Cultural baggage and Australian values

Following each convention there was an official report of proceedings, entitled Digest, which was produced and distributed through the immigration department to organisations and delegates engaged in absorbing new arrivals into the Australian community. Immigration department officials reported back to future conventions on the status of previously passed resolutions.

The role of voluntary organisations in teaching new arrivals about the importance of citizenship was considered vital. Convention delegates to the 1951 convention agreed that voluntary organisations should vigorously encourage new settlers to become naturalised as soon as possible. To assist, the Department of Immigration prepared a brochure on Australian citizenship and the democratic way of life for distribution to proposed new citizens, including a brief statement of Australia’s developments and achievements.

Immigration Secretary Tasman Heyes wrote to education directors in all Australian states enclosing the pamphlet, This Is How You Can Help Someone to Become an Australian Citizen, prepared by members of the immigration department. Heyes said the prime purpose of the leaflet was to enable native-born Australians to explain to new arrivals how they could become Australian citizens.

The pamphlet presented Australian citizenship in a positive light and it was stated that native-born Australians should tell their non-British friends about the important benefits of citizenship. These benefits included:

• having full protection and assistance of Australia’s law;
• having a right to vote at federal and state elections; eligibility to stand for parliament or election to local governing bodies;
• being able to become a permanent government official;
• being able to serve on a jury and with any of Australia’s armed services, holding any rank;
• being able to purchase land in any Australian state; a right to all social service benefits;
• being able to hand in “alien” registration cards and forget the restrictions “aliens” are subject to; and
• to have a homeland with a stake in its prosperity as well as a right to a full share of everything Australia had to offer.

In the late 1950s, there was a shift to encouraging Australia’s cultural diversity. Prime Minister Menzies told convention delegates that Australia’s culture had been enriched by the “lively minds and experience, and the lively imagination of thousands of people whose cultural background is remote from our own”.

At the 1959 convention, Liberal Immigration Minister Sir Alex Downer told delegates that his government was continually searching for new ways to promote migrant integration. To help achieve this, he said immigration department officers were going into homes and factories to meet with newcomers to whom they would converse in their native tongues and not just English. Downer explained that the idea was to create a field force spreading out through city and country districts whose primary purpose was to offer guidance, advice and friendliness to new settlers. Wherever possible members of this field force were to have knowledge of at least one European language.

With Australia’s demographic change through post-war immigration, there was increasingly an appreciation of the cultural contribution of new settlers to the Australian way of life. Although migrant voices at conventions were in the minority, they were gradually influencing the greater acceptance of the “cultural baggage”. Nevertheless, new settlers were primarily expected to adjust to the new way of life and become absorbed into the Australian mainstream society.

The conventions were an important means of encouraging the acceptance of new arrivals as part of the Australian family and co-ordinating community work. The conventions also played a valuable role in increasing awareness of the importance of Australian values as well as citizenship, particularly for new settlers from a diversity of cultural backgrounds.

Today, consensus can be achieved by respecting individual consciousness, one that is free of perceived persecution. Australians have fought in many global conflicts. We have invariably forgiven our foes and moved to creating a thriving nation encompassing people from many part of the world.

However, we need more tolerance and less dissension. We need to realise that we live as one nation, not as separate cultural groups. Our identity should be sought in an “Australian” framework.

National citizenship conventions could today be of great importance in addressing issues arising from cultural disharmony evident in society and in the co-ordination of a much needed citizenship education campaign for all.