Georgina Robinson, Sydney Morning Herald, December 30, 2008
Conservative MP Fred Nile says he wants topless bathing banned in NSW to protect Sydney’s Muslim and Asian communities.
The Reverend Nile has rejected allegations that prudishness is behind a bill he has prepared to ban nudity, including topless sunbathing, on the state’s most popular beaches.
Australia’s reputation as a conservative but culturally inclusive society was at risk of erosion by more liberal overseas visitors, he said.
“Our beaches should be a place where no one is offended, whether it’s their religious or cultural views,” he said.
“If they’ve come from a Middle Eastern or Asian country where women never go topless—in fact they usually wear a lot of clothing—I think it’s important to respect all the different cultures that make up Australia.”
The practice was at risk of raising the ire of Muslim men in particular, Mr Nile said.
“I don’t want to have any provocations or disturbances on our public beaches,” he said.
Acting Premier Carmel Tebbutt and the NSW Opposition Leader, Barry O’Farrell, have both said that topless bathing is an issue for local councils, not state governments.
But Mr Nile said he believed most politicians would come around once all the issues were considered.
“I think if you survey Australian women you’ll find a lot of women would be uncomfortable if it became the custom [to be] topless at the beach,” he said.
“Australia’s always been a conservative country as far as beachwear goes.
“Once being topless is accepted as lawful the next question will be why can’t women go totally nude on a public beach and I don’t think Australians want to go down that pathway.”
NSW Liberal powerbroker David Clarke and Labor MP Paul Gibson have reportedly vowed to support the bill.
AAP reports:
Mr O’Farrell said topless bathing was not a matter for Parliament.
“This is a matter for local councils to deliberate, at a time when state parliament should be focusing on roads, public transport, hospitals and education,” he said today.
“It doesn’t rate on the list of important matters for the Parliament of NSW.”
Up to individuals: Gillard
Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the topless issue was one of context and clear signage.
“People want to go to the beach and use the beach in a variety of ways. Obviously family groups want to go to the beach, people who want to get a bit of sun all over also want to go to the beach,” she said.
“As long as people know what the rules are and know what to expect I think it is a matter for the individuals involved.”
Ms Gillard urged topless bathers to be sun smart.
“There is also a stage where people should be getting the hat on, getting the shirt on and getting the sunscreen on,” she said.
Topless bathing not an issue: Bondi mayor
Waverley Council Mayor Sally Betts says she is aghast at moves by state politicians to outlaw women from sunbathing topless on NSW beaches.
“We’ve got alcohol-related violence, we’ve got under-age drinking and anti-social behaviour in the public domain—those are really important issues,” Ms Betts told Fairfax Radio Network.
“If the Reverend Nile really wants to help people he should focus on those issues.”
Ms Betts said she was at the beach on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and did not notice any topless women.
But if it was a problem, she would have heard about it, she said.
“In Waverley, we have a very involved community. They complain about everything,” she said.
“But nobody has complained to me about topless [women].”
Original article
(Posted on December 31, 2008)
Comments
It seems to me that this conservative MP suffers from the same affliction that American lamestream conservatives and neo-cons do, with their obsession about Hispanic “family values.” Take a hint, guys, as Australia becomes more Muslim and America more Hispanic, it’s not going to be anything to your liking.
This might be an area where the left might jump on the racialist bandwagon.
So here we have a conservative who doesn’t mind people loosing their freedoms as long as he can grind his own particular axe, even if it means giving a religion that ultimately aims at eliminating his own. This has to be one of the best cases of shortsightedness I have seen lately.
Female bosoms are only offensive to people who deny that humans are mammals. I am willing to bet that these same people who are offended by them, cannot keep their eyes (or hands) off them when they do see them.
I used to live in Vancouver, Canada. Wreck Beach is a popular nude beach there. I didn’t care for seeing people parading around in their birthday suits, so what did I do? Complain to politicians? Insist on a ban so that I wouldn’t be offended? No. I simply never went to Wreck Beach. It was as easy as that. Just a shame that Muslims can’t arrive at the same simple logic.
