he well let's uh talk a bit more about
that because there was an exclusive in
the Australian newspaper today revealing
the details of a campaign called the
Muslim vote now it's a campaign headed
by a PhD candidate at Western Sydney
University shik wessum uh churak chakar
I've completely mucked up the
gentleman's name wesm chakari I think
I'm not even close but uh he's at Sydney
University I'll just move on from his
name he's aiming to OU Pro Israel MPS
and install them with Pro Palestinian
ones now GTH according to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics 29 Federal seats
have 5% or more people of Islamic faith
and 27 of those 29 are held by labor MPS
does that explain why labor Is So Pro
Palestinian I would hate to say yes I'm
afraid that that is the answer and I
think this is a terrible day for
Australian democracy you know a long
long time ago centuries ago we separated
Church from state in Western democracies
and we did so for a very good reason so
we could all get together and all work
as one towards the betterment of our
Nations I think this is a very very sad
precedent if uh we're going to see
religious groups really Target in a very
direct and confrontational way the
Democratic process and yes I do suspect
that there are a lot of Labor MPS
looking over their backs counting those
numbers in their electorates and I'd be
very very sad to think that that's
what's driving their decision making
when it comes to whether they support
Israel or not well Caroline religious
people have a right as much as anybody
else to vote as they wish but it does
raise questions about
multiculturalism and uh how
multiculturalism then affects National
policy when citizens start voting more
about overseas issues than uh domestic
and secondly is this good news for the
greens I'm not necessarily sure whether
it's good news for the
because while obviously they they're
incredibly Pro Palestine if you look at
everything uh else uh that's in the The
Greens Manifesto It's very socially
Progressive which I don't think will
necessarily align um even though there
might be that alignment on that one uh
geopolitical issue but it does talk to a
broader issue and there was a great
piece actually a couple of weeks ago in
the Australian Paul Kelly talking about
you know we have seen this dispute this
overseas dispute um see a ltering of our
values in this country and and that's
why you know we've always talked about
multiculturalism but you know we you
know maybe the the point that is more
important is no actually we need to have
a more unified culture even though we're
we're obviously multi multi-racial we
have to all be here for similar values
and for similar reasons and and I think
this does point to a broader issue but
this is not the first time it's poked
its head up I mean if you go back and
you look at the the same-sex marriage
vote from 2016 these same seats were the
seats in the country which voted most
heavily no and I'm assuming that labor
thought that they could keep tabs on it
and it wasn't going to become an
existentialist uh electoral issue for
them but you know we're less than 10
years down the track and maybe it is