Little better than the de facto living welfare couples on sit down money one can constantly read about in the Daily Mail.

Senator Cory Bernardi kicked off the ‘ban the burqa’ debate in Australia a few of months ago.

The burqa isolates some Australians from others. Its symbolic barrier is far greater than the measure of cloth it is created from. For safety and for society, the burqa needs to be banned in Australia.

At the time I didn’t have much of an opinion either way, but I have slowly come round to supporting a ban. Not least since this recent protest by an Islamic political party in Australia supporting the burqa. At the event the participants denounced secular western society, claiming that Islamic society was superior – same old anti-western rhetoric. They do so of course without any sense of irony. It is western society that allows these people to protest and live their religion. If I was a democratically minded Christian in Iran or Saudi Arabia would I be afforded the same privilege? Cearly not.

I’m no fan of rampant secularism, but the burqa is an affront to the Christian and social conventions of Australia. Conventions that people should respect. So for instance, I shouldn’t be allowed to walk down George St. in Sydney completely nakedand by the same token I shouldn’t be allowed to walk down George St. completely covering my entire body – head to toe – in black cloth with only a small slit across my eye line.

The WSJ editorial board has an interesting debate about the issue.

At the core of liberalism is the concept of the individual. Individual choice is important, but ultimately not as important as the individual who makes it. In the public sphere, the individual is defined first by her face; it is the principal way we can recognize her as such. The purpose of the burqa/niqab is not to protect “female modesty,” which in Islam (and, indeed, Judaism) can be practiced by covering one’s hair. Instead, the purpose is to erase the individual. So to allow the burqa/niqab violates the most basic precept of liberal society….

Same discussion different author:

We participate in public life not as identities but as individuals; to do that, to exist as actors in the public square with rights and responsibilities, we need to be able to recognize others and be recognizable in turn (and not just by way of biometric scanners). One of my objections to the burqa/niqab is that it violates that basic norm; it creates a one-way mirror by which some members of society can recognize others while remaining invisible themselves.

The use of the burqa is the Muslim community symbolically saying: ‘We want no part of Australian society.’ At the very least people living in Australia should recognise that they are part of a greater whole.

Julia Gillard’s close friend Victorian ALP MP Kelvin Thompson is part of a growing band of left-wing politicians that go in for state sanctioned population control. Gillard has joined the crowd by rolling out her ‘sustainable population’ mantra for this election. I’ve previously covered the issue here.

My basic claim is that Gillard has all the hallmarks of a person that also goes in for state sanctioned population control, including state ‘encouraged’ abortion and incentives for couples to avoid having children. Consider Sustainable Population Australia’s Sandra Kanck and the response to her call for a one-child policy in Australia as reported in the Adelaide Advertiser:

Mrs Kanck retired from the SA Parliament last year and was replaced by her media adviser, David Winderlich.

Mr Winderlich issued a statement distancing himself from Mrs Kanck’s comments.

“The Australian Democrats and I disagree with the idea of a legislated one-child policy as proposed by Sustainable Population Australia – it is too draconian,” he said.

So let’s put one and two together. The people that want state sanctioned population control are all:

1. Human induced climate change believers,

2. Want a price/tax on carbon dioxide,

3. Hold to the political dogma of environmental sustainability,

4. Hate the car yet enjoy air travel and rarely if ever use public transport themselves,

5. Have 1 or no children yet have developed a habit of telling other people how to raise their own children,

6. Are of the political left and think government is the solution to everyone’s problems as long as they are not paying,

7. Anti-religious,

8. Have no problem in legalising or keeping legal certain forms of behaviour that lead to death such as hard drugs, abortion and/or suicide, and

9. Associate with like minded individuals.

Check all boxes Julia Gillard.

I’d like to see the media ask Gillard how she plans to control Australia’s population to ensure its sustainability. Get ready for catch phrases starting in “I’m gonna…” such as “moving forward” and “working families”. And we are all meant to believe this person is intelligent.