Excerpt:
Muslim leaders across Australia have denounced as unjust, unjustified and hypocritical proposed new counter-terrorism laws and they have refused to "rubber-stamp" them for the government.
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, more than 60 individuals and organisations, including 10 sheikhs, said that the threat from the ostensible target of the laws - about 150 "radicalised" Muslims returning from Iraq or Syria - had been "trumped up".
"There is no solid evidence to substantiate this threat. Rather, racist caricatures of Muslims as backwards, prone to violence and inherently problematic are being exploited," the statement reads.