Paul Keating saved us from the fate of having the limp, soggy, damp piece of lettuce that is John Hewson as our Prime Minister.
As most readers will know, recently the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been copping a roasting from media and entertainment types for having the temerity to point out the blatant obvious.
His terrible sin was to gently explain to the perpetually outraged that even when compared to other immigrant groups, the Lebanese Sunni Muslim community has failed to assimilate to an almost spectacular degree:
”Mr Dutton told Parliament most of those recently charged with terrorism were the children and grandchildren of Lebanese migrants.
“The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background,” he said.”
He could have been much harsher.
From the Sydney gang rapes, to the rise of Middle Eastern organised crime, to the more modern concerns about terrorism, it’s quite clear that the arrival of this particular community has been a net negative to Australia.
More than this, they are in possession of a victim mentality so supreme as to defy the fabric of reality.
The most immediately hilarious reaction to Dutton’s plain common sense came from the ALP’s Tony Burke, a man whose position relies on the vote harvesting and branch stacking of the Islamic community in his south-western Sydney electorate of Watson:
“You have to go back a very long way in Australia’s history to find a minister for immigration arguing that immigration decisions should be based on race or religion. A very long way,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“And let’s make it clear, that is the argument that Peter Dutton is making, because he’s not arguing that Malcolm Fraser made a mistake because of who he let in. He’s arguing that the people he let in then had grandchildren and that there should have been foresight about the grandchildren.
“We are on new territory with what Peter Dutton has said in the Parliament.”
So according to the flexible Mr Burke, the talented Mr Dutton is both reaching back into the past while at the same time breaking new territory.
Perhaps with this ability to twist the laws of time and space, Mr Dutton should add Minister for Science to his portfolio?
Naturally, the left has gone feral; any criticism of one of their client groups is enough to bring out the popping eyes, bulging veins, red faces, demands for sackings and general hysterical screaming.
This time they even had a Muslim ALP MP in Ms Anne Aly who went on an epic spray, including almost certainly spurious claims of death threats and an even less plausible story of a teacher-approved schoolyard bullying. Her contribution was as impressive as it was imaginative.
But the more interesting aspect for someone of my generation was a little article written by John Hewson that popped up in the leftist sheltered workshop that is The Conversation (a piece almost immediately reprinted by the ABC, of course).
I found this intriguing, since this aged relic of politics past had never really been a major topic of thought for someone like myself, who was barely in school when Hewson was so comprehensibly humiliated at the sweaty, greasy, bloodstained hands of the snake-tongued, perpetually squinting, perfumed prince of poncery that was Paul Keating.
In fact my only memory of him at all from the time when he was the potential PM was his notorious “Birthday Cake” interview, and that only peeks through the haze of childhood recollection because it so obviously lost him the election.
I knew from small articles and occasional mentions that more recently he had become a well-paid shill in the climate alarmist industry, but it wasn’t until I read his attack on Dutton that I realised we may owe a (very small) debt of gratitude to that slimy, snobbish, sanctimonious, self righteous spiv in a Savile Row suit Keating.
“Professor” Hewson begins with standard leftist cant:
“Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Read between the lines. I am deliberately adding fuel to the anti-immigration, anti-refugee ‘movement’.
“How else can you interpret Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s recent sustained attacks on Malcolm Fraser’s immigration policies?”
Dunno, John, maybe he just wants us to have less gang rapes, organised crime and terror threats? People can be so small-minded sometimes.
“It is as if the assessment processes in the 1970s, thorough as they were, could possibly have anticipated the likely roles of future generations to be born of those immigrants, long before anyone contemplated September 11, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the advent of Islamic State, and so on.”
Yeah, it’s almost as if people in the past could have predicted that importing entire villages of people with a vastly alien cultural and religious background from a war zone and then dumping them in high-unemployment areas might lead to future problems.
“The attempt to “blame” Fraser is both farcical and grossly irresponsible – simply a cheap political shot.”
Yeah, how dare you blame politicians for the results of policies they enacted!
“The only logical conclusion of Dutton’s position is that he wishes to close our borders completely.”
Funny you should say that…..
“How low can our political leaders go in what has become a national disgrace, this appalling race to the bottom, scoring short-term political points on each other, as to who can be the toughest, who can be the most inhumane, to those who are globally among the most desperate, fleeing persecution, imprisonment, and even death?”
How many refugees in your house again John? How about your suburb?
“Importantly, while the government has recognised the desperate need to rely on the co-operation of the Islamic communities to out potential terrorists as an essential element of its national security and anti-terrorism strategy, Dutton has sought to name and shame a particular segment of that community: Lebanese-Muslims.”
How dare he single out Muslims as terrorists? Doesn’t he know we need the help of Muslims to root out all the potential Muslim terrorists?
“Whatever may be the merits of slightly different wording in Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, this is not the time to be fiddling around on this issue.”
So when would be a good time to have free speech John?
“It runs the risk of a very divisive public debate.”
So we should only have public debates when everyone agrees?
“Our greatest national achievement since the second world war is our tolerant and sensitive, multiracial, multireligious, multicultural society.”
So our greatest National Achievement for the last seven decades is that we invited a lot of people here and we didn’t kill them?
I never realised we had so little in the way of National Achievements.
“While it is already the envy of the world, it remains a work in progress.”
So it’s NOT an achievement then?
“Malcolm Turnbull has missed another opportunity to show real leadership.”
At this point I’m more scared of Malcolm Turnbull actually showing leadership.
“While he didn’t directly endorse Dutton’s specific remarks, his attempt to defend Dutton as an ‘outstanding’ immigration minister, a ‘thoughtful and committed and passionate’ Minister, should leave everyone cold.”
Asinine meaningless political boilerplate from an asinine meaningless man apparently chills John Hewson to his very spine. Harden up, mate!
“History will judge Fraser’s attitudes, values and policies toward immigration and refugees, both in and beyond government, to have dwarfed anything that Dutton might even aspire to achieve.”
In this last sentence, and entirely unintentionally, Professor John is finally correct.
We really can’t thank Paul Keating for much, but without him disposing of this wonkish mouth we would never have had John Howard as PM.
For all his faults, Howard at least knew how to pretend to be a Conservative; his manifold mistakes, while glaring in hindsight, are nothing compared to the horror that another elitist leftist with a blue tie would have inflicted.
As we currently suffer under the pretensions of another such leftist in the lodge who no doubt also will morph into a well-paid SJW the very second he leaves Parliament, let us be thankful for small mercies.
Photo by RubyGoes