Embracing Pauline Hanson

And there's little doubt that many immigrants and most refugees are likely to be shunted into low paying low-skilled jobs, which are exactly the sorts of jobs that less-educated people are likely to get. Immigrants are not coming here taking our jobs. They're coming here and taking their jobs!

Partly they fear because they don't know how to respond to and deal with insanity parading itself as Islam. But, as Waleed Aly has pointed out, neither do the rest of us. And neither do Muslims who reject the racism and xenophobia of mad pretenders to Islam who kill indiscriminately and claim divine authority. We all fear for our lives when crazy people are around. It's especially scary when we can't tell them apart from other people.

Partly they fear because they were raised in monocultural communities, when assimilation was our response to immigration. These communities still exist. Many in regional Australia, but some in cities in which, as we might expect, immigrants choose to live closer to other immigrants, rather than spread themselves throughout the city.

Partly they fear because homosexuality wasn't as accepted when they grew up as it is now or isn't accepted in the communities in which they were raised. It has to be confusing when what you were brought up to believe that heterosexuality was normal and homosexuality was not and now everyone is telling you that it just isn't that way anymore. And it is the members of a society who decide what is normal and not religious texts.

Very few of us are so strong within ourselves that we have no fear. Some of us are privileged and lucky enough not to worry about too much. I'm one of those people. But there is a significant number of our people in our community who do fear. The question is what are we going to do about that.

We can call them racist or Islamophobic (and sexist and homophobic) and walk away, thinking that we've done the right thing. Or we can stop and listen and, yes, embrace these people.

I don't know what happens next. I just know that we've been given another chance to respond meaningfully to Pauline Hanson and her supporters and those who more or less agree with her but vote for other parties. I'm hoping we don't miss this opportunity.