Gawd, (she says, deciding to waste a post replying to runner's trusty "slaughtering unborn babies" fallback line).....it's the line he bleats when he's got nothing left in the larder.

I'll just point out, when including feminists in your response, runner, you left out "leftists and progressives".

I think it's pretty clear around here lately that if you don't include the three "leftists, progressives and feminists" that you're really not pulling your weight as far as damnation is concerned.

Step it up a bit - we don't want those nasty leftists and progressives feeling left out now do we....

ConservativeHippie, I'm rather puzzled as to how this could encourage anyone to take on multiple wives, as marrying makes many people ineligible for Centrelink benefits in most cases, and I'm not aware of any circumstances where ti puts them financially ahead of remaining single.

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runner, asylum seekers have also drowned after this government turned back the boats. Though the previous government's policy was unacceptable, this government's policy of denying them hope is far worse.

Songwriter John Schumann has been shocked and disappointed to learn the anthem he wrote, I was only 19, was performed at at least one Reclaim Australia rally.

Like his other songs, they are about compassion, tolerance and inclusiveness. The song was used by a very confused ‘patriotic’ movement - and honours all Australians who have put themselves in harm’s way for their country.

“It is not to be used to advance ignorance and intolerance, especially as we approach the centenary of Anzac,” he said in the Australian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3sSwgL2paU

Personally - I don't know how to address the issues facing people from the left wing socialists or right wing lobby groups, who like having violent protests as a "hobby" - and over the period of Easter? A basic lack of respect, when other people were in Churches peacefully reflecting elements of the Christian religion, the Bible and life. Around 3000 people in places like Federation Square - were fighting - and what did it achieve?

It looked terrible. I was surprised no one was hurt. Surprisingly - I didn't see any people of a Muslim background involved - and yet the Muslim community re 'Reclaim Australia' are supposed to be the problem here?

Finally why didn't 'left wing extremists' simply stay away? I'd never heard of "Reclaim Australia" and yet these extreme violent protests simply gave Reclaim Australia A LOT of free publicity.

"I'm rather puzzled as to how this could encourage anyone to take on multiple wives, as marrying makes many people ineligible for Centrelink benefits in most cases" - Aiden

The men are not applying for Centrelink benefits, it's the individual women. The 'marriages' are actually de-facto relationships, by convenience and to avoid breaking Australian laws. Any money received goes into the woman's account. The woman who is applying for a benefit is asset tested; her 'husband' has nothing, except maybe his own benefit claim; the other wives are not deemed to be her relations and their incomes do not count against her as assets. Therefore, the more wives collecting a benefit, the more income coming into the household. Once they start having children the gravy train really starts to pay. And you can bet dollars against donuts, the man will be controlling the household income.

The whole thing is bureaucracy at it's craziest.

It's not only Muslim men, apparently there are also a handful of non-Muslims taking advantage of the same loophole in order to support an extended marriage.

Nathan,

"... I don't know how to address the issues facing people from the left wing socialists or right wing lobby groups, who like having violent protests as a "hobby"...Finally why didn't 'left wing extremists' simply stay away?"

Yar, thanks for reminding us that although the whole "reclaim whatever" is ostensibly a "right-wing" movement, it certainly doesn't preclude the lefties from being whacked over the head with it for good measure.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/07/reclaiming-australia-from-islam-is-really-about-reclaiming-whiteness?CMP=soc_568

"There are no Islamic courts, no practice of its jurisprudence, no laws from the Quran, and yet on Saturday we saw Reclaim Australia rally violently, their placards demanding the country say “No to Sharia!”

Seeing barricades, lines of mounted officers, rivals groups brawling over the truth of the “Islamification” of Australia, is a little overblown when we consider that Muslims, as 2% of the population, possess little by way of political power, have no significant representation, and own no capacity to impose their will.

So while we could dismiss the Reclaim movement as paranoid and ignorant, I refuse to see racism as a natural response, like an immune system, to presence of a “real” threat. We need to recognise the powerful feeling of “owning the nation” that comes with white Australia saying “No” to foreigners.

Reclaim’s sentiments come from a social imaginary of Australia under attack, which is inundated with images of a violent Islam. But it’s not that racism is the result of the “presence” of Islamism. It is that Islamism gives racism its convenient vocabulary.

Ordinary people can imagine the erosion of their social surroundings in everyday terms of stories and images that are fed to them in an exaggerated form, of an existential fight between us and them over who owns even the minutiae of life: where we live, the languages we speak and, in the case of the Halal certification “debate”, what we eat.

The beleaguered “community” increasingly becomes formed by these fantasies, fears, symbols, caricatures, stereotypes and nightmares. Racism then defaults to a kind of commonsense language..."

Poirot,
That article is wrong, the dominant culture in 2015 isn't "White" that culture did dominate up until about the 1960's but it had died out by the mid 1990's. This sort of explains why Reclaim is supported mostly by very young people who idealise "White Australia" and very old people who remember it as lived experience, not many people my age, say "Gen X" can relate to it and that's a problem, a lack of "adult supervision" so to speak.
The dominant culture in 2015 is one of unthinking conformity and consumerism, self evaluated identity rather than communal identity, crowdism instead of free thought and so forth.
Funnily enough this zeitgeist actually reminds me of growing up in a small town in the 1970's and 80's where if you dared to be even a little bit different or strayed from the herd you got a really hard time, were bullied and even beaten up on occasion. To be a patriot in 2015 invites the same level of of in group-out group hostility as I recall from my "Goth" days in the 1980's.