Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly has warned that former prime minister Scott Morrison and Liberal senator Andrew Bragg have risked inflaming community tensions and fuelling fear with remarks that single out Australian Muslims in the aftermath of last month’s Bondi attack. Her rebuke was reinforced by Islamophobia envoy Aftab Malik. He said that extremism must be confronted, but cautioned that conflating criminal activity with the Muslim faith would undermine trust and compromise genuine counter-extremism efforts that keep the community safe.
Morrison said Muslim leaders should start licensing preachers, translating all sermons into English and setting up a board to police radicals. “Their radicalisation did not take place in a madrasa in South-East Asia or an Iranian hawza, but in the suburbs of southwest Sydney,” he said of the Bondi shooters. His comments were backed by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, a moderate, who said the Australian Muslim community needed to take some responsibility for extremist behaviour. “Unfortunately, it has been a pattern of behaviour that some of these smaller incidents – and now we’ve had a significant terrorist incident – have emerged from these communities,” he told ABC radio.
Their remarks were met with fury and exasperation by a cross-section of Muslim organisations, who labelled them divisive and inflammatory at a time when there have been escalating incidents of violence directed at mosques and Muslim people. The latest example [included an anonymous letter sent to a Sydney mosque](https://www.theage.com.au/politics/nsw/letter-threatens-minority-groups-ahead-of-australia-day-20260123-p5nwl0.html) threatening co-ordinated violence against minority groups on Australia Day.
But one former south-west Sydney Liberal councillor, Mazhar Hadid, described the former prime minister as a “hypocrite” for going to Israel to make his remarks – where he was hailed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “terrific, terrific champion of our people” – rather than speaking locally.
“To go overseas to a foreign country and attack his own people of Muslim faith – he shouldn’t do that. If he has something to say, he should come to Australia, meet with the community, talk to them, see how you can handle things. Don’t go overseas and attack your own people,” said Hadid, who sat as a Liberal on southwest Sydney’s Liverpool Council until late last year.
“We educate that we have to live in peace and harmony; that there are common interests we have to concentrate on; that there are issues in Australia but we need to focus on the good things. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Aly said that the comments of Morrison and Bragg must be understood “in a broader and troubling context; one where Muslim Australians are repeatedly expected to account for violent acts they neither committed nor condoned”. “Muslim communities repeatedly and unequivocally condemned terrorism, including being among the first to condemn the Bondi attack. Yet they are still asked to prove their national loyalty and innocence in ways no other community is. This is unfair and deeply damaging,” she said. “This kind of commentary carries real risk. It fuels fear, entrenches division and unfairly blames entire communities for the actions of individuals who have embraced a distorted and violent ideology.”
GuyFromYr2095 on
Can Scomo get done for for inciting hate based on the new hate speech laws?
Inevitable_Geometry on
Here is a question:
Why was ScoMo over in Israel? Who paid for that trip?
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Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly has warned that former prime minister Scott Morrison and Liberal senator Andrew Bragg have risked inflaming community tensions and fuelling fear with remarks that single out Australian Muslims in the aftermath of last month’s Bondi attack. Her rebuke was reinforced by Islamophobia envoy Aftab Malik. He said that extremism must be confronted, but cautioned that conflating criminal activity with the Muslim faith would undermine trust and compromise genuine counter-extremism efforts that keep the community safe.
Both are Muslims who worked in counter-extremism before their current roles – Aly was a professor while Malik ran programs in the NSW premier’s department. Their comments responded to a fresh rift [that Morrison opened with](https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/liberal-mp-backs-morrison-s-call-for-muslim-community-to-take-responsibility-for-extremism-20260128-p5nxk0.html) Australian Muslims when he gave a speech in Israel on Tuesday (AEDT) that called on Australian Islamic leaders to enforce stronger standards within their own communities.
Morrison said Muslim leaders should start licensing preachers, translating all sermons into English and setting up a board to police radicals. “Their radicalisation did not take place in a madrasa in South-East Asia or an Iranian hawza, but in the suburbs of southwest Sydney,” he said of the Bondi shooters. His comments were backed by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, a moderate, who said the Australian Muslim community needed to take some responsibility for extremist behaviour. “Unfortunately, it has been a pattern of behaviour that some of these smaller incidents – and now we’ve had a significant terrorist incident – have emerged from these communities,” he told ABC radio.
Their remarks were met with fury and exasperation by a cross-section of Muslim organisations, who labelled them divisive and inflammatory at a time when there have been escalating incidents of violence directed at mosques and Muslim people. The latest example [included an anonymous letter sent to a Sydney mosque](https://www.theage.com.au/politics/nsw/letter-threatens-minority-groups-ahead-of-australia-day-20260123-p5nwl0.html) threatening co-ordinated violence against minority groups on Australia Day.
But one former south-west Sydney Liberal councillor, Mazhar Hadid, described the former prime minister as a “hypocrite” for going to Israel to make his remarks – where he was hailed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “terrific, terrific champion of our people” – rather than speaking locally.
“To go overseas to a foreign country and attack his own people of Muslim faith – he shouldn’t do that. If he has something to say, he should come to Australia, meet with the community, talk to them, see how you can handle things. Don’t go overseas and attack your own people,” said Hadid, who sat as a Liberal on southwest Sydney’s Liverpool Council until late last year.
“We educate that we have to live in peace and harmony; that there are common interests we have to concentrate on; that there are issues in Australia but we need to focus on the good things. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Aly said that the comments of Morrison and Bragg must be understood “in a broader and troubling context; one where Muslim Australians are repeatedly expected to account for violent acts they neither committed nor condoned”. “Muslim communities repeatedly and unequivocally condemned terrorism, including being among the first to condemn the Bondi attack. Yet they are still asked to prove their national loyalty and innocence in ways no other community is. This is unfair and deeply damaging,” she said. “This kind of commentary carries real risk. It fuels fear, entrenches division and unfairly blames entire communities for the actions of individuals who have embraced a distorted and violent ideology.”
Can Scomo get done for for inciting hate based on the new hate speech laws?
Here is a question:
Why was ScoMo over in Israel? Who paid for that trip?