Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (11:40 AM) —I certainly associate myself with the theme of this motion regarding the terrorist attacks on Indonesia. It is interesting that the deaths are so random. In my region, fortunately very few were directly affected by this outrage. I very much endorse the main sentiments of the motion in condemning those employing terrorism, in expressing outrage at and condemnation of the acts and, of course, in extending heartfelt sympathy to those people who were affected. I congratulate those responsible for the initiative in the region of the previous speaker. It is particularly praiseworthy that people are bearing in mind the direct suffering of the Balinese people—the disruption of their industries, the deaths that they have suffered and the fact that their houses have been destroyed. It is particularly meritorious that that recognition is occurring in Australia.

I want to raise another aspect of this. The electorate of Reid, which I represent, is the most Islamic electorate in Australia. The only electorate of any real comparison is the adjacent seat of Blaxland. I think that, unfortunately, there is a tone that comes into this issue of sometimes viewing Australian Muslims as in some way guilty of this, partially responsible for this or connected to it. It is very important that we in the political system repudiate that very strongly. I note that very soon after this outrage the Islamic community in Australia very strongly condemned these sentiments. A joint media release on 6 November included phraseology such as:

That was a very important statement by the representative organisations of Muslims in this country. Yasser Soliman, whom I met last week at the Preston Mosque in Melbourne, was amongst the signatories, as was Sheikh Fehmi, whom I also had the opportunity of seeing last week. The signatories also included Ali Roude and Keysar Trad—people well known to me. There was a strong indication there that Australian Muslims in totality repudiate this line of conduct.

It is also interesting to note the people who are affected by this. Dr Mustafa Al-Hamudine is very well known to me, the minister for immigration, the member for Blaxland and other people who play a continuing role in ethnic politics and community life in Sydney. I was at a function with him for one Lebanese village the other week and he told me that his son's best friend, a fellow basketball player, had been killed in Bali. That is typical of the fact that these murderers have no worry about who is murdered, whatever their religious beliefs, political beliefs, gender, age et cetera. It is indiscriminate and it hurts all. Similarly, I had the opportunity to attend a function in Auburn in my electorate organised by the Turkish Welfare Association to raise money for the victims of Bali. There is a well-publicised case about the Turkish Cypriot family that suffered the death of one brother, Behic, and two other brothers, Ali and Ertan, suffered severe medical problems. In a family of five brothers who migrated to this country, three were direct physical victims. It was good to see the way in which the Turkish population of Sydney raised money for the victims. At that function the eldest brother, Mustafa, made strong statements that in no way could the perpetrators be perceived as working for, defending, helping or being part of the Muslim faith.

Ironically, in the case of that family, before they had migrated to Australia their house was bombed during the civil strife on the island in 1974. As a 14-year-old, Behic, who is now deceased, came out of that bombing unscathed. Once again, this is indicative of the strong repudiation of these activities by Australia's Islamic community. Many of them are directly affected by it, yet they are part of Australia, they feel a strong affinity for this country and they condemn these practices.

The reality is that our neighbour Indonesia, with 200 million Muslims, is the largest Islamic country on this earth. However, there has been some distortion of this by the media. Once again you get the perception from the media that, to some degree, this kind of belief in Indonesia is all encompassing and that the more hardline Islamic approach is growing. I was fortunate to study Indonesia for a year at the government faculty of the university I attended. One of the things that clearly emerged was the reality that Islam in Indonesia has absorbed a lot of animistic beliefs, it has absorbed a lot of pre-existing cultural attitudes and it is a very moderate form of Islam. It is important that, in our dealings with Indonesia, we bear that in mind.

We saw some media criticism earlier on about the investigations in Bali but, quite frankly, I think the Indonesian authorities are to be commended for the manner in which they have undertaken these investigations and for the results that they have obtained. I think that there is clearly a determination by the police force in Indonesia to get to the bottom of this. That is sometimes difficult for them because, no matter how people like to dissociate themselves from terrorism, there is an underlying degree of commonality of broad religious beliefs. They have come under some pressure. Some people think that the Indonesian authorities are being pushed around by Western civilisation et cetera. But, as I say, to my mind they have undertaken the investigation in a very real way.

I want to again emphasise that the 270,000 Islamic believers in this country, a number that has grown from 70,000 in 20 years, have strongly identified themselves with the Australian national interest. They have repudiated this extremism and they have said that these people are not in any way speaking for them. There is an unfortunate tone in some political quarters and in the media of guilt by association. We do not blame every fundamentalist Christian in this country for the gunning down of doctors who carry out abortions in the United States or for the attacks on women's centres or abortion clinics. We do not in any way hold every fundamentalist Christian in this country and every Christian school up to scrutiny. Similarly, around the world, we do not question Buddhism just because of the extremism of the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka and the fact that they always work against any negotiated settlement of the ethnic division in that country.

As I say, there is a bit of a self-selecting approach by the Australian media, often implying that everyone who believes in this faith is in some way identifiable with it. It is not the first time that an international group has ascribed seemingly noble motives of religion et cetera but is, in actual fact, just a criminal operation. In Ireland you see both sides of the divide there engaged in extortion, standover tactics, blackmail et cetera. In Colombia you see nominally leftist guerilla organisations dealing in drugs. In Afghanistan, historically, people supposedly with hardline, very dedicated religious beliefs are engaged in the poppy trade, ensuring that that industry is assisted within the country.

Once again, my message is that we should be very careful not to allow people such as Fred Nile, whom we saw the other week, to suggest that, because someone might wear a particular form of clothing, they might be involved in a particular detonation or in bombing and that everyone should therefore be proscribed from wearing their religious clothing. We will have people banning violins next because a violin was used in some event or other. There is a danger here that, once you move on one group, once you start specifying what they are or are not allowed to wear despite their religious beliefs, it is a threat to all other groups. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on this motion and I commend it.

Debate (on motion by Ms Gambaro) adjourned.