Opposition to the Muslim church in Gungahlin is being led by Christian evangelists with links to the US.

The letter circulated in Gungahlin, via www.the-riotact.com 

I can’t believe we are here again, with yet another protest action against the proposal by the Canberra Muslim Community to build a church in the Gungahlin district.

Except of course I can believe it. Nay - I fully expected it once the development application went in. But that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

What is even more disappointing though is to find that it seems to be led by a so-called "Christian" pastor who is practising here in Canberra.


Canberra Times journalist Lisa Cox (to her great credit) has been working all week to try to get to the bottom of who the organisers are. She has identified this pastor as Irwin Ross - who doesn't even live in Gungahlin. He's from the Belconnen area. And he identifies himself as belonging to Olive Tree Ministries - a Jewish-Christian evangelist group based in the USA.


Cox has also reported that in the same week these objections were circulated in Gungahlin, other anti-Islamic leaflets were also circulated in Canberra. These ones were produced by "Chick Publications" - another USA evangelist organisation that is blatantly pushing anti-Islamic propaganda.


Despite these extremely concerning revelations, let's consider whether the opponents have any valid points in their claims against the Gungahlin mosque - a church by another name, and in a street where two other churches have already even approved (one built so far):

“Dominate the viewscape” “Bulk scale and height” – the site is in the town core, where the heights of surrounding buildings will be up to eight storeys. This DA is for two storeys. If anything it’s an underutilisation of the site, as will be the pokies club the government wants to put next door.

“No social impact assessment” – it’s in the town core and under the zone regulations a church is merit assessable. A social impact assessment would only be required under an Impact Assessable use.

“Capacity for 500” – the Statement Against Criteria states 427 seats. Some rounding happening there then! But at least it’s down a bit on the 1000 seats some opponents were claiming a few months back.

“Social impact” – the peak use will occur at lunch times Fridays. Most Gungahlin people will not ever see this happen. One impact that will be noticed is the injection of people into the town centre at a traditionally quiet time, helping struggling businesses.

“Traffic and noise” – the site faces part of what will be the major ring road system around the town centre. There are 47 car spaces on site and the ability to use several other car parks around the area that will be underutilised during the development's peaks. The town centre is at a major public transport node with services at least every 15 minutes, thereby reducing traffic and demand for parking. No external public address system is proposed so noise will be negligible and thoroughly in keeping with a town core location.

“Public interest” – just what does this mean? Code for “do you want those people here"?

“Honesty and transparency” – the proponent has attended numerous public meetings and copped embarrassing bigotry. They hosted a well-publicised barby on the site on a busy Saturday morning a few months back. The issue has been discussed in articles in several issues of the GCC newsletter Australia Post delivered to every home and business in Gungahlin and has been discussed at several GCC meetings. It has been covered numerous times in every single news outlet in Canberra both electronic and print. I have had at least 20 interviews on the topic with various media over the last four years. I leave the irony of the transparency bleat to readers to shred.

“Doubtful they will be a good neighbour” – they being the Canberra Muslim Community have been clear that they wish their facilities to be used by the wider community irrespective of faith. Certainly a 400-seat hall will be very popular with many organisations.

So in summary, these are merely pseudo planning complaints put forward as a thin disguise for bigoted fear-mongering – if not to hide it from the reader then from the writers themselves! This is borne out by the total absence of comment about the two other churches approved for the same street.

The ACT Government has referred the letter to Human Rights Commission. If they wish to get a taste of the kinds of spurious and unsubstantiated arguments espoused by these people, I suggest they watch this video of the Gungahlin Community Council meeting last December (skip forward to 48:00 minutes):




Yes, this woman actually accuses “these people” of “murdering their own daughters”.

Personally, in almost six years of GCC meetings, that there was the worst moment I saw, and I was both disgusted and embarrassed for our community.

The people behind this “dog whistle” campaign and its secret meetings need to be exposed for what they really are – bigots and hypocrites. And most certainly not "Christian" in any rational sense of the word.

They really are worrying, and Gungahlin and Canberra would be better off without such deplorable discrimination.