Islam-critical Kirralie Smith seen as potential …
As Kirralie Smith sits at a sidewalk table in Taree for an interview this week, there is a palpable tension. Sheis mistrustful of what she calls the mainstream media, particularly those elements she believes are biased towards the left.
But Smithhas agreed to talk because she will, she says, use any platform to express her view that Islam is an ideology of violence, intolerance and sexism.
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Kirralie Smith is a well-known anti-Islamic politician and activist, and she is being tapped as Australia's newest libertarian leader.
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Kirralie Smith is a well-known anti-Islamic politician and activist, and she is being tapped as Australia's newest libertarian leader.
Smith received relatively little attention during the last federal election as a NSW Senate candidate for the Australian Liberty Alliance, the political offshoot of the Q Society, which describes itself as "Australia's leading Islam-critical movement".
("Q Society supports an integrated multi-ethnic Australia and rejects racism, which the Oxford dictionary defines as: 'Belief in the superiority of a particular race.' Since Islam is not a race or ethnicity, being critical of Islam is not racist," its website explains.)
But she is likely to receive far more press in the coming weeks as the co-defendant in a defamation action being brought by the businessman Mohammed El-Mouelhy, who was the subject of a critical video produced by the Q Society and presented by Smith.
Already Smith and the Q Society, also named in the suit, have rallied an impressive line-up of public supporters, including Coalition right-wingersCory Bernardi, George Christensen and the former MP Ross Cameron, who are among a handful of public figures set to address fundraisers to be held in Sydney and Melbourne on February 9 and 10.
We sit and both reach for our phones to turn on recording apps. Smith has already explained that she wants her own record of our conversation. The tension dissipates a little when a sky-blue ute throbs past us and Smith laughs and points out the personalised number plate, "TRUMP1". Later she will tell me that she rejects the suggestion she is right wing, rather, she says she a part of the silent majority of mainstream conservatives whose voices are now being heard due to victories of Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.
Smith says she never intended to pursue politics. She has always been happiest as a wife and mother. "I love being my husband's wife," she says to emphasise the point.
As it was, a confluence of events brought her to her mission. In 2000 Smith and her husband Greg, a tradesman, sought out volunteer work in Mali and there met the Assemblies of God missionary Faouzi Arzouni, whom she describes as a Muslim apostate who became a friend and mentor.
Two years later the couple went on another trip, a 10-day visit to refugee camps ofthe displaced of what is now known as the Maluku sectarian conflict in Indonesia, during which Christian and Muslim communities fell into violent political and ethnic conflict. Smith recalls sitting in refugee camps hearing terrible stories of violence perpetrated by Muslims.
In 2009 Smith's husband took her to a talk being given by Mark Durie, an Anglican vicar. During that lecture Durie expressed concern about buying certain supermarket products because they had been certified as halal.
Smith was intrigued and began her own investigations on the internet, learning that many brands are halal-certified, and that a portion of the fees paid for such certification is donated to Muslim charities. In other countries, Smith contends, those charities have directed funds towards groups with terrorist links. Her online investigation became a website, Halal Choices, a campaign and, with the support of Bernardi and Christensen, a parliamentary inquiry into "third party" food certification. Finally it became a political ambit, with Smith running for the ALA in a campaign launched by the anti-Islamic immigration Dutch MP Geert Wilders.
"There is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered," Wilders once told Dutch parliament.
"I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, socalled honour revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister's Sharia mortgages, and the enormous over-representation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists," Wilders said.
Smith says she does not believe there is an imminent threat of adopting Sharia law, but is concerned about what she calls "creeping Sharia".
"We are being encouraged very strongly to tolerate Sharia finance, halal certification, the hijab," she says.
"Sharia is definitely present in Australia I believe there are honour killings and it is all reported under domestic violence or another name," she says. As evidence she says she has close friends who are pastors who work in churches who have provided sanctuary to victims.
But Smith's concerns are broader than creeping sharia. During the US election she was horrified by Hillary Clinton's support for abortion rights. She opposes political correctness, Safe Schools andbig government regulations imposed upon farmers by distant bureaucrats.
"I pretty much oppose everything the Greens stand for," she says.
She was also appalled by the Liberal Party's abandonment of Tony Abbott for Malcolm Turnbull.
This broader political outlook, and Smith's articulate direct manner, has led some observers to speculate that she is a potential leader for a new conservative movement, one energised by the international populist surge.
She is, says John Adams, a former Coalition adviser who has written about the need for more intellectual depth in the new conservative movement, a more capable and charismatic messenger than, say, Pauline Hanson. ("I think Pauline has a lot of good sentiment, I am not sure about the ability," says Smith of Hanson.)
In the months since the campaign Smith has kept in touch with supporters via videos on her Facebook page. In them she is relentlessly bright and articulate, upbeat about Christmas and Australia Day, though scandalised by the recent billboard that showed a pair of little girls celebrating in a hijab andcheerily opposed to the "threat" of multiculturalism. She denies ever having had media training, though confesses that she is constantly asked if she has.
Asked if she plans to run for office again Smith says she cannot answer the question as her entire focus is directed towards the defamation action and her family.
"People say this is sexist, well I am sexist, I love being a wife and mother, that is the best I have ever done in my life I love being my husband's wife."
In the next breath she adds that sheand her husband have made the decision to use any platform to put forward their message.
"I want to be able to look my children in the eye and say I did everything I could to stand for what is right."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the Reverend Mark Durie's relationship to the Q Society. He is in fact an occasional speaker for the Q Society.
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