Australians now more protected

This weekend, I watched my Australian Rules football team win its Round 21 match. Aussie Rules is a unique game, centred largely in the southern states (Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania and in Western Australia. Its fast, its furious and attracts huge crowds of us.
I watched the last game with a 60 year old Greek born man on my left and a late twenties Italian man on m y right.
We had four things in common:

• we love our team, are proud of it and want the best for it
• we love out sport...aussie rules
• we are very proud of our country: Australia
• none of us have done the new Citizenship test

In order to protect our society, the government today released a 40-page draft guide detailing what it regards as the 10 essential Australian values every aspiring citizen must embrace.

Does it protect us? What a crock!

This new test will only help people who can memorise the answers. It won't stop terrorists sneaking in. How will knowing the colours of the Australian flag build a more cohesive society? How will knowing the animals on the coat of arms, stop people bringing racial conflicts with them?

Look around you Mr Andrews, we are already creating a more cohesive society. Its been happening round you for years. Look at the cross cultural marriages, the faces in our bureacracies and the foods in our supermarkets.

The people who threaten it are the yobs who bash Jews in the streets of Melbourne, threaten veiled Muslim women on the trains of Sydney and chant ching chong chinaman at the Japanese tourists visiting the Gold Coast.

The people who threaten our cohesive society are the Pauline Hansons who call for stopping of Muslim immigrants into Australia and the Howards and Andrews who speak in stereotypes or the Ruddocks who denied some a home.