We are not Europe. Not yet

On Sunday morning, I, like so many of you, woke to footage of France burning. What we were told began as school protests has become something far uglier. Hundreds of schools have been disrupted and thousands arrested, and the unrest is spilling across borders.

Individual police officers are being singled out and beaten, firefighters are being attacked as they arrive, and beautiful old civic buildings have been targeted and destroyed. 

I’ve been visiting France since the mid-90s, and I spent a lot of time in Rouen when I worked in oil and gas. I’ve seen rail pension strikes, taxi protests, and a few strikes even the locals couldn't quite explain. Protest is a long-standing French tradition and almost a national sport, but this is different.

Protest is a long-standing French tradition and almost a national sport, but this is different.

The media will tell you it’s about school funding, but French classrooms are no worse than ours. This has been building for decades. Two forces have collided: the first is immigration at a pace, from predominantly Muslim populations, that makes assimilation impossible, so newcomers form enclaves instead of becoming French, Belgian, or Dutch.

The second is the long march through the institutions. When 1960s radicals found Western workers too comfortable to revolt, they went into the universities to teach the teachers.  Several generations later, children are taught that their history is shameful and their families are an obstacle.

The far left and political Islam make strange allies, but as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. History tells us how that alliance ends: whoever wins turns on the other.

There is one glimmer of hope. In Rouen, the locals are resisting the rioters and flying the flags of Normandy and of Richard the Lionheart, whose heart rests in the city’s cathedral. People who know their history don’t give it up easily.

WA isn’t burning, but I believe the same undermining is happening here.

The Public Order Legislation Amendment Bill 2026, awaiting final debate in the Legislative Council, makes public safety the paramount consideration for police when they assess a protest. It sounds reasonable, but it gets things backwards. Freedom of speech is what keeps free people safe in the long run. Once ‘public safety’ outranks expression in law, whoever decides what is unsafe also decides who gets heard, and governments don’t like hearing that immigration is too high.

The Public and Bank Holidays Amendment Bill 2025, currently moving through the WA Parliament, gives us two new public holidays. Who wants to be the Grinch who voted against a long weekend? But the Bill moves WA Day away from 1 June, the date chosen to mark the founding of our state. The name was changed from Foundation Day in 2012, and now the date is to be changed too. Yes, settlement displaced Aboriginal people, and we should say so honestly, but hiding our foundation doesn’t heal anything. It just cuts the next generation off from it.

The WA Liberal Party constitution commits us to “resolutely oppose Marxism and all other totalitarian philosophies” and to “safeguard Australia against any form of internal subversion or aggression.” I read those words before I joined and committed myself to them when signing on the line. Rewriting who we are, one line of legislation at a time, is a form of internal subversion, and I make no apology for standing against it.

I’m a first-generation Australian. My parents came here, contributed, and became Australian. That’s the model worth defending.

Let me know your thoughts by hitting reply.

Stay vigilant, back those who build this nation up, and keep a watchful eye on those trying to tear it down.