SYDNEY -- How safe is sleepy Australia from terror within? Very unsafe, it seems, from the belated jailing of the first person convicted under Canberra's new antiterror laws. Moreover, if it takes four years after Australian police were warned about him to catch this convert to Islam and would-be bomber, how do we guarantee public safety in the future?
People -- and Canberra politicians -- are demanding answers. Terrorist cells have been working uninterrupted in our own multicultural backyard. Fanatical minorities -- some immigrants, others born and bred here -- seem to be thriving. They have a different agenda from the majority, and the latest court case shows just how far they are prepared to go in their quest of turning Australia into a second Middle East.
Jack Roche was an English immigrant laboring in a Sydney furniture factory. An alcoholic, he had left three wives and three children. He had arrived in Australia from East Berlin, using his birth name, Paul Holland. Workmates at the factory urged him to quit drinking. He did, and converted to Islam.