IT IS now a fact of life in Sydney that armed guards have to escort Jewish children to school. Much as we would wish it otherwise, the war drums of ancient Middle East conflicts have already come to Australia.

And none is so lethal as the threat of jihadists radicalised by the barbaric slaughter in Iraq and Syria.

Why, then, would any sane, loyal Australian oppose the government’s proposed modest modifications to anti-terrorism laws.

media_camera Mohamed Elomar and radicalised Australians like him, are a deadly danger to our society

Requested by our security agencies, they are crucial to keeping innocent Australians safe from Islamist terrorism. The threat of homegrown jihad is real, and most Australians know it. Four out of five people surveyed in a ­recent Newspoll expect a terrorist attack within 20 years.

We know that south-western Sydney is providing a disproportionately large number of jihadists to the Middle East; as many as 150, including at least two dead suicide bombers. Most famous are Sydneysiders Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, who has appeared in grisly photographs on social media, gleefully brandishing the severed heads of Syrian soldiers.

It’s obvious that increasing numbers of young Australian-born Muslims are being radicalised in our suburbs, and we can only trust that our security agencies can continue to keep us safe from them.

media_camera Security was present as schoolchildren from Jewish School Mount Sinai College, Maroubra. Picture: Phil Hillyard

media_camera A security guard outside Mount Sinai College

Professor Peter Leahy, the former head of the army, has warned that we need to be prepared for a long war against radical Islam that will last until the next century and will be fought in part on home soil: “It will, of necessity, restrict our rights and liberties.”

And yet, from libertarian zealots to the Grand Mufti of Australia, an unholy alliance of refuseniks is trying to force the government to back down on its counterterrorism proposals, in the same way that it meekly dropped reform of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Dropping those free-speech reforms for political reasons was one thing, but the Prime Minister made a mistake to declare it was because of the need to keep Muslims onside in the hope they wouldn’t oppose the new anti-terrorism measures.

“When it comes to counterterrorism, everyone needs to be part of ‘Team Australia’ and I have to say that the Government’s proposals to change 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act have become a complication in that respect,” Mr Abbott said.

No, there is no appeasing enemies of freedom.

Proof of that came swiftly last week when Muslim leaders ignored the PM’s capitulation on 18C and showed they have no interest in being part of “Team Australia”.

The Grand Mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, boycotted an annual Eid dinner hosted by the Australian Federal Police in protest against the planned counterterrorism laws, while the Lebanese Muslim Association branded the laws “deplorable” and “divisive”. But what are they so opposed to?

The legislation is simply aimed at stopping Australian jihadis going to fight in the Middle East, and stopping those who have been blooded overseas from returning to Australia to carry out terrorist attacks. Surely that is in everyone’s best interests.

Then there are the “metadata” measures which caused hyperventilation about privacy invasions all week. Metadata is basic information about digital communications, such as IP addresses and duration of phone calls, not the content of any communications.

It is already retained by telcos. Spy agencies just want a guarantee it will be kept for two years.

As ASIO chief David Irvine told a Senate committee last month, Facebook and Google already store metadata and use it to target advertising.

“For the life of me I cannot understand why it is somehow correct for all of your privacy to be invaded for a commercial purpose and not allow me to do it to save your life,” he said in exasperation. “Without our ability to access telecommunications call data and intercept communications, [we] cannot guarantee the level of safety assurance that people expect.”

Metadata helped track suspects in the Pendennis terrorist plot, and prevent attacks planned on the MCG in 2005 and on Holsworthy Army Base in 2009.

I’m happy to have my iPad address stored for two years if it helps to stop terrorists blowing up a football stadium.

Metadata privacy is the least of our worries.

Another win for silliness

NEW Zealand has awarded asylum to the world’s first “climate refugees”.

Let the games begin.

It happened in June. A family from the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu was granted New Zealand residency in June after claiming to be threatened by climate change.

“Life became increasingly more difficult in Tuvalu due to the effects of climate change and overpopulation,” the family told the Immigration and Protection Tribunal in Auckland. The husband testified that there were more floods on his island than he remembered when he was a child.

In its judgment, the Tribunal noted that Tuvalu, “as a country comprising low-lying tropical islands, is particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change … It

is also widely accepted that the impacts of climate change can adversely affect the enjoyment of basic human rights.”

Honestly, judgments like this make a mockery of the refugee convention. You’d think there is enough immediate danger in the world for refugees without resorting to eco-alarmism about possible future threats.

Leave the kids out of politics

WHAT a nasty man is academic Melletios Kyriakidis, who once taught the Prime Minister’s daughter Frances Abbott at the Whitehouse School of Design. He admits to leaking details of a scholarship she was awarded to leftie website New Matilda and now has the chutzpah to sue the college for constructive dismissal, claiming he was discriminated against for his political beliefs.

“Frances is a lovely person. I don’t want this to be about her,” he told afr.com.

Oh please. He offers no evidence the scholarship was not awarded on merit, as is claimed, and admits Frances was a hardworking “high achiever”. Yet the insinuations continue. Since when have the children of politicians been fair game?

Don't sign up for a set-up

HERE’S a gratuitous piece of advice for Senator Eric Abetz. No conservative politician should ever reward The Project with an interview. It will always be a setup, as it was last week when he was trapped in the fringe abortion-causes-breast-cancer minefield. Why even go there? If you appear on Channel Ten, let it be Bolt, and nothing but Bolt.



