Banjo wrote;

“Carrying a knife is against the law unless you are a Sikh and you may also be exempt from a cycle helmet if you wear a turban.”

“Every time we bend to accommodate some other cultural practice, we compromise our own culture.”

That put a smile on my face.

This is Banjo who I distinctly remember flapping his chops about gun laws and regaling us about the good old days before the 'anti-gun lobby' butted in and who certainly would not have worn a cycling helmet as a kid now trying to claim these as assaults on our culture?

Oh please!

Bit by bit by bit.
This just what Geert Wilder warned about.

csteele,
You do have a vivid imagination, but it is not accurate. I have no recollection of ever discussing gun laws on this forum. But you are right in that it is my opinion that all the gun laws achieved was to make the workplace safer for criminals. That is they know far fewer homes now have guns in them and I did not notice queues of crims handing in their guns when the laws came into force.

But of course you missed the point of my post. The point is that their should be one law and rule for everyone. No one should get exemption because of culture and our polys should not 'turn a blind eye' to cultural practices that are either unlawful or not in keeping with our societies standards.

After this election I hope to see the ideology of multiculturalism officially dropped.

I cannot see why an athlete should wear any advertisement at all on her or his uniform. Why should an athlete be compelled to be an advertising space even though the advertiser may support the team?

A professional athlete is hired to play a sport. Any endorsement of a commercial product should be the decision of the athlete.

Dear SOG,

Is it in their contract that they must take part in
advertising? If it's not - then I agree with David F.,
the decision should be left up to the athlete.
Although I must admit I don't get it - how can he
take the cash - if he doesn't wear the logo?

Fair point.

>>...our polys should not 'turn a blind eye' to cultural practices that are either unlawful or not in keeping with our societies [sic] standards<<

There is of course a reasonably clear definition of what is lawful. And at this point it is worth noting that nothing in the actions of the player, Cricket Australia or Carlton & United was unlawful.

So that leaves "society's standards".

A broad enough concept, I would have thought. How many times, just on this Forum, has the question of "Australian values" been approached, and failed to achieve any kind of consensus? It tends to crystallize as a slanging match between those who believe that such values have been arbitrarily frozen in time, usually somewhere in the 'fifties, and those who accept that even the 'fifties had changed from, say, the Australia of 1914. And who are relatively comfortable with the concept that they will change in the future.

Personally, I believe that anyone who thinks that Australia can keep itself aloof from what is happening in the rest of the world is living in a fool's paradise.

Just because you might not like what is happening, you cannot pretend that is is not.