“The practice was in danger of raising the ire of Muslim men in particular…”
Religious fanaticism aside, this sanctimonious image of these impossibly moral Muslim men is about as laughable as the much vaunted mythology about Hispanic “family values!” Muslim standards of “modesty” are cartoonishly anachronistic at best, or just plain bizarre at worst. Anyone that offended by the human body has issues that go way deeper than one’s chosen belief system, etc.
Australians have allowed millions of non-European people to enter their country and colonize it; a hundred million more are on the way. Doesn’t this make their beach attire regulations irrelevant?
Oz residents need to find every nuance of western civilisation that offends the Muzzies and rally to construct social activities that drive the Islamics up the wall. Short skirts. Topless bathing. Bacon consumption. Pork additives. Whatever you can think of that can offend a Muzzie, go for it. Make sure their community news organizations cover them!
As the Aussies are famous for saying: Fred Nile needs to piss off. If anybody from a foreign country is offended, tough, go ho me to your own country. Australia for Australians.
As a women I have every right to take off my top in my country, in a same way as men do.
I’m no fan of nude beaches and don’t frequent them myself, but aren’t nude beaches generally cut off from the regular beaches and surrounded with signs? Are Muslim men so lacking in self-control that they can’t stop themselves from going to these beaches and staring at nude white women?
This might be an area where the left might jump on the racialist bandwagon.
Of course it is. Racialism really isn’t a left-right issue at all. How many “liberals” unthinkingly oppose racialism because they imagine it’s a “conservative” thing? Why needlessly alienate these people? So-called mainstream “conservatives” have proven themselves hopeless and useless when it comes to race. While their ideas about a workable society are on a firmer footing than liberals’ they’re generally accompanied by religious and hyper-capitalist (plastering every bit of open space with garish ads is “conservative”?) excesses most racialists can easily do without.
When a completely nude person bends over in front of me, I must say that Yes, I am offended by the human body.
It would impossible to have any thing that would not offend someone. Every one is willing to give up someone elses rights.
How long have their been topless beaches in Australia? When I was in Mexico there were Australians laying out topless because that was the norm for them.
“I think it’s important to respect ALL the different cultures that make up Australia.” (Does he listen to the words coming out of his mouth? I should expect ALL to first include native Australians with their natural, always-existent customs.)
I know what is thought of as attractive changes over the ages. Times have changed and I don’t think it’s smart to flaunt a naked body in public. One has to watch out for themselves because no one else is going to do it. I’d rather not see anyone nude on a beach, even if they had a nice body. But, that’s not the point. I’d deal with it, if I was the new-comer.
Nude and topless sunbathing is an issue which has something for everyone. Everyone has an opinion and wants to share it.
Conservatives claim to be in favor of freedom but on ‘moral’ issues most conservatives divide broadly into libertarians and natural prudes.
Libertarian conservatives and politically-active gay Republicans - they DO exist - are in favor of gay marriage, arguing that marriage is essentially a conservative institution and that gays and lesbians who choose to tie the knot are likely to be responsible citizens. Reactionary conservatives choose to confuse the issue by hauling the supernatural into the debate and telling us that St. Paul would have disapproved.
As for nude and topless sunbathing, it OUGHT to be a non-issue in a free society. There ought to be textile-optional beaches from which the forewarned prudish should stay away, which is what happens on beaches in Britain, Holland, Ireland and France.
A few years ago, PC Ozzies were whining that Chinese tourists and immigrants were appalled by the short shorts that Oz men traditionally wear. [See any ‘Crocodile Hunter’ episode—yeah, that offends them, though fattening puppies for the wok does not]—That appeal seems to have been resoundingly ignored by Aussie men. Bring on the bare breasts and fuzzy thighs if it keeps Australia white!!
is it just me but I recall white Austrailians fighting Arabs on the beach a few years ago after the latter harrassed white women? somebody tell me if I am correct.
So here we have a conservative who doesn’t mind people loosing their freedoms as long as he can grind his own particular axe, even if it means giving a religion that ultimately aims at eliminating his own. This has to be one of the best cases of shortsightedness I have seen lately.
It never ceases to amaze me how putative conservatives enact so much of the multicult agenda.
Speaking of the multicult, why not simply educate Muslims to respect the diversity of Australians?
