'Right-wing extremist' Pauline Hanson asks the right questions - but usually has the wrong answer.

There is no one in Australian politics that the Left loves more than Pauline Hanson whose name they cannot utter without the prefix 'right-wing extremist'. Hanson speaks and acts according to all the points of their fantasy about being right-wing: ignorant, poorly educated, inarticulate, and racist. Unfortunately Hanson often gives her enemies the ammunition to shoot down her views by offering the wrong answers to legitimate problems.

Just recently Hanson put her attractive property just outside Brisbane up for sale. Naturally reporters flocked to her in the expectation of getting something they could beat up in the usual way. Hanson did not disappoint them. She said she would not sell her house to Muslims. Why? Because they represented a culture that was incompatible with Australia's culture. They would never assimilate. Of course, she is fundamentally right. The wealth of evidence in support is such that only rigid ideologues would ignore or deny it - which is what happens all around the Western world.

Regrettably those claims are not justification for disqualifying Muslims from the buying market for her property. In fact, they have nothing to do with the issue of deciding who can and who cannot buy her property. Once Hanson offers her property for sale to the public she cannot exclude anyone who is a legitimate resident of Australia. To do so, would be to undermine the very system of government she is at pains to protect. This is the same argument Edmund Burke levelled at the British government in their conflict with the American colonies. To tax the colonies without representation, Burke said, was to undermine the British Constitution. He was right.

Muslims who have legitimately migrated to Australia have the same rights guaranteed in Australia's Constitution, written and unwritten, as anyone else. They are also subject to the same laws. As long as they abide by the laws and recognise the system of government and Australia's cultural framework, there is no problem. I have no doubts that most of the individuals who make up the Muslim community in Australia are willing to accept these conditions for living in Australia.

The subject of dress for Muslim women has been an issue in Europe for some time. France attempted to legislate to ban the Burqua, the garment that covers the whole body including the head. The objections were on security and cultural grounds. The fuss the proposed legislation caused put a stop to it. Belgium recently bit the bullet and banned it. Just this week, the issue long simmering erupted in Australia. There is much support for its banning.

Once again, on the same grounds, I say you cannot decree such a ban without denying fundamental elements of Australia's constitution and culture, however repugnant the Burqua is to Australia's cultural sensibilities. Even on the grounds of security, there is scant justification. Places of high security can require that people - all people- who enter reveal themselves. This is not a ban on a Burqua. People who choose not to comply with security conditions elect not to enter such premises. The security conditions apply to everyone.

There are other (secondary) reasons why it is prudent not to make Muslim dress an issue. The evident unfairness in placing a ban on any Muslim dress will cause group resentment which is just the circumstances that the radicals are looking for - the alienation of ordinary people. Why would you give air to psychopaths over the marginal issue of a woman's garment? Second, and more important for me, the wearing of the Burqua will continually remind Australians of what the real issue is in all this: the incompatibility of Islam's cultural, social and political make-up with that of the West. It is not an issue of religion, a point that most people are sadly blind to. The issue is cultural, social and political.

The right, proper and sensible policy in the West on Islamic immigration is to restrict it to proportions that will never give it a chance to challenge Western Civilisation. And the question of rights will never arise.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com