Unlike some of the fringe lunatics that congregate on these forums for want of finding gainful employment, Danna Vale has apologised. She is a good decent woman who has put her Christian values into practise. I doubt the armchair Nazis here will follow her example.

Lebanese women had consistently higher fertility at all ages. The average number of live births was 2.61 for the Vietnamese, 2.05 for the Turkish, and 3.83 for the Lebanese.

Within the Australian female resident population who were born overseas and aged 15-49 years in 2000, there was considerable variation in fertility of women from different country of birth groups.

2001
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/ABS@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/2d922684fbfcc802ca256c8c007c74b6!OpenDocument
Women born in Lebanon living in Australia had the highest TFR of 3.5 babies per woman. The next highest TFRs were for women born in Cambodia (2.6), Turkey (2.5) and Egypt (2.3).

For non Lebanese, mainstream Australians it is about 1.8 at best...

"WE" ARE DYING OUT and we just don't know it yet.

do the math and then crucify Dana Vale.

If one segment of the population is growing at 3 times the rate of most others.. the inevitable result is to be 'OVERUN'.

Dana Vales reference to "Muslims" and the obvious hand wringing emotiveness should be interpreted in the light of NOT political correctness but the harsh reality of:

-911
-Madrid Bombing
-London Bombing
-Recent Terror(Muslim) arrests involving an alleged plot to assassinate the PM and his family.
-Cronulla revenge attacks
-Rise of middle eastern crime (much of this Muslim.. ref Tim Priest)
-VIOLENCE related to hurt religious sensibilities over some little drawings.

All of which come from...'which' segment of the world population?

Call this what you like.. I call it 'facts'.

Islam as a faith is not compatable with Australian cultural and religious and legal values, because it relies on the concept of Sharia Law.

The Quran itself legalizes the keeping of captive slave girls and no amount of denial can erase this from the 'noble' Q.

The differing views between schools of Islamic jurisprudence on many issues demonstrates that if we end up with those following the 'harsher' school, we will have them advocating death for apostacy and many other things to be added to our penal code, or, that Sharia be recognized.

Sorry.. Dana was right, she just lacks a party which is prepared to say what needs to be said.

Taya Fabijanic “If we are to encourage Australian mothers to have more children, we need to stop hindrances to childbirth rates. That includes another abortion drug.”

And herein lies the lie.

This statement is a deception.

“Another abortion drug” does not hinder childbirth rates, unless one looks at women in the same manner a farmer looks at his cattle as “breeding stock”.

Encouraging mothers to have more children is a bit like encouraging everyone to wear a seat belt. However, I doubt any politician would suggest significant fines and demerit points for those who ignore the encouragement.

Whilst we live in a democracy, how many children any woman bears through pregnancy to join our populus is an entirely private matter. Deciding whether to choose abortion or not, is just another private matter.

This debate has been marred by a lot of people bemoaning the high incidence of abortion. However, since every abortion is a single and separate and individual decision, that there is a lot of them makes no difference. It is just a lot of different people deciding for themselves, what they want and what they do not want.
Forcing women to endure pregnancies against their own will would be a draconian policy of interference with sovereign rights and akin to the worst excesses of a despotic state. Whilst encouragement is one thing, deliberate obstruction designed to impose a particular social policy is grossly offensive to anyone who believes in the democratic processes through which we are “governed”.

As for Dana Vale, I guess she could qualify as the “token troll” on the government benches.

The thing which Vale ignores (or is too dumb to get her head around) is, over the coming years, the first generation devout “Muslims” within our population will produce children who will likely follow the children of devout “Christians” and forego the excesses of fundamentalism and adopt more secular lives.

They will also assimilate with Christians and in so doing feel even less need to cling to the fundamental rubbish which the Muslim religious zealots spew.

Ms Fabijanic is a fugitive from reality, and if she is furthermore disingenuous about the facts, she is also, "criminally" a fugitive from the TRUTH. The high costs in those sectors of goods and services that she mentions, have been prevalent for many many years now, but these have not prevented Muslim families from having 8 to 10 children. One only has to go to North Melbourne, Flemington, Carlton, not to mention other suburbs, to see this glaring REALITY. The fact is, that since most Muslim married women are voluntarily unemployed, child-bearing, beyond religious precepts, is also a source of income for most families, especially under the generous payments of the government. Go to their government- housed abodes and you will see them furnished with expensive TV sets, and furniture, and driving second-hand cars valued at least between 8,000 to 10,000 dollars. Also, many members of their families go for holidays to their own countries. One can only ask, being unemployed, where do they get the money from to indulge in these rather expensive tastes?

Moreover, Taya illustrates in a most clear way, that if one was to scratch the back of a Western educated Muslim, all the troglodyte ideas of their rigid religious upbringing will come up in the guise of "reasonable" argument. An example of the latter is, that if any one made a comment about REALITY, like Dana Vale did about the incontrovertible statistical evidence of the high birth-rates of Muslim families, Taya would label such a comment as being 100 per cent RACIST. Such a response pellucidly shows, that it's an illusion to expect that one could have an objective and reasonable discussion, even with an educated Muslim.

All should read Mark Steyn's seminal article titled, "Saluting Dana Vale", in todays Melbourne Age.

Blog NEMESIS: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

The Australian Bureau fo statistcis website, publication 1301.1 (public info ww.abs.gov.au)

"the most common religious affiliation of immigrants is Christianity, affiliates of other religions are more highly represented among recent immigrants than in the total population. Between 1996 and 2001, there were just over half a million new arrivals to Australia. Of these, 9% were affiliated to Islam, 9% to Buddhism, 5% to Hinduism and 1% to Judaism"

From 96 to 2001 growth were as follows:

Buddism: 79.1%
Hinduism: 41.9%
Islam 40.2%
No Religion 36.3%

So Australia is likely to become Buddist or Hindu first.

Boaz,

Most Egyptians in Australia are Christian Orthodox.
Will be good to know how Orthodox birth rates compare to secular (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). But I don't think its easy stats to find.

F.H. hope you didn't feel personally attacked by my post.. not meant at all. As u realize this is a forum for 'robust' discussion and most of us will not pull punches just to avoid 'offending' :)

I note your statistics about the growth of various religions.

Some observations:

1/ Buddhism is benign... although it has had its 'moments' where it sees advantage in cozying up to authority, and has been transformed from a non religious philosophy into a 'religion' where the buddah is worshipped and monasteries and power heirachies are established, from the words of a prominent Buddhist on ABC last night, non of these things were intended by the Buddha himself.

2/ Hinduism.. I highly doubt that this would make much head way in non Indian segments of the population. They prefer the Hari Krishnas :) I think even that is kinda dated now. Muslims would have more to worry about from Hindues than Christians.

3/ RADICALS DRIVE THE AGENDA.. this is 'shout' mode to emphasise what has become a 'mantra' of mine. I've never tarred "All" Muslims with an 'evil' brush to my knowledge, my point has always been that if they were in a majority, the radicals and extremists would treat Christians like dirt, as is happening in places like Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. They are using any old excuse (even a Jewish connected publication/cartoonist) to blame Christians and 'The West' and to trample on anything from there.

Islam being such a political religion and way of life, based on the idea of an Islamic state, this is a danger we ignore at our peril.

'Dark forces' are clearly using the cartoon issue to promote a war, which I believe has already begun even without that issue.

Did you hear Abu Hamza's words about 'Karirs' ? "If u meet one in Islamic land.. just kill him or take him to the market and SELL him."
His group FORCEably took control of a mosque there.(UK)

Please note that I referred to birth rates among 'Lebanese' which includes Christian and Muslim.