Sydney - Farms are being bought up on Sydney's western fringes and turned into housing estates. Most locals don't like it.

Some of those upset at the encroachment of Australia's largest city on their traditional lands have legitimate concerns. The greenery is disappearing, the extra traffic is disruptive, the semblance of country life is lost.

Others just fear strangers. The new families often come from the suburbs where Muslim immigrants congregate - and bring with them demands for mosques and Islamic schools.

"I don't want people coming to where I live who come from a culture where it's acceptable to use women and children as suicide bombers against their enemies," said Kate McCulloch, a resident who has campaigned against an Islamic school being built in Camden.

"The school is just the thin end of the wedge. You only have to look at those countries that have accepted Arabs and other Islamic people to see how they've come in and waged violent campaigns to displace the locals."

McCulloch, often pictured in newspapers draped in the Australian flag, has been accused of racism and of inciting violence.

Local councils have distanced themselves from her extreme views. They have been at pains to explain that applications for the building of Islamic schools have been vetted solely on planning considerations. They have pointed out that there are Islamic schools in western Sydney and that they receive government funding just like Catholic schools.

Within local councils McCulloch's views have faint echoes.

Max Parker is a councillor and invoked the anxiety of locals when speaking out against an application to build an Islamic school at Bass Hill.

"I think that most people that live in the area have got a fear of Muslims, as they are in the world today, moving into that area," Parker said.

For some among Australia's 300,000 Muslims (most live in western Sydney), it's not about green space but a case of culture clash.

Zaid Khan, who lives in a western Sydney suburb with a large Muslim community, notes that Muslims who live in suburbs like his are criticized for their refusal to integrate but that when they try and move out they are rejected as interlopers.

Muslim activist Keysar Trad, who recently caused a furore by urging the government to change the law to allow polygamy, has warned of a "Muslim backlash", if request to build more Islamic schools in western Sydney are rejected.

Quranic Society spokesman Issam Obeid said that Camden Council was applying a "double-standard" rather than simply following planning rules.

"No one knows anything about the Catholic school and they say 'Yeah, give it a tick already.' I think racism is affecting this."

Bernard Salt, a respected demographer, downplays Islamophobia and pushes culture shock as an explanation for the argy-bargy over what gets built in Camden and other places yet to yield to greater Sydney.

"Camden sits like demographic island," he said. "It's almost like here was a reprieve, a sanctuary from the southwest urban sprawl." (dpa)