By Sunanda Creagh and Urban Affairs Reporter
IT IS the tale of two schools. The Camden residents' group that fought a Muslim society's proposal for a school in rural Camden has welcomed a Catholic organisation's plans to build a school nearby because "Catholics are part of our community".
The president of the Camden/Macarthur Residents' Group, Emil Sremchevich, said the Catholic school plan "ticked all the right boxes", even though he is yet to see its development application.
"Catholics are part of our community so we should be supporting it on this basis alone. We have to welcome them," Mr Sremchevich told the Herald. "To become part of a community, you need to live in the community. You can't just turn up."
The Quranic Society said Mr Sremchevich's comments were racist but he rejected that tag. "Why is that racist? Why is it discriminatory? It's very simple: people like some things but don't like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that's the nature of the beast." Mr Sremchevich was among those who applauded a Camden Council decision in May to reject the Quranic Society's application to build a 1200-student school at Burragorang Road, Cawdor. The council said it was refused "on planning grounds" but one resident, Kate McCulloch, said Muslims would not fit into the Camden community.
"The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don't want to accept our way of life," she said then, when she had hoped to follow Pauline Hanson into politics.
The Catholic Education Office of Wolllongong is in negotiations to buy a plot of land adjacent to the 150-student Mater Dei special-needs school in Macquarie Grove Road. Mater Dei will remain but the Catholic Education Office of Wollongong wants to build a 1000-student high school on the adjacent plot.
It is less complicated than the Quranic Society application, which would have required rezoning. The Mater Dei site is already zoned for a school.
A spokesman for the Quranic Society, Issam Obeid, said: "Everyone can see there is a double standard … No one knows anything about the Catholic school and they say, 'Yeah, give it a tick already.' I think racism is affecting this."
A spokesman for Wollongong's Catholic Education Office, Peter McPherson, said more schools were needed in south-west Sydney to cope with population growth. "Our site is currently a school zoning so we don't believe we will have any problems with rural zoning issues," he said.
Mr Obeid stressed that he did not object to the Catholic plans. But he said the society's school would have taken non-Muslims. "The council said they rejected us because of traffic and zoning, but I think if we didn't have the backlash from the community then it could have ended very differently. We want to integrate into the community but they won't let us."
Before the vote, protesters placed pigs' heads on stakes and draped an Australian flag between them on the proposed school site.
Camden's Mayor, Chris Patterson, said religion had nothing to do with the the council's decision in May. "And this DA will be treated exactly the same. The council will take into account traffic, amenity, noise."
A Quranic Society appeal will be heard in the Land and Environment Court later this month.