Problems
Australia’s achievements have not come without problems. Opinion
polls show that multiculturalism is clearly favoured, but this often seems
contradicted by opposition to further migration. An AGB/McNair poll in
1996 showed that 70 per cent opposed the abolition of multicultural
policies, but the same percentage supported at least a short-term freeze
on immigration and a reduction on Asian migration. A closer examination
indicates more opposition from newer arrivals than older Australians.
In times of uncertainty and change the focus on outsiders or newcomers
is an unfortunate feature of the human condition. Concern about
immigration in times of unemployment has also been exacerbated by at least
initial concern about Asian migration, particularly following the
Indo-Chinese refugee intakes of the late 1970s.
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It is interesting that opinion polls in the past few months, as
Professor Murray Goot of Macquarie University has highlighted, suggest
that with unemployment declining, support for immigration is growing. I
assume that this is the reason for the Howard Government’s increased
migration intake this year. The public’s growing support for immigration
is probably also a consequence of John Howard’s border-protection
policies. The public feels more confident that our borders are not being
overrun.
Another problem with recent boat people and asylum-seekers is that they
have been described quite widely, but incorrectly, as ‘illegals’. As a
result, they have been associated in the public mind with a broader
concern about law and order generally. In fact, boat people and asylum
seekers are not illegal. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, we are legally
obliged to provide protection to people coming to Australia who claim to
be fleeing persecution. They remain legally in Australia while their
claims are being investigated. If their claims are found to be valid, they
continue to attract our legal protection until such time as they are
resettled in Australia or elsewhere – 90 per cent of Afghan and Iraqi
persons coming to Australia and claiming our protection have been found to
be genuine refugees. If, however, their claim is rejected, they then
become illegal and can be deported, subject to due process. But in the
public mind this is sophistry. They must be illegal if they arrive
uninvited by ship or by air, and the Prime Minister, the Minister for
Immigration and talk-back radio hosts fail to correct the error of the ‘illegal’
tag.
Australians clearly support multiculturalism if it is taken to mean
tolerance of diversity, providing means for different groups to interact
with the remainder of society. However, if multiculturalism is taken to
mean cultural separatism – which is a ‘straw man’ often erected by
critics – then the majority of Australians are opposed.
Australia’s greatest failing is that our multiculturalism has failed
to embrace Aborigines, although Aborigines have quite clearly expressed
their view that they don’t want to be part of multicultural Australia.
They see their rights and position being singularly different. This
unresolved issue remains ‘whispering in our hearts’.
The other continuing issue is our relationship to certain modern
expressions of Islam within Australia. It must be addressed with cool
heads and warm hearts. I flag it as a concern, but I am very conscious of
the great damage it could cause if it is not carefully and wisely
addressed. We won’t find satisfactory answers without a carefully
crafted discussion.
Boat People
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The Government claims that its policy is successful because no more
boats are coming. I reject that proposition. The Government over-reacted
to a small problem, both in world terms and in Australian historical
terms, for the sake of party political advantage.
The outcome over the past 12 months has been achieved at great human
cost – punishing and demonising the most vulnerable people on earth. The
clear sign of a civil society is how it treats its most vulnerable. We
each have an element of concern for the humanity of others which can be
snuffed out if we can be persuaded that certain people are not really
human, e.g. that asylum seekers are blackmailers, queue jumpers, cheats or
terrorists, and are so barbaric that they will throw their children
overboard or stitch their lips together.
Xenophobia, patriotism and defence of borders will always drown out for
a period at least, compassion for the foreigner. It is one of the
indelible stains of history. It is so easy to provoke hostility against
the foreigner, the outsider and the person who is different. We each have
a dark and fearful side and in my lifetime I have never seen it so
blatantly exploited as it has been during the past year.
This is an edited version of an address to the
Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Conversazioni on Culture and Society, Melbourne
on September 7/8 2002.
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