Oh, if only these tests had been around earlier, the whole Cronulla business could have been avoided! If only he had been asked the question "Where is Anzac Cove", Bilal Skaff would have definitely answered "Let me do it to you Leb-style," and could have been back on the boat to where he came from as soon as the pimply clerk could push the red button under his desk. Oh, hang on, this is the real world, not a red-neck wet-dream...

Bill Muehlenberg, if it is so important to Australia to only admit immigrants who pass the test, then how come Australia has worked as a social democracy for so long, and hasn't been dreadfully destabilised by the waves of untested immigrants who have swarmed in to build our Snowy Hydroelectric Schemes, fund our universities and run our fish and chip shops?

There is no practical purpose for the proposed tests except as a dog whistle to the xenophobic masses. Immigrants will just bone up on the test questions to get through. Some have even suggested that by relying on a test rather than putting money into English classes for migrants, that it might make the standard of English drop, because they will concentrate on getting through the test, rather than really learning English that can be used.

Ghassan Hage probably had the most sensible comment on this issue back on Monday, when he pointed out that all this would do would be to make the people who insist on it being done feel more Australian, and make immigrants feel ostracised. It's not about anything practical, because in reality it won't make a jot of difference.

Do people really think that spouting some rote-learned answers, like 'Vegemite', or 'Gallipoli', is really going to help people fit in culturally?

Australian Values is a mythical beast - there never has been one set of values in this country. Do you seriously think the people who came here in the first colonies who were governors and colonels had the same values as the men who worked the quarries in chains?

John Howard's waspy, colonial values are, I suspect, a far cry from the values of most Australians. It is the propagation of the myth that interests me - who is it who is trying to tell us we all believe the same thing...look into my eyes....we all believe the same thing...we all believe the same thing

It is obvious that John Howard is targeting the Islamic Imans (priests) who cant speak English , have no understanding of Western culture and are preaching hate in their own language in Australian mosques. With these new tests he may be able to stop some of them from coming into Australia to preach hate.

It probably wont work but at least he’s trying something.

Cronulla happened because the Australians had had a gut full of the Lebanese gangs coming down to the beach causing trouble. If these Moslem men have religious beliefs saying that women should wear covering clothes then shouldn’t they only be in the suburbs where the women are dressed like that . Isnt it going against their beliefs to be where the women aren’t dressed like that? Or don’t they really believe what their religion preaches.

Moonie says that social democracy and immigration has worked well in this country but I think its too early to make that call and that the suicide bomb plots in Melbourne are an ominous sign of things to come . Multiculturalism may appear to work for a while over a few decades or so but sooner or later there will be bloody tribal flare-ups like the riots in France which will be much worse next time they occur and bombings like we’ve seen in London.

SHARED VALUES WONT ALTER THAT. The thing that shared values will do is make intertribal(ethnic) marriage easier and putting those biological links in place is the ONLY thing that will stop the bloody ethnic cleansing(Territorial tribal warfare) that has raged across the globe since day one. If that intermarriage doesn’t take place then history shows that it is inevitable. Could be in five years could be in twenty more years but it is INEVITABLE.

Have I missed something? - What is all this talk about values? how does it relate to Islam? Has something happened? -

I read somewhere that US Diplomat Armitage threatened to bomb Pakitan back to the stone age - is that it? are Muslims here taking offence at that? - a bit sensitive dont you think - or are they upset that Treasurer Costello is telling muslims how to govern themsleves - I don't get the link between us, Islam and Values - I will have to get out more.

The Taliban came from Pakistan when they took control of Afghanistan and have been backed up by forces in Pakistan. The Taliban harboured Osama Bin Laden who attacked America with planes. I'd say America has every right to be agressive to Pakistan when it backs up the Taliban. After all Osama Bin Laden did commit an act of war against America.

Yes I understand all that but has anything of real signifigance happened?