Scott Morrison redux, and the anonymous editorialist strikes another blow against the wayward immigrant hordes ...

(Above: the following best read while singing a song, in the Hillsong way).

In his day, Scott Morrison was a furious scribbler for The Punch, and if you want a guide to the thoughts of the latter day crusader, they're indexed here.

On the other hand, we wouldn't want your eye offending you, with the concomitant obligation to pluck it out, so perhaps you might be better off reading Adele Ferguson's God's Millionaires, from 2005, wherein it's alleged by her that Morrison was a member of the clap happy Hillsong Church.

Who knows about that, but he was certainly to hand to write a helpful letter to the Sydney City Council in support of the failed Hillsong bid for a big new church at Rosebery back in 2008(Rabbitoh push for Hillsong church), and in 2004, In God they trust, he can be found rabbiting on about the virtues of faith-based programs:

... Morrison, himself a man of "strong religious views", launched into a pitch for the type of "faith-based programs" that Hillsong had established to address social problems.

"In the [United] States there is an increasing tendency of governments - particularly the Bush Government - to get behind what are called faith-based programs," he enthused.

"That is where governments start to lift the constraints on the Noffses and the Bill Crewses and others, to enable them to really help people, beyond just the material, and give them life advice which involves faith. Those programs, I understand, have had some great success."

Perhaps that didn't apply to the kerfuffle surrounding a Hillsong application for a federal grant, as outlined in Hillsong denies bribe allegation.

Not to worry, there's plenty more on the full to overflowing intertubes about the Hillsong church's many and varied hijinks in relation to its so called faith based programs, from the relatively benign coverage in Hillsong's true believers to the more interesting Praise the Lord and pass the cheque book or the ongoing Levine v Houston feud noted in Hillsong pastor defends ministry against cult claims.

A cult? Claims of a cult?

Well whenever Christians celebrate speaking in tongues, the pond contends they're well down the road to fundie cultism. Say hello Hillsong and hold the kool aid on offer from that other pentecostalist Jim Jones, and please explain in What We Believe:

We believe that in order to live the holy and fruitful lives that God intends for us, we need to be baptised in water and be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables us to use spiritual gifts, including speaking in tongues.

Amen and ooga booga to that.

Well enough already with the prosperity cultists, and Scott Morrison's attempt to revive the crusades in the antipodes by harping on the Islamic menace (Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy), and both sides understanding the Christian virtue of locking up a nine year old orphan behind barbed wire - at least until the heat got too much to bear - because it's eating into valuable time we could spend contemplating all the fun of the backbiting and the leaking currently going down (Liberals beset by spiteful backbiting):

The Liberals are like a bunch of fractious, backbiting kids who want each other's lunch boxes and aren't sure about the leadership qualities of the school captain.

And even worse we almost missed out on the splendid insights of the anonymous editorialist at The Australian, and his or her important contribution to the debate, as outlined in We must acknowledge culture, not race, as they brood on multiculturalism and crime in the city.

What's multiculturalism got to do with crime?

Well for all the fuss about ethnic attributes of crime, there are few decent up to date studies of the subject, but a 1998 study of juvenile crime found that:

... ethnicity was, in general, not related to participation in crime amongst NSW secondary students. In fact where we found any relationship between ethnicity and participation in crime it indicated that students from an ethnic background had lower rates of participation in crime.

... Even if certain ethnic or cultural groups were found to have higher rates of involvement in crime it would not follow that ethnicity or cultural background has a causal influence on crime. The higher rates may be more attributable to other risk factors such as social disadvantage, poor parental supervision, poor school achievement and drug use, which may be correlated with ethnicity or cultural background. (and the rest of the study Juveniles in Crime is available here in pdf form).

When the pompous anonymous editorialist at the lizard Oz starts off his piece with "Our Muslim community leaders face a deep challenge", he or she could have - with as much statistical validity - started off with "Our Catholic community leaders" or "Our Protestant community leaders", or "Our Anglo-celtic leaders" or even perhaps "Our Liberal party leaders concerned about lunch box and backbiting and leaking crime".

You see, the anonymous editorialist has to tread carefully here:

... there is also evidence that life in some suburbs is not as harmonious as it was five or 10 years ago. Gangs, drug use and anti-social behaviour, almost exclusively from young men, are real problems, not figments of the imagination of far-Right racists.

Yes, but which young men? You see, it's crime by association, which is to say - depending on your moment of moral panic, either Asian, Islamic, Lebanese, or some other favourite whipping boy. Not so long ago it was the Asians of Cabramatta that were the source of deep moral panic. Then the Lebanese, then the Pacific Islanders.

But the way the anonymous editorialist edges into it, the editorial should have started out by saying "Our community leaders of young men face a deep challenge."

Well no that wouldn't be at all handy if you're going to do a dog whistle about damn furriners and their pesky un-Australian ways, because then some damned academic might give you a hard time. Like Jock Collins in Immigrant Crime ( in pdf form):

What we do know is that fear of crime is disproportionate to experiences of actual crime. We also know that it is only a minority of youth of Asian, Middle-Eastern and Pacific Islander background who are involved in youth and criminal gangs, and that youth and criminal gangs are not the preserve of youth of Asian, Middle-Eastern and Pacific Islander background. The great danger of the current moral panic about ethnic crime in Sydney is that the criminality of a few begins to be portrayed as a criminality of a culture. This leads to the negative stereotyping of many of Sydney’s diverse immigrant cultures. It also leads to the possibility that we respond to, analyze and portray ethnic youth crime in Sydney in a very different way to that response we have to crime committed by youth of the majority Anglo-Celtic background. This process leads inevitably to the racialisation of the youth crime problem in Sydney.

