‘Muslim backlash’ if school rejected
Ashleigh Wilson; 14/6/08
Australia’s reputation will be at risk in Muslim countries if aplanned appeal against a council’s rejection of an Islamic school on Sydney’s southwestern fringe fails. Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad accused Camden council of acquiescing to a “vocal minority” by rejecting a planned development of an Islamic school. Mr Trad told The Weekend Australian he did not believe the council’s decision last month to reject the proposal was based solely on planning grounds, as it had stated. “We market this country for foreign students and send exports to many Muslim countries,” Mr Trad said. “So how are you going to show these people we respect them if we won’t even allow our own citizens to have a school for their children? I think it’s already done damage, but people are waiting to see the appeal.” The Quranic Society applied to build an Islamic school for 1200 residents just outside Camden, a small rural town about an hour’s drive southwest of Sydney’s CBD.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23861101-5013404,00.html
Change poisons Camden’s old ‘oasis’
Ashleigh Wilson; 14/6/08
This used to be dairy country, back when Edgar Downs was a boy. There were 100 or so working farms; only about 10 are left. The rest have been broken up, subdivided into small properties - maybe hobby farms with ahorse or two. Or they have moved west. Downs, 52, looks around the valley his family has called home for generations and wonders how strong the winds of change will blow through Camden, on Sydney’s southwestern fringe. The locals won’t hang around if the rural character of the region keeps disappearing. “This is the last little oasis,” Downs says. Across the valley, he can just make out the Oran Park-Turner Road precinct, a new suburb that will add up to 35,000 people to the area in the next 10 years.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23861102-5013404,00.html
One Nation spurred a decade of change
Editorial; 14/6/08
A cry from the fringe must not be ignored again. Ten years ago, in the wake of the Queensland election that turned One Nation from a cult of personality based around Pauline Hanson to a party in its own right, The Weekend Australian said the result confirmed domestic politics had detached itself from the base. One Nation secured 11 seats in the single-chamber Queensland parliament, robbing both Labor and the Coalition, dooming the conservative Borbidge government, and handing power to Peter Beattie in a hung parliament in which a non-One Nation independent held the balance of power. Many who turned to One Nation did so out of frustration at unemployment, economic uncertainty and change. The backlash was also a consequence of the poll-driven, research-based politics of the major parties, which had become so sophisticated and manipulative in their attention to interest groups as to overlook the concerns of many Australians.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23859845-16741,00.html
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