Media Release

KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter has asked Australia’s highest law officer to review whether a Sydney council’s banning of a Jewish synagogue breaches Federal laws prohibiting racial and other discrimination.

“It’s not only unbelievable but also blatant racial discrimination,” said Mr Katter of the Waverley council’s rejection of the synagogue development – upheld by a NSW land court on appeal – because it could pose a target for terrorism.

“The rest of Australia is getting sick and tired of the Sydney-centric politicians who run this country grovelling on the floor to Islamic extremism.

“But as soon as Parliament returns, I will be moving a resolution condemning the council for religious discrimination, and we have asked the Attorney-General for a full report on the breach of the racial and other discrimination Acts that should and need to be enforced.”

Mr Katter said it beggared belief that Christianity now appeared to be under serious attack in Australia whilst Governments continued to bring in people from places steeped in sectarian hatred.

“We are bringing into Australia the persecutors – not the persecuted. How do you explain bringing the persecutors in from the Middle East and North Africa, but refusing to allow in the Jews, Christians and Sikhs?”

Mr Katter said the nearly 1 million people coming into Australia from North Africa and the Middle East in the past 30 years came from countries with no rule of law, no democracy, no Judeo-Christian ‘love your neighbor, as yourself’ belief systems, and no egalitarian traditions.

“Let me just describe one Sydney Rabbi’s family – one of their sons was bashed by three Islamic thugs and had to receive medical treatment, their house was fire-bombed and their synagogue regularly desecrated, and their children had to be taken to school under armed guard,” he said.

“One of the most bloody and shameful stains upon the soul of my country was that we refused entry to the millions of Jews trying to escape Hitler’s Europe. Anti-Semitism had abated somewhat after the war yet we only took a shameful, minuscule 15,000 over 10 years when we could – and should – have saved the lives of at least half a million.

“Meanwhile in Australia, we’ve been handing out visas like confetti to the Middle East and North Africa – and to think that not one of them is going to be an ISIS activist…? I’d believe the abominable snowman came from Bedourie before I believed that."

Read more - 'Synagogue ban over terrorism risk leaves Jewish community shocked and furious' - at www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/bondi-synagogue-ban-over-terrorism-risk-leaves-jewish-community-shocked-and-furious/news-story/6ec6252d613583df7797c7cac2b25de4