About climate change...yes the climate changes.

About CO2 being bad....without CO2 there would be no oxygen exhalers.

About immigrants....implement the type of naturalization tests you have to complete in the US .

Make the applicants sign a declaration on of understanding that if they are convicted of three race, religious, or terrorist based crimes they will have their citizenship revoked and they will be expelled.

Hi (again) SUSEONLINE...

What you say is true, we're ALL Australians. However from the information I've received from former colleagues, our response here (at home), to the current 'threat assessment' has been both slow, and thus far, quite ineffective.

It's not a case of some overt full frontal assault, the sort of tactics that is employed by an army, rather it's more a slow, tactical and strategic assault more by stealth, and that's the most worrying part of this whole equation ! Anyway, SUSEONLINE perhaps I and my former colleagues are simply wrong, very wrong ? I certainly hope so, for all our sakes. Good night to you.

Let's get a few facts straight. The percentage of Muslims in Australia in 2011 was NOT 1%, but 2.2%, or is and underestimate of about 45%. The Muslim religion is the FOURTH largest religious group in Australia.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Australia, "Islam in Australia is a minority religious affiliation. According to the 2011 census, 476,291 people, or 2.2% of the total Australian population, were Muslims.[1] This made Islam the fourth largest religious grouping, after all forms of Christianity (61.1%), irreligion (22.9%), and Buddhism (2.5%). Demographers attribute Muslim community growth trends during the most recent census period to relatively high birth rates, and recent immigration patterns.[2"

Geoffrey Kelley

onthebeach "It is prudent risk management to [deny people the opportunity to get away from the culture and traditions they're from]."
Far from being prudent, it makes people feel unwelcome. We should try to unite people, not alienate them.

"Your only 'solution' is to cross your fingers and hope for the best."
That is a lie.
I've already said I'd like to see restrictions barring permanent residency status and citizenship to everyone who doesn't oppose every terrorist organisation in the world. I'd be happy to have similar restrictions to ensure all immigrants support any of the human rights listed in the Universal Declaration.

"Why should Immigration be refusing migrants from countries such as Ireland and Germany with skills that are in short supply such as in the blue collar trades - where their training and techniques are often better than in Australia - and giving preference to unskilled from places like Pakistan who not only are going to be Centrelink clients for life, but will be bringing in relatives who similarly dislike Australia and want their own corrupt political systems instead?"
We should not accept that immigrants will be Centrelink clients for life. We should try much harder to get everyone into the workforce. Immigration should be profitable.

"It is plain dumb to operate policies and procedures that result in the importation of the feared Russian Mafia to Australia for instance and that has regrettably been allowed to occur."
The police and ASIO should be given greater anti-mafia powers.

To read this thread the reader is obliged to kick his or her way through an endless litter of dogwhistle references to “lefties”, “greenies” and even the occasional “righties”. I thought that that drivel came from immaturity but the penny has dropped: it’s not immaturity but dotage.

References to “our Australian ways” are similarly ill-defined in criticising newcomers for not adapting to them. Concepts much more relevant to Islam are those coined by American writer Allan Bloom: “openness” and “closedness”. A society based on the evolving values of the human (not merely Australian) Enlightenment is above all open. Islam is closed. Closedness, unless defeated ideologically and in every other way, is poison to an open society. In an addendum beyond my generous 350 word limit I’ll give an Islamic explanation of how.

What to do about it?

I recently submitted the following to Guardian Australia:

“Why do governments flood their countries, without voter permission, with enemies of liberty? And then impose increasingly draconian laws against the whole community on the pretext of security from those very same enemies?

“I suggest the increasing empowerment of securocrats is the main purpose behind flooding free countries with enemies of freedom.

“A question for every entrant to Australia: Do you pledge to respect the right of every human being to adopt, follow, abandon, promote, deride, obey, or disobey the dicta of your religion? If no, back on the plane. If yes, then any sign later of having lied in making the pledge to result in instant expulsion. Carrying placards calling for beheading people for insulting this or that cult or ‘prophet’ would do as a sign.”

This lasted an hour or so and was then kerzonked by the Guardian’s PC thought police. I assume they wanted to defend openness to closedness. By closure!

Addendum follows.

Addendum based in part on an account by Annabelle van den Berghe in the Guardian Weekly of 24.10.04

Moslems in their thousands are heading to the Middle East to serve their religion by enslavement, rape and murder. Their self-proclaimed goal is to close down all dissent ultimately over the world. Their authority is the Koran and as totally committed Moslems they know exactly what they are talking about. In an online article, ISIS said it was reviving an ancient custom of enslaving non-believers and forcing captive women to marry Moslem murderers who had executed their husbands in front of them. Ample Internet footage shows Moslems lining up captives and shooting them – heads exploding like water melons and all critical thought gushing out in the blood. Final Moslem closedness. Their online article stated: “One should remember that enslaving the families of the non-believers and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the sharia, that if one were to deny or mock it he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the ‘prophet’ (sic)”.

This is the religion to which we have given a bridge-head. It’s a religion that will respond to openness by closedness. So why has it not shut down the open society already? Simply because it doesn’t yet have the numbers within the civilised world. Give it even temporary ascendancy and see in Iraq and Syria and Pakistan and Afghanistan or in terrorist attacks worldwide just what it will do. Ask the faithful if they accept the right of apostasy, of impiety, of disobedience, of unbelief. If they do, without demur, they are acceptable citizens. If not, they’re not.