We are playing a dangerous game

Howard tries to hide his “them and us” mentality. Here are two occasions when he did not:

• he and Peter Reith knew the boat people did not throw their children overboard, but as there was an election campaign at the time, they failed to pass this information on to the public: they were aware that mass-insecurity increases the conservative vote; and
• John Howard publicly supported Pauline Hanson’s “breeding like rabbits” speech as legitimate free expression - until he realised that she threatened to take away enough of the far right voters from his party to put him out of office. Then he set out to destroy her.

Since 9-11, not a single person has been killed or injured by a terrorist on our soil. In that time about 10,200 have been killed and about 91,800 have been seriously injured on our roads. As a motor vehicle tears into flesh and bone with the same violence as a bomb, can we use that statistic as an overreaction indicator?

There has been no government-sponsored effort made to bring Muslim and non-Muslim Australian’s together in a display of camaraderie and preparedness for a bombing in this country which would allow us to calmly deal with the event. Instead, if there is a bombing, the Howard Government and talk-back commercial radio have created a public readiness to viciously hit out at any Muslim within striking distance.