Conservative hippie, I never said there wasn't anything to learn from Europe did I?
Europe is completely different to Australia in many ways. I think we can handle our own problems our own way.

I think we have dealt with immigration and multiculturalism much better than many other countries.
I would hate to see the current hysteria about what Muslim women wear have a negative effect on our usually harmonious country, but something tells me that other people do want problems for their own reasons....

Regarding the "stunt" pulled by this govt re burqas/niqabs:

http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/burqa_ban_and_backflip_have_cost_34nBHl8IV9WCK2xnPPQgeM

"Some months ago, the bureaucrats who administer and operate Federal Parliament decided to stop the daily security screening of the several thousands of people who have permanent passes for the building.

Apart from press gallery journalists, almost every other person who worked in the parliament no longer had to scan their bags or person upon entry.

Every day for months, hundreds and, if Parliament was sitting, thousands of people entered the building, sending the metal detectors into a frenzy as folk strolled through with briefcases, suitcases, backpacks, gym bags and all else. It was designed to save money in response to federal budget cuts to the public service."

"Throughout this whole episode, the only MP who voiced concern was the ever-vigilant NSW Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, who brought an imitation pipe-bomb into the building to expose the folly.

There was, however, a deafening silence throughout this entire period from Cory Bernardi, George Christensen and Jacqui Lambie, all of whom have reignited a crusade against the “burqa”, by which is presumably meant the niqab, in the wake of the Islamic State terror threat both at home and abroad. That they never raised a peep when thousands of unscreened people poured in to the building daily only furthers the suspicion that security is not their concern as they seek to conflate the “burqa” with terrorism as part of what Malcolm Turnbull called “a coded attack, coded attack on Muslims”. Put aside the fact that no one can remember someone wearing a “burqa” inside Parliament."

Of course, the mere fact that this thread has taken off means the "stunt" worked.

How can it be that in the space of some months, the govt goes cutting parliamentary security to running around with sparklers making interim rules to segregate people who rarely if ever enter the building.

They were after headlines to fuel their "terror hysteria" - and they achieve these headlines every second day by means of carefully scripted "stunts".

What I find disturbing is that the self serving greens and far left whingers are putting political point scoring above the safety of those in parliament by trying to pretend that there is no security concern when someone has a completely covered face.

There are plenty of document uses of the naquib / burqa to steal or avoid punishment. The recommendation by the independent advisor of the need for increased security at high value targets such as parliament house should flag to most people that security should be tightened.

Perhaps to be culturally sensitive, one should simply ban everyone from the public gallery?

May May,
You're just as deluded as Jayb, Christianity was spread by unarmed missionaries who mostly operated alone, these so called armies who you say went about terrorising people were tiny. Some examples; Cortes had 500 men, De Soto 600, James Cook had 90 men under his command and all of the real wars fought in the new world were between Europeans.
Oh yeah, what about India? You'll notice that it's still Hindu dominated with significant Muslim and Sikh minorities despite being one of the major battlefields of colonialism.
Even the most notorious atrocities committed by "Christians" ie White people pale into insignificance when set alongside Islamic history. Something like 150 people died at Wounded Knee in 1890,30 at Myall Creek, whereas Timur the great Islamic general slaughtered 20,000 when he took Baghdad, 100,000 when he took Delhi and virtually wiped out the populations of Georgia and Armenia, his army is thought to have wiped out 5% of the world's population in the space of 30 years and he wasn't the only Jihadi at large at the time
As for your "Secularism" it's death toll rivals that of Islam, 120 million in 100 years and still counting.

The problem is that whereas Christianity is based on the gentle teachings of Christ, Islam is based on the revelations of Allah to Muhammad and the teachings of Muhammad, the which shew a violent tendency that we can well do without.

I asked this before; why do some think that Muhammad was illiterate?

Jay of Melbourne, I just LOVE your "excuses" for Christianity violence. The first thing defensive Christians do when defending their horridly violent history, is to immediately point out the violent history of atheists, or Muslims, or even "secularism". These Defenders of the Faith try to pretend that the crimes of others mitigate the historic crimes of Christianity. Nice try Jay, but your arguments are a massive FAIL, for obvious reasons.

Jayb, your last 2 posts on the previous page proves you have a LOT in common with fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians. Like you, they too follow their Lord and Saviour blindly and without question. Yes Jayb, it's true. Yes, you obey and worship your Holy Trinity -- God the Farter Alan Jones, His only begotten illegitimate Son Andrew Bolt, and the Ghostly Daily Telegraph. Yes Jayb, you've been brainwashed into meek submission by your Holy Trinity.

ConservativeHippie, if your figure of 28 million Muslim terrorists worldwide was true, we'd be having multiple bombings and suicide attacks in every Western country every minute of every day. Nice try Hippie. Maybe next time you should try dealing with facts, instead of stereotyping entire masses of people, in order to make your argument seem relevant.