by Anne Miller
Congratulations bigots. You have won. Your Islamaphobia has triumphed over common sense, decency and the truth in the recent online poll conducted by the South Burnett Regional Council.
Are you so afraid that Australian values and lifestyle are so weak, so paper-thin, that bringing in a couple of families who are “different” could possibly affect the way you live, eat or dress?
Could they be such a threat to your job? Could they lead to a ban on bacon or beheadings in Booie?
There are many good people in the South Burnett who work hard at fund-raising for numerous charities – cancer research, the rescue helicopters, drought relief etc.
And, I suspect, the percentage of Christian church-goers here is far higher than in many city areas (after all, the rest of Australia labels Kingaroy as the heart of Queensland’s Bible Belt).
But where were these values on display in the Council’s poll?
It seems only 30 per cent of the people who bothered to vote would extend a welcoming hand to a family who has fled war-torn Syria.
That just doesn’t sound like the South Burnett we know.
So let’s drill down a bit further …
I am not being paranoid when I say there are organised groups with an anti-Muslim agenda hard at work in Australia.
Some of these are obvious – the White Supremacist lunatic fringe – while some are less so, eg. an active pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian lobby.
The Far Right anti-immigration Golden Dawn party, from Greece, has ardent followers in Australia who reportedly turned out at recent “Reclaim Australia” and anti-Bendigo mosque rallies in Victoria.
And the British National Party are particularly active in creating social media memes which seem to pop up frequently in some South Burnett residents’ Facebook posts.
How much of an influence do these people have in the South Burnett?
How hard would it be for people with an agenda to warp an online poll? After all, the South Burnett contains about 32,000 people, but only 600 voted …
I believe at least some of the people who were commenting on social media when Council announced its poll were not real.
I could not confirm some of the names through other checks. And some of the Facebook profiles appeared fake (ie. no friends, and the only posts being political).
I also turned up a few who were from overseas.
I really do hope that these people did skew the Council’s poll and, perhaps, voted multiple times (yes, it can be done).
If so, their manipulation has made the South Burnett look like a bunch of racist fools.
But if this isn’t the case, and the votes were real … then we have some genuine problems.
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Reclaim Australia claims to have registered a trademark (cost approx $1000). This trademark appeared on their Facebook page from inception. Good to see them taking a commercial approach to the whole business. Most loosely organised political groups omit these essentials.
Reclaim Australia doesn’t have “members” just “supporters” ie. they cannot become a registered political party until they get 500 actually enrolled signatories and lodge and application with the AEC, who, you may guarantee, will actually (for once) do checks on membership (so that would be one occasion when they have to be real people and not fakes).
Who actually runs it in the absence of “members” remains a mystery as they do not proclaim their presence.
Reclaim Australia has just had a product launch: “T shirts, hoodies, phone cases, Samsung Galaxy cases, pouches, home decor, kids clothes, iPad cases, laptop skins, drawstring bags, laptop sleeves and stationery”. “Reclaim Australia merchandise is now available!!! You can now get your very own Reclaim Australia merchandise. With a wide variety of products ranging from men’s, women’s & children’s apparel, travel mugs, canvas bags and more. To see what’s available and get your own just follow the link below.”
The link is to an external site maintained by a company RedBubble.
Reclaim Australia claims: “Each rally costs $1000’s with PA etc… We have so far paid out of our own pocket happily however there is coming a time that we can’t afford to keep doing that..”
Go to their opponents page, Socialist Alternative, and you do not see any similar claim about how expensive rallies are to “run”, because they aren’t! Their opponents, Socialist Alternative, do their rallies for nothing.
Do you start to smell a rat?
I did not vote in the Mayor’s poll because I do not have a Facebook account – and Anne, you have just confirmed for me the reason why. ‘Social’ media it is not. Anti-social it is.
I will not be involved in a medium that allows such bigotry, bullying and racism to run riot. I view with trepidation a society in which so many people no longer converse face to face, or even voice to voice therefore allowing a degree of separation that ideas like these can so easily be inserted into.
I am deeply disturbed by the fact that a Wine and Food Festival has had to be cancelled in Bendigo because anti-Muslim organisations have threatened to descend on the city en masse. They are behaving like organisations in Nazi Germany did during the 1930s and we all know how that ended. As to the posters which headed your article, I am disgusted with both the sentiments and the language. What is patriotic about using filthy language? Why are we so hysterically afraid of a group of ordinary people who make up only 2% of the population?
I am not a Catholic but I endorse the call of the Archbishop of Brisbane for each Parish to take in a refugee family. When these people are your neighbours I would hope that natural Australian country hospitality will reassert itself and they will be treated as people who have had a disaster visited upon them and need to rebuild their lives, rather than the bogey men that uninformed racist bigots try to make them out to be.