THE government's white paper on counter-terrorism is a landmark, a watershed, a signal moment: choose your metaphor.

What I mean to say is, it's a very important document, and for none of the reasons you have been hearing about in the past few days.

Sometimes the press gallery and the main media commentators so spectacularly miss the point that you wonder what universe they are living in.

For example, have you heard Hezbollah terror groups are operating in Australia? It's in the white paper, but not the media.

Have you heard the government has declared the level of terror threat a society faces depends on the size and composition of its Muslim minority? It's in the white paper but not the media.

The so-called announceables in the white paper were sensible, modest measures. Adding biometric scanning for visas for people from high-risk areas is a good step. As Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in parliament yesterday, the 10 locations that will be named initially will not be the end of the story. The US requires everyone who enters the country to undergo fingerprint and retina scans. This is a limited measure. It only allows you to stop people already on your database. Nonetheless, it's a good move and I think should be extended to everyone who wants to come to Australia.

Two chief lines of criticism of the government have emerged. One is that because the white paper and Kevin Rudd's remarks concentrate on the growing home-grown terror threat, he should have announcedmillions of dollars for domestic counter-radicalisation programs, as is done in Britain. This would be a catastrophe. Rudd deserves high praise for not going down this road.

Britain's anti-radicalisation program is a cross between a fiasco and a disaster. It has empowered extremists, defined extremely conservative Islam as mainstream and demoralised moderates. No country in the West has done worse with its Muslim minority than Britain. Canberra would be insane to emulate this. Britain has had more terror attacks than any nation in Europe. France, which doesn't have a counter-radicalisation program, has had none.

Do we really believe a federal bureaucracy that can't put pink batts into people's roofs safely can somehow find that tiny minority of Muslims who are destined to become terrorists and engage and convert them? If the federal government set out to convince me of anything I'd almost certainly end up believing the opposite. No doubt battalions of experts and ethnic con men are telling the government to splash out millions on people who will tell it there is a giant problem and only they can cure it. That way lies madness. The best counter-radicalisation program is a good, open decent society. Our settlement model is infinitely better than Britain's.

There are only two overt counter-radicalisation programs we should engage in. One is to provide intensive settlement assistance to people we take in under the refugee and humanitarian program. To bring someone from war and refugee camp-living in Somalia or Sudan, with no competence at living in our sort of society, and dump them in Footscray or Bankstown with a Centrelink leaflet is asking for trouble.

The other area we should work hard in is jails, where Islamist prisoners are recruiting people because they have much stronger beliefs than anyone around them.

The other criticism of the white paper is for using the term jihadist. If it really was Rudd who insisted on this he deserves high praise. It is crucial we tell the truth. The al-Qa'ida version of jihad, like that of the Muslim Brotherhood or of many Wahabi Muslims and of the strand of Shia represented by the Iranian government, is, terribly, a minority but longstanding tradition within Islam. To pretend otherwise is to intellectually disable ourselves.

The descriptive passages in the white paper are written in calm but straightforward language and have the virtue of telling the truth clearly and unapologetically.

For example, the white paper states of violent jihadism: "The scale of the problem will continue to depend on factors such as the size and make-up of local Muslim populations, including their ethnic and-or migrant origins, their geographical distribution and the success or otherwise of their integration into their host society."

This is a statement of the obvious but it is normally not allowed to be said. It begs the question: is it necessary for a liberal Western society to encourage immigration from predominantly Muslim countries with histories of significant minority support for extremism, when it is obvious such immigration will lead to big problems?

Have you heard the government has declared the level of terror threat a society faces depends on the size and composition of its Muslim minority? It's in the white paper but not the media.

did you see the complete debate ?

I watched the debate Skipalong...  i switched off 9 and the stupid bloody worm...  which kept going up before Kruddy said anything and down whenever it was abbotts turn...  no truth in the worm.

As far as a debate goes I think Abbott won.
I note Kruddy kept lying about Abbott and the Billion dollars.

But Kruddy is a liar and a hypocrite.

lets work together he says yet for the last week the attack ads and the Labor party have been lying about Abbott and the Liberal health policies of the past. Gee that makes for cooperation doesn't it.

I'm afraid the wormhandlers fall into the category of dumb people that shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Abbott got suckered into the debate and suckered once again by the most cunning dishonest PM we have ever seen.  they set him up to expect a personal bollocking then changed tactic on him.  he should have adapted but stuck to whatever he had prepared. So it came out as defensive and negative, but when you are debating only one policy that becomes rather academic.

For those who cant see through the lying hypocritical wanker we have as a PM...  just don't vote.