Earlier in the evening, before the trouble flared again, I was listening to a favourite ABC program, Evenings with James O’Loghlin. He of ABC TV’s The Inventors. In a broad debate on violence, O’Loughlin also considered listeners opinions on the riots. After one such discussion he was moved to note,
These riots are not about religion...I mean we didn’t see the Cronulla crowd on Sunday chanting Christian slogans....Okay, now we have a traffic report from the police - motorists are advised to avoid the Lakemba mosque area, where large crowds have gathered...
Sometime later commercial radio reported this crowd was chanting, ‘Allah is Great’. A crowd from which some 40 carloads of youths then departed for Cronulla, to cause further violence and property damage.