"but the broader Australian community ought to be concerned that this would-be Prime Minister is prepared to undermine social cohesion for political gain".

Should be, but the broader Australian community has shown by electing Howard four times, that issues such as social cohesion are not a priority, and are rarely if ever discussed.

As long as interest rates are low, and they can have their four wheel drive and their flat screen TV, why worry about such esoteric issues as social cohesion.

Australia has much to fear in it's small numbers fundamentalist Christians and their hatred of our way of life.

Oh Greg.
Long have I sided with you on the issue of censorship.
Long have we figuratively stood shoulder to shoulder in the battle to maximise the information available to the public in the knowledge that they, the public, are not stupid and can deal with difficult concepts just fine.
Long has your stance on this point excused, in my mind, some of your more erratic writings.

Why, oh why, would you go and write something like:

"There is no inherent right, nor should there be, for a person's religious or political beliefs to be quarantined from criticism, condemnation or even vilification, Clarke, a member of the secretive Catholic Church-aligned Opus Dei movement, told the NSW Parliament in last September.
If Clarke were a Muslim, one imagines Costello would have used this absurd comment as a prize exhibit in his speech"

Any Australian who practises any religion must not be discriminated against. An Australian is free to practise, or not practice, any religion they want. Those are the laws of this land, and good laws they are.

But those laws don't put your religious beliefs outside the realm of criticism, condemnation, even vilification. I am, and should always be, free to vilify (definition - spread negative information about) fundamentalist Christians and their plethora of dangerous sects, fundamentalist Muslims, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Buddhists and Atheists, so long as my vilification is factual (doesn't amount to slander or libel). I am free, as Coach does here so regularly, to quote "difficult" passages from the Bible (old or new testament), the Koran or whatever texts the Scientologists have.

I cannot discriminate in employment, I cannot refuse service in my shop nor can I refuse to sell my house to someone on the basis of religion. This is, as I said, all good law and fair enough.

But, within the confines of the truth, I can criticise, condemn or vilify to my heart's content.

To deny me such is to attack a freedom that I, and many other Australians, value very highly indeed.

Peter Costello is an Essendon fan - a bit like the countless assistant coaches who have sat at the feet of Kevin sheedy for a quarter of a century waitng for a tilt at the top job a good many drifted off into the willderness once they realised Sheeds was going no where - Just like JW Howard.

No amount of re packaging will help him - he was clearly badly advised on his last speech to the Sydney Institute - it was careless and shameless popularism; that boat in many repsects has left. While many agree with the nonsense he spoke he will garner few new fans. He has just managed to unfairly single out and piss off for no real gain one segment of the community.

He was tactless and if John Winston has anything it is tact and smarts. If the Libs want political nouse and cunning, to replace Howard with Costello is a bit like replacing a clever rat with a truffle pig.

John Winston has no desire to leave and no real need to leave. He is as teflon coated as any world leader. No one has really laid a glove on him in recent years so his party see him, as Alexander Downer has describes, as some sort of benevolent patriarch keeping a watchful eye on his ministers ( read children).

I am loathe to agreee with Andrew "whose sorry now?" Bolt who has suggested Alex might be in the running for the top job; I have rankled some of my ALP cronies for some time with that prediction - He was at the fore front of the PR campaign in the Afghan and Iraq war while the Minsiter for Defence mumbled in the back ground unconvincing and totally over shadowed by Downer and the PM.

Downer will discard the fishnet stocking of his past and a bit like our Steve Bradbury in the Winter Olympics get the gold by default - the true Austrlian way.

Vale' Peter Costello

To Mr Greg Barns.

“Christian fundamentalists” have not declared war on the West. There is no Christian equivalent to Al Qaida or Jemaah Islamiah who are setting off bombs all over the place and flying airliners into skyscrapers. “Christian” suicide bombers do not exist because suicide is against their religion, but Muslim suicide bombers do exist and they are honoured by their religion. “Christian” fundamentalists are not noted for storming schools, holding children hostage and raping the little girls to pass the time before shooting them. Christian fundamentalists do not plant bombs on buses and trains. In short, the overwhelming majority of people do not see Christian fundamentalists as anywhere near as big a threat as their Muslim equivalents.

So cut out the feigned outrage, Mr Barns. Your silly premise is obviously flawed, and your real motivations are as transparent as a sheet of glass.

Your next big mistake is to condemn Peter Costello for “populism.” If a politician is smart enough to respond to the wishes of the Australian electorate, then that is why the Liberals keep winning elections and why Labor keeps losing them.

You then accuse the Liberlas of undermining social cohesion. You are finally correct about something. By being a party to the importation of welfare dependent, crime prone and unassimilatable people, the Liberals are indeed undermining social cohesion. But they are not as bad at this folly as Labor, the Democrats or the Greens.

Someone else who can see through the shameful Liberal pandering to the right. So-called Christians of the right are responsible for more carnage and terrorism than any other mob - not to mention the undermining of social cohesion. The time and money alone spent on militarism is shameful counter to the Christian faiths supposed belief in "the sacredness and infinitive worth of every human soul". (Just saw that the US are renewing their nuclear arsenal. Great way to undermine international social cohesion. Of course Liberals will dutifully tag along a few paces behind like a drunk teenager trying earnestly to fit in. The moral majority will go along like teenagers bending to peer pressure. Hypocrites.
Paul said:
Be not overcome of evil
But overcome evil with good.

Mikhail Naimy said:
"Aye fight! But not your neighbour. Fight rather all the things that cause you and your neighbour to fight."

Dropkicks sang:"Fight, fight you'll never win". (Spare time)