Webs, Weeds and Wisdom with Jane Baker | June 7

We have established in this country a free secular society in which every citizen enjoys the same rights as every other citizen – male or female, native-born or immigrant. We inherited a culture marked by freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, freedom of worship, freedom of speech and a free press. For those fleeing war and catastrophe Australia is a beacon of light in the darkness, a haven they will risk life and limb to reach.

Why then do we allow the routine abuse of our values? Over the last decade I have watched the steady assault on them, the steady dimunition of their integrity. 

We now have a class of people who can be held incommunicado for up to two weeks before charges must be laid or the individual released. This is argued as a measure necessary to deal with one situation only, for the good of all. Never forget Pastor Martin Niemoller's words: First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the Socialists ... trade unionists... Jews ... me. Freedom disappears by incremental theft.

We watched what happened to the two Queensland university students who became the victims of abuse of power by a statutory federal body. We saw what happened to Bill Leak, that fearless defender of truth in the face of hypocrisy and obfuscation. 

We see children in some parts of Australia being taught that sex (male or female) is a matter of choice, something that flies in the face of science and human understanding since the dawn of time. And what do we do? Absolutely nothing!

Now we have women who fought the good fight for recognition as equally contributing citizens of this country failing to condemn the endemic violence against women in some Aboriginal communities. Aren't those poor beaten women as deserving of support as other women in this country? 

We hear these feminists prevaricating about the genital mutilation of young girls that is happening in Australia today in the name of respect for different cultural norms. This is our culture, and, in our culture, cutting little girls is a crime and must be named so. 

Polygamy and child marriage have always been prohibited in Australia but today there are men in this country with more than one wife and there are girls who are being married off when they are barely into their teens. Unbelievably, the only ones shouting this down are the radio shock jocks.

We repealed those archaic laws criminalising homosexuality and ordering wives in flight back to their husband's abode, and we were glad to see them gone. Why then are we allowing them back in the name of cultural relativism?

It is up to every one of us to speak up for the values of our culture. They are noble values and must be defended in the face of ignorance and ideologically biased reasoning