The release of the Coalition’s immigration policy coincided with the third anniversary this week of the horrific 7 October massacre, rapes and abductions in Israel, when 1,200 innocent souls were butchered in the most savage manner by Palestinian Gazans led by Hamas. Whether the timing is deliberate or not, it is apt. It is impossible not to see the connection between these two highly charged political issues: immigration and Islamic antisemitism.

As is clearly the case, there are certain communities who still operate under a medieval belief system whereby sexual violence, torture, humiliation, kidnapping and murder are not only morally acceptable but to be gleefully relished when aimed at certain other communities, in this case Jews. Citizens who grew up in the West in the last 70 years were taught to believe that such barbarism no longer exists, and that given the opportunity to exist harmoniously together in a multicultural, globalist ‘Kumbaya’ world, such ancient hatreds would simply vanish into thin air. This fantasy was famously promoted by Coca-Cola and the New Seekers in their hugely optimistic 1971 advert sung to the tune of ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’, which featured young people of all cultures happily holding bottles of Coke on an Italian hillside together. The scenes this week coming out of France, where the children of north African and Middle Eastern immigrants eagerly set fire to the French state that has given them so much, showed that this liberal European fantasy was as sugary and gaseous as the sickly sweet drink they were all supposedly sharing.

Sadly, ancient religious hatreds and beliefs still persist in the modern world, no more so than within the world of Islam. It goes without saying that not all Muslims ascribe to the more extreme Islamic beliefs, but it is also noteworthy that very few Islamic scholars or religious leaders are prepared to disavow such beliefs. This should pose a dilemma for the immigration mandarins of wealthy Western democracies: to what extent do we allow these alien beliefs and discriminatory practices to enter our free and open society? And what to do when it dawns on us that we might have already let in too many?

The left loves to fetishise so-called ‘lived experiences’. The idea is that there is something unique that ‘normal’ people can never comprehend if you have the ‘lived experience’ of being, for instance, gay, or transgender, black or whatever. But the opposite is never considered: what if your ‘lived experience’ is attending a mosque five times a day in Mogadishu and having it drummed into you since birth that certain other people are vermin who deserve to die? How healthy is it for a society to import large numbers of people who may have been immersed in such a ‘lived experience’? And why do we imagine that just because our ‘lived experience’ is one of tolerating other lifestyles, the same holds true for everyone else? At what point is social cohesion severely damaged if those we allow to come to our shores have no desire  to be ‘socially cohesive’ themselves?

These issues have been worsened by the refusal of the Albanese government to admit, let alone to confront, them. On what planet, in a post-October 7 world, would you think it a great idea to suddenly grant over 3,000 visas to Gazans? Certainly not in the world inhabited by virtually every other nation on Earth.

Angus Taylor and the Coalition are to be praised for their new immigration policy. It basically supplants John Howard’s ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’ with ‘We will decide what sort of values come into this country and the circumstances from where they come’. Journalists were quick to try and pin Mr Taylor down by getting him to nominate those specific countries or cultures which would be on the new Coalition exclusion list, but for obvious political reasons he didn’t bite. But this is the litmus test, and it will make or break the Coalition. Like Donald Trump, and like One Nation, the Coalition will at some point, either before or after the next election, need to clarify precisely what values they have in mind and stick a label, and even possibly a country-of-origin label, onto them for us all to see.

No matter how much the left-wing media here and abroad attempt to disguise the reality of the nightmare in France, and indeed in much of Europe, the public have already made up their minds. Islamic values are too often incompatible with Western democratic norms. The New Seekers approach was that people from alien cultures would be so enamoured of Western freedoms, female equality, diversity of opinion, and so on, that they would automatically cast off their affiliation to the more authoritarian and oppressive cultural norms they grew up with. A sip of Western democracy would prove as tantalising and as addictive as a sip of Coca-Cola.

The massacre of 7 October shows the world just how far certain ideologies and, arguably, cultures, are prepared to go to satisfy their grievances and their bloodlust. Australians can choose to ignore the warning signs, including the horrific Bondi slayings, as having nothing to do with them. The more idiotic of the left and the far right will blame the Jews or Israeli politics. But every right-thinking, honest and fair dinkum Australian of whatever race, religion, heritage or ethnic background knows full well that just because someone is knocking on the door, we are not necessarily obliged to let ‘em in.