If this is the case—and there is strong evidence in Sydney that this has been the case for the past four years—then we put at risk an accurate understanding of the nature, extent and dynamics of the crime issue in Sydney and also put at risk the ability of policy responses to deal adequately with the issue. Even more alarmingly, if we continue to reinforce the racialisation of the youth crime issue in the discourses, policies and practices of Sydney’s media, police and governments, the social cohesion of one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities is put in jeopardy.

Or the discussion here, in The myth of ethnic crime.

To condemn the racialisation of crime is not to deny that there are Lebanese Australians or Vietnamese Australians who commit crimes. The existence of criminal activity among these communities is not the issue. All of Sydney's 180 or so ethnic communities, including Anglo-Celtic ones, have people who commit crimes. The point to be made is that there is nothing about people's ethnicity which predisposes them to committing crime.

That's perhaps why the evasive anonymous editorialist shifts ground:

It is no longer a question of ethnicity but of cultural difference, and the tensions that can all too easily follow.

Yes, it isn't a question of ethnicity, but of cultural difference, and whose culture is different? Why knock me down with a feather. It turns out there's a religious and ethnic and racial pattern:

Only 1.71 per cent of Australians identify as Muslim, but we cannot simply ignore reports of behavioural problems among young, unemployed and disaffected Muslim men in the outer suburbs of Sydney, for example -- problems that are increasingly acknowledged by community leaders. The difficulties among largely Lebanese Muslims are mirrored in some

Pacific Islander groups in the same areas and among Somali refugees in country towns.

Spoken like the very best radio shock jock, or right wing Andrew Dolt hysteric. Not that it has anything to do with ethnicity or religion or race. It's just "cultural differences".

Then the usual predictable sanctimonious lecture follows:

These are not racial problems but problems born of cultural difference. There is a troubling alienation from mainstream Australian values.

Yes indeed, very troubling. The dole bludgers lack the mainstream values like those embraced by billionaire Richard Pratt and Visy, where you indulge in price fixing, and then say you're sorry and cop a slap on the wrist. (Visy and Pratt fined $36m over price fixing). Or learn how to tap telephones and ruin lives like any decent Murdoch News of the World journalist ...

Oh sorry, that's mainstream British values ...

Something has to give, and it is up to the communities, backed by sensible support from governments at all levels, to try to change the expectations that are holding back so many young Australians. How wonderful it would be if the next generation of Lebanese-Australian kids held as their models the successful chief executives and footballers from their communities, rather than drug barons and night club owners.

Uh huh, so they too can get as pissed as parrots at the Manly football club launch, and so represent the noble face of Thugby League, or perhaps visit schools like St Kilda footballers and instruct young women in the finer ways to get ahead ...

But hang on, aren't the Pacific Islanders already successful footballers? Don't one in four NRL footballers come from the Pacific, and staunchly uphold the gladiatorial mainstream Australian value ... getting paid to thump the shit out of the opposition? (NRL's island talent)?

And what happens if you do turn into a successful Lebanese-Australian footballer, like Hazem El Masri, the NRL's all time leading point scorer?

ADAM HOUDA, FRIEND AND LAWYER: We were approached by two police officers demanding our IDs and we took a bit of offence to that because we were sitting there, minding our own business. One officer said, "Are you refusing to give us your ID?" And Hazem and I replied that, "No, we're not refusing to give you anything but we want to know what the legal basis for your request is." And "Okay," he said, "right, you're refusing. You're refusing, aren't you?" And within a minute we were surrounded by nine police officers and five police cars. And we were just left stunned. We have a firm belief that we were approached because of our appearance.
HAZEM EL MASRI: I took a stance because a lot of times, I get a lot of kids sort of coming up and saying, "Look, we got picked on for no reason by the police and such and such." And I always questioned you know what they're saying, but for me to go through what they went through, I sort of understand where they're coming from. (more here).

Not to worry Hazem. The sanctimonious righteous anonymous editorialist will go on picking on you.

Not that it's a racial or an ethnic thing. It's a cultural thing.

Why can't you wogs just be like everyone else and get along with everyone? Do we have to organise another Cronulla bashing to make you all see sense? Sheesh ...

HAZEM EL MASRI: A lot of people are under the perception that all Lebanese are criminals, all Lebanese are rapists, all Lebanese are such and such, you name it.
(Excerpt continued):
WOMAN: Get the f**k out of my country!
MAN: I'll report this...
(End of excerpt)

Let's put it another way:

The true test of his (Mr Bowen) fortitude will be whether he can foster the deep change needed to ensure immigration continues to make a positive contribution to Australia.

Or they can just get the fuck out of the country.

Thanks anonymous editorialist, we love the smell of napalm and sweet reason in the morning, it really helps the Anglo-celtic cornflakes purified with that full cream white milk go down so well ...

(Below: and now we pause for a word from a man we'd love as our sponsor. Money, money, money ...)