Supplanting Australian law with Sharia should cost citizenship
7 NOVEMBER 2016: Today I called for citizenship to be revoked from new residents who broke Australian law in order to comply with Sharia law during a speech in parliament on forced marriages. Political correctness should not stop Australia from upholding and enforcing Australian law, including for those who voluntarily came to Australia.Special consideration should be given to anyone who, having signed up to Australian Citizenship and Australian law, breaks that Australian law out of compliance with a foreign religious law, such as forcing a child into marriage or female genital mutilation. They should forfeit their citizenship and their residency and return to where Sharia is the law of the land because there is no room for Sharia law in Australia.Tougher immigration and citizenship laws should include banning immigration from countries with a high prevalence of radicalisation and violent extremism. Opening the door for a free flow of people from these countries is an open invitation to those who are diametrically opposed to our culture and despise us and our very way of life. We do not need to send out open invitations to those who seek to do us harm.For those who do come to this country, I believe they should be required to answer, under oath, a series of questions about their support, or otherwise, for concepts such child brides, female genital mutilation, and Sharia law. If they support these practices, they are free to seek other countries where such practices are permitted. Signing up to become a citizen of this country should include a rejection of all foreign laws – religious or otherwise – that are in conflict with Australian laws.There have been documented cases in Australia of children as young as 9 being forced into marrying older men and the Australian Federal Police investigated 69 cases of forced marriage in the last financial year, more than double the number of cases in the previous year.Political correctness is preventing a discussion about the fundamental driver behind practices such as forced child marriages and female genital mutilation. If we are fair dinkum about equality, we must strip away that political correctness and be bold enough to come out and say that the Australian way of life is 100 per cent at odds with the way of life of radical Islam. We must be bold enough to say we do not accept Sharia law in any way. There is one set of laws in Australia and Australian law applies to all Australians. When immigrants choose to come to Australia, they are choosing to be subject to Australian law and any other foreign religious baggage should be left at the door.