There can be no doubt that racial hatred is a major element in this week's riots in and around Cronulla. Is Australia an inherently racist society? No - we've come a long long way since the massacre of Aborigines and the proliferation of the White Australia Policy. But there's still a hard core of rednecks in this country who believe that their brand of Australian nationalism - an unwritten White Australia Policy if you will - is the right one. Pauline Hanson, curiously enough, lives at Sylvania Waters, a few kilometres up the George's River from Cronulla.

There are those who say this is only a "law and order" issue and that we should not "over complicate this" - and I'll discuss the conduct of those persons in a future posting. Yes, there is a great deal of evidence that the Cronulla-Sutherland district has been under-resourced in NSW police personnel for quite a while. It's a point of criticism that opponents of the ten year-old Labor government in New South Wales have been quick to pounce on. But "law and order" only becomes an issue when there is "disorder" that needs policing.

What about the causes of that "disorder"?

Racism is an important issue here, but it's really just a platform on which a greater problem is being thrashed out. Call it xenophobia, or even more fundamentally, call it intolerance. The issues are complex, and they are issues of clash, not of cultures, but of society.

People in the Sutherland Shire feel aggrieved about a number of problems that have festered over the years, and they all came to a head when those two lifesavers were bashed up on the weekend before last. However, these people jumped to the wrong conclusion, and took entirely the wrong approach to a solution. Highly irresponsible (and highly paid) people in the media spurred them on.

While the state government and affected community groups are getting together to try and sort out the underlying problems (and secure a peace in the immediate term), and they are to be commended for this, there is no time more important than the present for sound Leadership at the national level. And it is the conduct of our national Leader that I will discuss next.