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Marcus Cornish: Penrith 'the last bastion of the Australian way of life in Sydney'

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The way Marcus Cornish sees it, Penrith is "the last bastion of the Australian way of life in Sydney" and it is his job as a local councillor to "inoculate" the area against the dark changes that have swept the rest of the region over the years.

Asked what he means by "last bastion", the Penrith City councillor is blunt. "It is the most Anglo-Saxon area in Sydney," he says, outside of Macarthur, to Penrith's west. As a result its residents are more relaxed than they are in other parts of the city. Crime is lower, he says. People still play backyard cricket.

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Marcus Cornish is a Penrith City councillor, a former Liberal turned independent and against Islam and Malcolm Turnbull.

In order to inoculate Penrith, Cornish has lobbied hard over recent years against initiatives by Islamic groups. He claims his support for the Protect Penrith group that ran a failed campaign against the development of two mosques cost him $175,000 in personal contributions and foregone work on his businesses, and he boasts that he was the first politician in the country to pledge on his how-to-vote form to oppose any and all development applications for mosques.

Today, Cornish, who quit the Liberal Party after Tony Abbott was felled as leader, is leading another campaign against a proposed Islamic school that would be housed in the disused Penrith infants school building. The campaign has not only divided the council and the community, it sheds light on the scope of the backlash against mainstream politics in Australia, and the particular dangers it presents to the Liberal Party.

Penrith is in the heart of the knife-edge federal seat of Lindsay, which in recent elections has been crucial in deciding which party holds government. Tensions over immigration are at the centre of the constant battle for the seat.

Back in 2010 Julia Gillard and then-Lindsay MP David Bradbury posed on the deck of a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat off the coast of Darwin as the then prime minister announced half-baked policy of building a refugee processing centre in East Timor for asylum seekers picked up approaching Australia. Given that Bradbury's job had nothing to do with Immigration, Darwin or the Navy, and given that the government had failed to clear the policy with East Timor, the plan ended up not only failing but looking faintly preposterous. It did, though, demonstrate Gillard's desperation to appear tough on immigration to voters in key seats, particularly in city fringe seats where the issue has bitten hard.

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Lindsay had been the spiritual home of the former Labor-voters who became "Howard Battlers" after it was won by Jackie Kelly. She lost it to Bradbury after people linked to her campaign were caught distributing fake pamphlets ostensibly from an Islamic group urging locals to vote for Labor and thanking it for for supporting terrorists involved with the 2002 Bali bombings.

Last year the Liberal Party lost Lindsay again, this time to Labor's Emma Husar. She has proved to be an energetic and high-profile local member, but in part she can attribute her victory to Cornish's anti-Islamic populism.

Husar beat the incumbent Liberal, Fiona Scott, by 2 per cent, or just 1594 votes. Cornish, who ran as an independent and made his stance against Muslim immigration central to his campaign, won 2128 votes and directed his preferences to Labor. There were other groups who explicitly ran anti-Islamic campaigns, including the Christian Democrats, the Australian Liberty Alliance, and Australia First. Between them they secured around 10,000 votes.

Cornish is well aware he cannot win the seat, but he and other right-wing populists can split the conservative vote.

And he has no plans to go anywhere either. Mainstream parties, Cornish says, run candidates on Sydney's fringe that are nothing but "sock puppets for inner-city elites". He is considering running for state parliament or for Lindsay again, and says he is being courted by One Nation.

The links between Cornish and Pauline Hanson are already clear. The Protect Penrith campaign was founded by a One Nation member and Hanson attended one of its fundraisers.

His threat to the Liberal Party could only grow with One Nation support. Hanson's One Nation campaign bit hardest in Sydney's west, with the party securing the support of 5 per cent of Lindsay's voters in the Senate.

Cornish dismisses suggestions that in focusing on issues of race and immigration he is ceding ground to Labor's Husar, who has made domestic violence and infrastructure funding her key concerns.

As an example he notes that he is lobbying to have bronze statues of mounted soldiers placed at the entrances to the Light Horse Interchange at Eastern Creek.

The proposed school, like the mosques before it, are part of a deliberate plan by unspecified Islamic groups to somehow take over the region, he says, claiming that it is designed as a facility for people who might later move from areas like Guildford, Bankstown and Auburn.

"It is a way of populating an area. I see no reason for forcible change."

Opinion on the streets of Penrith was divided when Fairfax Media spoke to locals.

"As long as it's not extremist it should be fine. We have got Christian schools here, I have no problem with religion in particular schools, as long as it's not extremist," Joshua from Penrith says. (Like others he did not want his full name used.)

"It's just another school. I live in the Blue Mountains and it really is just another school to me," another shopper, Paula, says.

"I haven't seen the proposal but if they want to build an Islamic school, I'm not really concerned about it," Terrie, shopping at Westfield Penrith, says. "I think society is getting a bit over the top with this kind of thing."

But former Bankstown resident, Nancy, disagreed. "I don't want one [an Islamic school] here. I used to live at Bankstown and I moved here for a reason," she says.

Another shopper, who did not wish to be named, says she would "definitely be concerned".

"Look what happened yesterday," she says, referring to the terrorist attack in London. "It hasn't hit Australia yet ... I am sure there are some nice ones [Muslim people] but why do they have to be here?"

The proponents of the school proposal, Irfan College, say they have no ties to extremism and are seeking to dispel such generalisations about Islam. Established in 2013, the College lists respect, caring, commitment and integrity as among its values.

"For us, what's important is raising thinkers and leaders that are confident in their Australian Muslim identity," college principal Ali Arabaci told Fairfax Media shortly after the application was submitted. "In terms of these current conversations about Islam and extremism, our stance is evident; we are against any form of extremist Islam. Islamic extremism is paradoxical."

While a large Muslim population exists in Mount Druitt, questions have been raised by locals as to whether Penrith has a large enough base to support an Islamic school. Arabaci points to the increasing lack of housing affordability in areas closer to the city as driving Sydney's Muslim population west, increasing the need for Islamic schools further afield.

"Currently there is not a large base in Penrith [for the school] per se, however in the region starting at Blacktown, The Hills, Mount Druitt, there is a large Muslim population," he says. "People once used to live in Auburn, Granville or Guildford, but they are finding it expensive due to affordability. They are moving out that way, there is a market for the Muslim community."

Irfan College has not received complaints from its neighbours since beginning its operations at Cecil Park, and Arabaci says the college – operated by the Turkish Muslim community – would contribute to Penrith's social fabric if given the green light.

But the issue caused a storm on social media, where not just local traffic and noise concerns were raised, but anti-Islamic feeling was stirred.

"If this school is accepted, the Muslim population will increase in Penrith. An increase in Muslim population in any suburb will increase the risk of a terrorist attack. Who wants to risk our friends or family being hurt in our local area," Kyle Austin commented on Facebook.

"If they migrate to Australia then they need to live the Australian's way of life," Justin Henricks posted. "It's a NO for me, school first, shops next and then all of a sudden it will be a Muslim suburb. Hell NO."

The $1 million development application submitted earlier this month seeks to refit existing buildings previously used as Penrith Public School to create an independent K to Year 12 school over five years from next year. The site hasn't been used as a school since the 1980s and contains one heritage building – the old Penrith Infants Department, dating from 1884 – which documents submitted to Penrith City Council state would be enhanced and protected by the proposal.

The development application is open to public comment at Penrith City Council until March 31. On Monday night Cornish plans to ask council to organise a public meeting to discuss the application.