Mr Howard sparked controversy yesterday by saying on talk-back radio a small group of Muslim migrants had refused to accept their adopted country's values and had not learned English.
He told Macquarie Radio Australia had benefited greatly from immigration, but “there is a section, a small section, of the Islamic population ... which is very resistant to integration”.
"What I want to do is to reinforce the need for everybody who comes to this country to fully integrate," Mr Howard said yesterday. "Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it.
"And it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women, the societies that some people have left were not as contemporary and as progressive as ours.
"People who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."
Mr Howard was responding to a caller to the radio station who said she was concerned that immigrants were "not fitting in".
Most Muslims were appalled by extremism but some wrongly believed it was discrimination to suggest migrants should integrate into Australian life, Mr Howard added.
Comments spark fury
The prime minister’s comments sparked fury among some Muslim leaders who say they were offended by what the prime minister had said.
The chairman of the government's new Islamic advisory committee, Dr Ameer Ali, has warned of more trouble unless Mr Howard tones down his rhetoric on Muslim migrants.
"We have already witnessed one incident in Sydney recently in
Cronulla, I don't want these scenes to be repeated because when you antagonise the younger generation, younger group, they are bound to react," Dr Ali told Macquarie Radio.
But Mr Howard today stood by his comments.
"I don't apologise," he told reporters."I think they are missing the point and the point is that I don't care and the Australian people don't care where people come from.
"There's a small section of the Islamic population which is unwilling to integrate and I have said generally all migrants ... they have to integrate."
Mr Howard denied he was singling Muslims out for criticism over the way some immigrants fail to integrate into Australian society.
"There's a small section of the Islamic population which is unwilling to integrate," he said.
"And I have said, generally, all migrants ... they have to integrate, and that means speaking English as quickly as possible, it means embracing Australian values and it also means making sure that no matter what the culture of the country from which they come might have been, Australia requires women to be treated fairly and equally and in the same fashion as men.
"And if any migrants that come into this country have a different view, they better get rid of that view very quickly. I don't retreat in any way from that. It doesn't involve singling out a group."
Migrants face barriers: opposition
The opposition said many migrants faced barriers to learning English, and there were problems with the government's adult language program.
Labor senator Annette Hurley said it was wrong for people to assume Muslim migrants were resisting integration.
"One of the biggest problems they raise is the difficulty and inflexibility of the government's English language program," she said. "They find it difficult getting child-care places so that the women can attend.
"There's a limited amount of hours that people can access under the free program, and a lot of refugees have very limited literacy skills."
Many found moving to Australia difficult because they had come from remote regions and had poor literacy skills, she added.
Muslim leaders conference
Meanwhile the Prime Minister's Muslim advisory board chairman, Ameer Ali, says invitations to the Conference of Australian Muslim Religious Leaders next month were sent to extremist clerics including the ultra-radical Sheik Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, The Australian newspaper reported today.
Sheik Zoud heads the Sydney arm of the fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jammaah association.
Dr Ali said the aim was to help bring the clerics into the mainstream.
"Once you marginalise these people, keep them outside the fold, then they will continue with their opposition and with their radical ideas," Dr Ali told the newspaper.
"Once they come into the fold and realise that the vast majority, mainstream imams are against those views and they are minority views, there's a good chance of them turning to ... new views (on) life."
The hardliners who have been invited to the conference, believed to cost taxpayers around $300,000, practise Wahabbism, a fundamentalist teaching of Islam that is preached by Osama bin Laden, and inspired by the fanatical Taliban regime in Afghanistan.