How can we stop a mosque being built?

In early 2014 we noticed a sharp increase in the number of Development Applications (DA) to build mosques around Australia. From Bunbury in WA to Cairns in north Queensland, we saw applications in Coolooroo, Bendigo, Ballarat (Victoria), Gungahlin in the ACT, Blacktown NSW, and 8 Mile Plains in Brisbane, as well as Currumbin on the Gold Coast. At the same time we heard about fund raising activities in Sale (Vic), Murwillumbah (NSW) and the Sunshine Coast (Qld) to start the mosque building process. These are just the ones we know about. There are likely many more in the pipeline.

We have seen an increasing number of objections as activists have challenged each new DA to build in Gungahlin, Bendigo, Ballarat, Coolooroo, Currumbin and many more, yet the local councils are ignoring the growing clamour to stop mosque building. Over 2,000 people objected to the Coolooroo DA. There are ongoing objections to the Bendigo mosque, yet the council continues to try and approve the Development Application, despite appeals to VCAT and even the Supreme Court.

After some research we have found out that the problem cannot be solved at a Local Council level. The reason it is so difficult to oppose the approval of mosque applications is in the State Planning Act of each state. Although there are slight variations, they all require a local council planning panel to consider only a limited range of factors based on parking, noise, and infrastructure. Even where a State Planning Act does include ?community concerns? it is so far down the list that local councils are not bound to consider them.

If a local council goes against the Planning Act and rules in favour of community concerns, the councilors risk being fired by the State.

What happens when a Development Application to build a mosque is started?

1. The first step they take is to submit a planning request to build ?a centre for education?, a ?community action centre?, or a ?religious school?, etc. Note that they almost never use the word islam or muslim in the application. If you go searching on local government websites for planning or development applications you need to look for the tell-tale wording. It?s easy to spot once you know what you are looking for. If you are not sure about an application, ring up the council and query them. If that doesn?t help, ask around the neighbourhood, or even go and ask the person who submitted the application to clarify.
2. Every application goes before the local planning board, and it is at this stage that we can stop the application cold if we are well prepared.
3. Read the Development Application and check each detail.
4. We have found that the moslems will make claims they cannot back up, or lie about details such as the number of car parking spaces required.
5. If the application is being made by a ?charitable? organisation check that it actually exists and is a registered charity.
6. Check that the application date is current.
7. Form a Concerned Citizens group and set up meetings to discuss a strategy to resist the mosque application. At this stage it is essential that as many people as possible are united behind the effort to stop the mosque. And the citizens will need to set up small ?action? groups to take care of the various activities needed to resist a mosque application. You will need to set up various sub-committees:
   • a Coordinating group to coordinate all the activities of the groups and submit documents to local Council or other concerned bodies
   • a Financial group to raise funds and manage them. Your citizens group will need a fighting fund to conduct your campaign. The Financial group should register an organization and set up a bank account
   • an Activities group to arrange public meetings, petitions, mailbox drops, etc.
   • a Local Council group. It is important to create a positive rapport with individual councilors as early as you can. The group should visit their councilors as often as possible, in their offices as well as socially. Find out where individual councilors are likely to be for public events and try to meet them. Get to know them and they will feel a stronger responsibility to serve the community.
   • a Council Education group to research and provide educational material for the Local Council group to take to meetings.

It is a good idea to engage the services of a good lawyer who understands what islam is about and why you need to stop the mosque application.

You may want to form other groups as well to handle specific tasks within the group you set up. It?s not possible to suggest all the actual groups you may need to form?as this will depend on your needs and the situation. If you need advice, please contact us, as we can get advice from other community groups are already going through the process. Remember that the moslems are well organised, they have plenty of money (mostly from overseas islamic countries), and they will try to charm the councilors as well. We have to beat them to it and be even better than them.

Local councilors cannot vote on emotive issues, so stick to the guidelines laid out in the State Planning Act, such as traffic and parking chaos, noisy announcements over loudspeakers calling the faithful to prayer 5 times a day starting before dawn and continuing to 11 pm.

When you point out that property prices will plunge tell the councilors that this will put a huge burden on local council finances as the amount of rates paid will fall as a result. Moslem communities rely on welfare payments. They rarely ever produce anything, except goods and services for moslems, so local businesses will suffer, and the community will be gradually but surely be destroyed.

