Mick Keelty is the top cop in Australia. Is it me, or does it seem like he has gone over to the other side?
FEDERAL police commissioner Mick Keelty has urged people to back off Muslims, insisting Islamic Australia is not to blame for terrorism.
In a revealing interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Keelty said racial profiling was self-defeating because it risked alienating mainstream Muslims while ignoring the real danger of homegrown non-Muslim terror. "I remind people that the firstperson who was convicted of a terrorist offence in Australia was a person with the unlikely name of Jack Roche," the police chief said.
And Mr Keelty said he did not like the phrase "the war on terror", because it did not apply in Australia. "Unless people understand what is happening here, we risk alienating the Islamic community, we risk branding the Islamic community," he said.
Mr Keelty made no criticism, direct or implied, of how politicians were conducting the debates on immigration and terror. But his message of inclusion is in contrast to the thrust of federal politics in the past few weeks.
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