'..you have demonstrated that the best test of Aussiness is a fine sense of irony'

That would be nice. Unfortunately they seem to work in inverse proportion - the more 'aussie' people claim to be, the weaker their grasp of irony and humour..

Mr Ring’s views may lose some of its humour if Habib makes it into the NSW parliament. How someone on a social security pension is able to roam around Pakistan and Afghanistan searching for a school to teach his sons how to recite the Koran in Arabic and hate all things non-Muslim has never been explained. There are certainly no indigenous Australians that have taken sit-down money to these extremes. Habib sounds and acts like a joke but I am sure his future constituents do not see him this way. If a test can be devised to keep him and his kind out of Australia bring it on!!

What a great article! Who ever would have cracked the Tiwi Islands conspiracy?

How was your cafe latte when you wrote this piece, Graham? It's all very nice yet seriously flawed.

For one, it is widely known that Aboriginal youth have turned their backs on their own culture, ignoring pleas for them to retain it. Not only are they ignoring culture but many are refusing to learn their own language, choosing to learn only the english language.

While I am cynical of Howard's test on Aussie value, being the sellout vulture that he is, Australia does need to take the nation back to excepting immigrants of integrity like we use to, be they european or whatever. This political dance to appease new immigrants who demand demand demand instead of just doing as the early immigrants did must stop.

There is much hatred coming from the youth of immigrants today. A direct result of shoddy politics to pamper the insecure caucasian.

No differnt to the migrant hate thats already been here two centuries. why impose new standards on new arrivals most don't even practice themselves?