Now that the Telstra sale can go
ahead, the unusually silent motor mouth of the federal parliament,
Sophie Panopolous, whose electorate is mainly rural, is again in full
flight.

This time she’s giving gratuitous advice to Muslim
school girls, telling them to leave their headscarves at home. Attacking the “politically correct” notion that
a ban shouldn’t be debated, Panopoulos said yesterday that they should wear the official school uniform. “For a lot of younger people it seems to be more an act of rebellion than anything,” she said.

Presumably, the next minority on her hit list will be young orthodox
Jewish men and their black hats and then she can have fun with the
kerchiefs worn by Jehovah Witness women.

Panopolous, friend of
the disgraced Liberal Noel Crichton- Browne, is singing from the same
page of the racist’s hymn book as other lunar right wingers,
marginalising Australians who dare to be different and whose
non-frightening values are now under awesome scrutiny.

There
is a delicious irony that Panopolous, who is of Greek extraction, and
her ultra-conservative colleague Andrew Bolt, himself of Dutch
background, have forsaken the traditional liberal and accepting values
of their ancestry to indulge in narrow stereotyping of their fellow
Australians.