IF you needed proof that free speech in Australia is on the run, look at what happened when Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders came to town.
With 10 per cent of the vote in Holland, Wilders is a mainstream politician, leading the third largest political party in one of the most tolerant liberal democracies in the world. Yet in Australia he is treated like a pariah, denied a visa for months, and unable to secure a venue for his speaking tour in Perth.
Instead of a "welcome to country" before he spoke to audiences in Sydney and Melbourne last week, organisers had to read aloud a statement of Victoria's racial and religious tolerant act.
As much as anything, this curious legal requirement adhered to by the Melbourne-based Q society which hosted Wilders, explains why Australians are open to his message of creeping Islamisation. [The Sunday Telegraph] Read more