I don’t want to see nudity on the beach. I am not interested in seeing if someone else’s ugly is uglier than mine. Keep it private. So, in this regard I’m with the Muslims. Although a truly beautiful body may occasionally pass by, the vast majority do nothing but serve as visual emetics.
For a start Conservative MP ‘the Reverend Fred Nile’ is a fire and brimstone sermons from the pulpit, type of preacher from the same (old)school as America’s Billy Graham.
Anything to do with Sydney beaches, Muslim men and covering up female sun bathers has to have something to do with the aftermath of the 2005 Cronulla beach riots.
Cronulla Race Riots - Lebs Vs Aussieshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrrgm3JyvcM&feature=channel_page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6IFonuxLFQ&feature=related
Usually we wait until muslim men have been tracked down by a sex crimes police squad before we dare mention anything about their pencent for rape or the way they veiw our mothers, sisters and daughters etc.
When I visited the beach in Alexandria, Egypt I noticed that Muslim women bathe there dressed from head to toe. Anything less would be offensive to Muslims. With a name like “Nile” surely this columnist realizes that normal bathing suits would also be offensive to Muslims - so does he expect all Aussie women to dress in abayas and hijabs in order to avoid offending them?
Furthermore, the original Australian natives were accustomed to no clothing at all. One wonders whether Mr. Nile would defend the rights of those natives against Muslim sensibilities.
How many waves of Middle Eastern ignorance and institutionalized hatred do white Europeans have to defend themselves against? I’m talking about Middle Eastern religions. These successive waves of religion decimated the cognitive elites of the ancient Middle East and much of the Mediterranean.
It is obvious from ancient architecture that the collective intelligence of those regions was once enormous. But zealots from a cluster of virulent religions murdered the upper classes. Now, the average IQs in those countries is too low to sustain high levels of civilization.
Europe suffered greatly from the introduction of Middle Eastern ideologies. The church-sponsored murder of the German midwives is only one example of the slaughter of intelligent groups in Europe. One has to wonder if we lag behind China and Japan in intelligence because of the forced imposition of alien religions.
But Europe eventually managed to have an improving effect on the two main invading religions. Eventually….after much strife. What percentage of the world’s population would we be, if not for endless religious wars and persecutions?
And now that our societies have finally recovered; when we finally have regained the freedom to use our own innate European intelligence to determine what is important and appropriate (rather than adhere to the written ravings of ancient cave-dwelling desert hermits), our parasitic governments suddenly are forcing us, for no reason other than ideology, to confront the most malignant religion of them all.
Why should we have to accommodate the beliefs of people twenty IQ points below us, and five centuries behind us? In the past few months, Americans have shown the world what we can do simply by driving a little less. What else are we, and our brothers and sisters in other countries, capable of, if we act collectively? Enough is enough.
I don’t want to see nudity on the beach. I am not interested in seeing if someone else’s ugly is uglier than mine. Keep it private. So, in this regard I’m with the Muslims. Although a truly beautiful body may occasionally pass by, the vast majority do nothing but serve as visual emetics.
I think it is a good propaganda issue to do a mass education program aimed at White females 16 -40 advising them to
“dress for safety”
At beaches and other places where Muslim men, youth are because these men have customs that women who show any of their bodies are whores and deserve to be raped.
(pretty close to the truth)
the Propaganda campaign should be done in a high brow “public safety” way, finesse the racial issue, but have it there.
Just show the way ugly Arab and other Muslim women dress - covered head to toe in burkas and then show White western women wearing next to nothing, include some press accounts of rapes.
The message should be that Middle Eastern and Asian Muslim culture is unchangeable and men are simply brutes, rapists unless everything is their way.
White Australians will rise up to fight for their beach, barbi and bikini culture.
I am with the Muslims on this one, too.
“Nudity on beaches does not threaten our freedom”—I suppose not, but I would not count on these people to be the most responsible citizens! I see them as rather self-absorbed, and certainly not passionate— not the sort that would get mad about immigration or irresponsible congressmen. But let them have their own far-off patch of sand, as long as they don’t go further, which, as a male, would seem to me to be the next step.
