in the country will never be the same again. They probably won’t, but of course Smith’s feelings say it is Australia’s fault. It has nothing to do with Islamist terrorists.

He also tells us that multiculturalism is “never discussed”. Apparently he only writes, never reads. As for the need for Muslims to be heard – hell’s bells, all we hear is Muslims moaning and groaning because the host population doesn’t want to accede to their alien ways.

The Nazi and German rubbish is just too silly to comment on. Fr. Smith has clearly shown that the Muslims are not only religion with wacko preachers.

I think it's a bit of a worry that father Dave remembers what burning Reichstag smells like.

The points made by Dave are consistent with the characteristics of fascism identified in this article
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
Just consider how much of Howard's agenda conforms with these characteristics, and be afraid, very afraid.
Of course the deniers will say it couldn't happen here, but thats what good folk of Germany thought too until it did happen. of course if you were one of the chosen in Germany and prepared to turn a blind eye to what was going on you could live quite comfortably. Even now, 60 years after the end of WWII the German people recognise that what happened under Hitler was evil and would never go back to fascism.

While I am concerned about giving governments new powers, people should get it into their heads that fascism here is a long way off. In Italy in the early 1920s and Germany in the early 1930s there were mass fascist parties with thousands of followers including a substantial street presence of paramilitary squads. Italy and Germany were in deep economic and political crises. Fascists were, effectively, the government in waiting.

So, where are they in Australia today? Not even One Nation (with its pathetic rabble and policy-free agenda) in its heyday would qualify. There is no New Guard and white supremacists in contemporary Australia are marginalised. Even the Lebanese gangs would make short work of them in a showdown.

Using the term "fascist" to describe intrusive laws allows the governments which have introduced those laws to marginalise its critics. Like I said, I don't like this conservative "nanny state" (a better description that "fascism" in my opinion) and its creeping intrusions but let's have some historical perspective here.

Am I reading the same piece as everyone else? It seems that most of the posters here don't think to clearly and don’t know their history very well. They also show that they aren’t understanding what the author was trying to say. Now it may come as a surprise to some of you but not all Germans is 35 when they voted Hitler into power were Nazis. Most Germans didn't want the Jew killed yet it happened. The Nazi were able to because racism is a easy thing to incite but a hard thing to quell. Not many people were able to foresee what was going to happen in Europe in 1935. Now if you believe there is not people and groups out there trying to fan the flames (for their own ends)then you really have got your eyes closed. I suggest people have a read of sort of stuff in the media at the time to get a insight to how it happens. See how it comes to be that the majority watch as a small group take control and do terrible things.

So getting back to what Father Bob was talking about why is there still racist (on all sides) in this day and age in Australia.
I would also like to remind people to have a look at John Howard past voting on racial issue in the past. He is willing to play the race card when it suits him. The next post is extract from a letter written in 1933.

I hope I have put it clear enough to realize that the Jewish problem in Germany is a question of life or death of the German race. If such development as was tolerated before Hitler came should be permitted to continue it should be obvious for everyone that in the course of time the face of the German population would change considerably. Germany, as you know, has a population of 66 million people. Among these 66 million are but about 600,000 Jewish citizen. Under those circumstances as described above this small percentage in the course of time could increase rapidly because of conditions of life being more protected against all hardship, marriages being made easier because of professional and business protection which safeguard in turn enables the Jewish woman to give birth to children.

I hope you see that Hitlers anti-Semitism is not directed against the Jewish religion nor against each single Jew. No Jewish citizen here is being molested. News to the contrary are lies and nonsense. Such news naturally are being spread by Jews, since the Jews realize very well, as the newspaper "Jewish Chronicle" published in South Afrika recently admitted, that the Jewish fight for world control through the Hitler Revolution in Germany has received a setback of 100 years of strenuous work.