Howard 1, Blair 0

With characteristic Aussie bluntness, Australia's Education Minister Brendan Nelson told Muslim immigrants that they should either accept Australian values and culture or "clear off." In other words, no more of the multi-culti nonsense: if you want to live in Australia, then BE an Australian. Here's his point writ large:

“We don’t care where people come from; we don’t mind what religion they’ve got or what their particular view of the world is. But if you want to be in Australia, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs.”

Note that the LEAST radicalized Muslims immigrants in any western country are the ones in the United States. Why? Because we encourage assimilation, not mere immigration. Unlike Canada (which allows Muslims to run shari'a courts in Ontario), Britain (which has huge self-enclosed Muslim enclaves throughout its major cities), France (which houses its North African Muslim immigrants in crappy housing ringing its largest cities) and Netherlands (which never sought to promote Dutch cultural values to its Muslim immigrant population), the US has the lowest relative incidence of Muslim radicalism because fewer Muslim immigrants are interested in following the terrorist path.

Now Australia is sounding the right (albeit, indelicately phrased) note: be an Aussie or don't come to Australia:

“It is very hard for a government or any of its agencies to penetrate every aspect of life, and we don’t want to interfere with people’s enjoyment of life,” [Prime Minister John Howard] said.

“But equally, if people are not willing to give their first loyalty to this country, they obviously must understand that that will arouse enormous concern within the rest of the Australian community.”

A proper stance.

HT: Jawa and CaliCon.