I even get disgusted when I see shirtless men (and they all seem to be out of shape, these days), mowing their yard, badly needing a brasseire or at least a tee-shirt—-boop-a-doop, boop-a-doop!
I want to stop my car and yell, For God’s sake, put on a shirt!
JR,
Women who wear revealing swimsuits are not whores and do not deserve to be raped. I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that nobody deserves to be raped, least of which being innocent young women enjoying a day at the beach.
One of the things that jumps out at you at an American Renaissance Conference or at any other aggregation of white activists is the lack of females. It’s not really hard to see why. It’s not AmRen’s fault, and they’ve done a lot to try to address the problem, but it’s a problem which pervades our cause.
I don’t have all the answers for how we go about making our movement more attractive to women. I do suspect, though, that stopping the despicable implication that women who dress like Western women dress deserve to be raped would be a good start.
Our women are not just another identity group in the opposition, they’re my mom, my sister, my wife, and my daughters. They’re why I remain loyal to this unpopular and unsuccessful cause. I promise that it’s not out of a desire to associate with or fraternize with you.
To Wikitopian
My suggestion is to promote an educational program targeting White Western women to educate them on the different cultural practices of different men - to protect them from assault, rape from Middle Eastern, Asian Muslim men who do not recognize Western freedoms.
Seeing as virtually the entire Western media promotes the lie that all people are the same, equal, all cultures are supposed to be as good or better than Western cultures, respect women’s right etc, my program is a positive, dose of reality - explaining in a public health, public safety manner that White Western women should be on guard, careful around Middle Eastern, Asiatic Muslim men.
My program is a good thing.
White Western women are safer around White Western men then around Leb, Pakistani, Black African Muslim men.
OK. Now I understand too many White Western women have been watching Lifetime television for women which produces lying, anti White propaganda that the greatest threat to White Women are White Western men. This is a lie.
Let’s get away from lies, get away from anti White propaganda and present the facts of life in a way that works.
White Western women in Australia or anywhere need to be on guard around NW Muslim men.
If we don’t want to be labeled “RACIST” - just present this truth in a public safety, facts of life way.
JR
None of you are addressing the REAL ISSUE HERE. This WASN’T a problem until Muslims arrived. No muslims, no muslim-related problems, hassels or issues.
“This wasn’t a problem until Muslims arrived.”
Not true. The Boop-a-Doop phenomenon was occuring long before Muslims came to these shores, and it was still very unsettling.
“I don’t have all the answers for how we go about making our movement more attractive to women. I do suspect, though, that stopping the despicable implication that women who dress like Western women dress deserve to be raped would be a good start.
Our women are not just another identity group in the opposition, they’re my mom, my sister, my wife, and my daughters. They’re why I remain loyal to this unpopular and unsuccessful cause. I promise that it’s not out of a desire to associate with or fraternize with you.”
I agree with you 100%. No woman, including a street walker, deserves to be raped.
I know a former black muslim. He went to Algeria to study Islam, get away from evil white America and immerse himself in muslim culture.
He rapidly reconverted from Islam and returned to evil white dominated America. There are no porn theaters or publications in Algeria. Instead his fellow students of Islam invited him to the weekly slave auctions to oggle naked women.
The slave auctions are the Algerian equivalent of a porn film. Any man is welcome to the auction to look even if he does not wish to buy. He said the women were displayed naked. None of the men were offended in the least. It is the muslim equivalent of renting a porn movie.
After realizing how common these naked slave auctions are in Islamic countries, he came home to America and left Islam.
I doubt very much that muslim men find topless women offensive. In fact, I believe that muslim men would flock to topless beaches to see what they can see.
i wanted to go to austrailia but now that i hear all this it would be like stayin here in the states
Ban topless-ness by making them cover themselves? What next, Australian women must cover their heads with scarves? How about a compromise, no tops but require head scarves.
My family was thinking of moving to get away from our government being bought and sold to muslims. I thought Australia or New Zealand would be the last white homeland,but I see that the muslims rule your politians too. Greet Wilders has been refused enterance into Britian because the Muslims did’nt want him there.What you people don’t understand white christians offend Muslims -watch fitna
