The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has rejected One Nation’s anti-Islamic policies, arguing that comparing all Muslims to terrorists was like equating all Catholics with the “crazy criminals” of the Irish Republican Army.
In a passionate defence of religious freedom, the Nationals leader emphatically disagreed with One Nation policies such as banning Muslim immigration and putting CCTV cameras in mosques.
“If you put them in mosques, then when I go to mass are we going to have one in a Catholic church?” he told Sky News. “You never know. Every group has their ratbags, even Catholics.
“We had, in the past, the IRA, but if someone said every Catholic is a member of the IRA I would say ‘no we’re not’. They’re lunatics, crazy criminals who want to kill people who have nothing to do with the religion I practise.
“In Islam at the moment, they have also got a lunatic fringe. You can’t go through every person of the Islamic faith and say they are all just like them.”
A strong Catholic, Joyce rejected the idea – put forward by Hanson and more recently television celebrity Sonia Kruger – of a ban on Muslim immigration.
“Why? Because of a person’s religion? What happens when you turn that on its head and you start banning people because they are Catholics or because they are Protestants or because they Jewish,” Joyce said.
“I’m not into banning people on the premise of their belief. How they see their god is completely and utterly their own personal reason. It’s up to them how they practise their religion.
“It’s up to them, as long as it doesn’t affect me, its their private discussion with the almighty. I’m not here to tell them what they should or shouldn’t believe.”
Joyce used the example of Labor MP and Muslim Ed Husic, whom he described as a “decent man”.
“And [Labor senator] Sam Dastyari, I am not going to start throwing stones at people,” Joyce said. “It’s just not the way Australia works. I am incredibly proud of the nation we have.
“Everybody says this but I have got good mates who are Muslims who are in the agricultural sector, really good mates, I’m not going to start running around throwing rocks at them.”
Joyce said the democratic process which saw Pauline Hanson elected to the Senate should be respected and he did not want to start the new parliament with a “fight”.
“I am happy to have a cogent debate where nobody is insulted but I am happy to argue these things on the facts and on the reality of the nation I live in,” he said.