Dutch politician Geert Wilders has described the refugee crisis spreading across Europe as an Islamic invasion.
It’s these kind of views that Australian Muslim leaders say should not be welcomed here.
They want his visa, granted late last week, to be revoked.
Mr Wilders is coming to Australia next week to launch anti-Islam party the Australian Liberty Alliance in Perth.
Party spokesperson Debbie Robinson said she’d received positive feedback about Mr Wilder’s visit.
“Freedom of speech has to prevail,” she said.
“He does not incite violence, he stands up for individual liberty and freedoms.”
But Perth Imam and teacher Yahya Ibrahim said Mr Wilders was not welcome the last time he was in the country in 2013, but now was a particularly bad time.
“Even though he didn’t make anything overly inflammatory in the past, the current climate that we’re in today does not require for us to add more gasoline to a fire that’s raging,” Imam Ibrahim said.
“Anything that is going to be divisive, split people up, on any lines, is something that I think the government needs to be considerate of and take reasonable measures to deter.
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“And one of those I think is not to grant access to someone like Geert Wilders.”
But Liberal Democratics Senator David Leyonhjelm said his fellow politician should be allowed entry.
“Whatever you think about Geert Wilders — and sometimes he makes a valid point and sometimes he goes way too far — he has a right to be heard or he has a right to say it at least,” he said.
“We don't have to listen to him."
“That's the test of free speech. If it means anything, it means allowing speech you do not want to hear.”
Fellow Australian senator John Madigan said that was the point.
"We have a system now in this country that it seems where if you don't have an opinion which is the prevailing opinion, you're not entitled to have it,” he said.
"That's a very dangerous precedent to be set."
But West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said he would prefer Mr Wilders did not come to Perth and labelled his views radical and discriminatory.
“However, there is a right to a freedom of speech so we’re not going to stand in his way or of those people who might be organising his visit,” he said.
“However we will not allow any state government facility to be used, so they’ll have to find a private venue for what he wants to undertake.”
The Lebanese Muslim Association’s president Samir Dandan said Mr Wilders incited anti-social behaviour.
“Any individual or group who threatens the social fabric of what we hold dear in this country should not be welcomed,” he said.
“Now that he's been given a visa I would hope the government would monitor his statements, monitor his actions … and if he does anything that's not accepted he should be put back on a plane and sent back to where he came from.”
“It's really up to the minister what he decides... but I would expect anyone with any kind of rhetoric, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anyone that might threaten the social structure or incite hatred within communities should not be allowed into the country.”
The Australian Liberty Alliance party will be launched by Mr Wilders at a secret venue next Tuesday in Perth.