If you feel it is justified you might want to point out that local residents in the UK have successfully sued individual councilors for losses and other consequences of their decision to approve a mosque. We can do the same thing here in Australia too, and as a precedent has been established in the UK this type of action may be very successful.

The council Planning Committee meets

IF the planning application does go before the council, this is generally how the procedure goes:

1. On the day of the hearing, the visitor gallery will likely be filled with moslems in their white robes and turbans, or tough looking bearded blokes. They are designed to intimidate and show that they are serious.
2. It has been our experience that the local council will be predisposed to approve a mosque application simply because it is easier to do so than challenge any of the application points. So it is up to local citizens to be at the meeting and ask as many questions as possible. You will need to be well prepared. If you have hired a lawyer, all the better. Let him go through the DA point by point and if possible show cause why the DA should be rejected.
3. Try to keep the meeting civil and do not disrupt the proceedings. This may be difficult if not impossible if the councilors are not willing to listen to the citizen?s concerns. However, with good preparation, you should be able to achieve a positive result.

But let?s assume that the local Council approves the DA. What happens then?

Once the council has given approval it is possible to challenge the decision in the state Civil and Administrative Tribunal (CAT).

This is where you will be able to challenge any irregularities found in the DA. But these irregularities must be shown to contravene the State Planning Act. Submitting objections based on any other criteria will fail. So, even though a community may collectively not want a mosque due to concerns about increased crime in the area, or falling property prices, the council and the CAT cannot consider or rule on them.

If all else fails and the mosque is built, local residents will find that their property prices fall, sometimes quite sharply. They will be unable to sell their houses at the market value they could have expected before the mosque was proposed. If you are afraid of losing your home due to a mosque being built, the earlier you sell up and move the better. The longer you delay the more money you will lose.

There have been instances overseas where activists have resorted to extreme action, such as burying a pig on the land where the mosque is going to be built and spraying it with pig?s blood. Remember, if you contemplate this kind of action that the land is private property and anyone found there illegally can and will be charged with at least trespass.

In the UK Gavin Boby, a lawyer, has successfully challenged many mosque applications. So far, in Australia, activists and local residents have not managed to stop a single mosque. But until lately we have not been prepared, and we have not had any experience at challenging the DA?s to build a mosque.

That is changing and activists are getting organized. The various groups are combining their skills to work together, come up with strategies and giving support to local residents. If you are concerned about a mosque application in your area, please contact one of your local or state groups. If you don?t know one, please contact us at RestoreAustralia@gmail.com or fill in our Contact Us Form on the website.

What if you are called ?racist? for resisting the islamisation of your suburb?

First, ask what ?race? islam is. It doesn?t make sense to call someone a racist for resisting the building of a mosque. It would be as stupid as calling someone racist for resiting the building of a Catholic church or a Hindu temple.

We are not racists. We are realists trying to protect our culture.

Australia stands for racial harmony, of integrating every Australian into our society. We welcome all immigrants willing to abide by our laws and our culture. But we have seen what has happened in other countries with moslems. They are not willing to fit into our way of life. They will not stop their women wearing the veil or the dehumanising black bag they call a burqa.

They send their children to mosque schools to be indoctrinated in islam where they learn that their first and only loyalty is to islam, not to Australia.

They demand separate laws, Sharia Law over and above our Constitutional law.

That is not integrating. That is open defiance and intimidation and the majority of Australians will not tolerate it. We are a peaceful people who just want to get along and live life to the full. Islam does not offer that.

The riots in Sydney on September 12, 2012 were designed to show us that the moslems are gaining enough of a foothold here to start creating the same mayhem and discord as they have in other countries. They have only just begun. While moslems obey their koran and hold our laws inadmissable, we have no choice but to resist them coming here!

We in Australia subscribe to a well defined set of social and moral values. It is instructive to compare them to those of islam. Click on this link:
Team Australia Vs Team Terror

The only way we can have a better Australia is for us to DO something about it.? We cannot afford to say, ?She?ll be right mate.? ?She? won?t. It is up to every one of us to help defend our civilization and culture for the future of our descendants. And the only way we can do anything is for YOU to get active. Join RestoreAustralia and join the growing number of Australians who are actively working to change the way our government works. Ultimately, political change is the only solution.

——————————————————–