In a broad sense, ‘Australian multiculturalism’ describes the
cultural and ethnic diversity of Australia. More than 50 per cent of
Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas.
More specifically, ‘Australian multiculturalism,’ as a public
policy, attempts to manage the consequences of that diversity. It
acknowledges the right of all Australians first, to cultural identity –
the right within limits to express their cultural heritage in such areas
as religion and language; second, to social justice – the right to
equality of treatment and opportunity, regardless of race, language,
religion and gender; and finally, to economic efficiency – the need to
maintain and develop the diverse skills and talents of all Australians.
This is in contrast to assimilation, which assumes that newcomers will
abandon their cultural identity as soon as possible.
Advertisement
Australian multiculturalism also importantly insists that with the
rights of newcomers go certain obligations. First, there must be an
over-riding and unifying commitment to Australia and its future. Second
there must be acceptance by all of the basic principles and structures of
Australian society – the Constitution, Rule of Law, Parliamentary
democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as the national
language and tolerance and equality. A superstructure of diversity can
only be built securely on a common and secure sub-structure. Furthermore,
diversity for its own sake is not sufficient. The test is what it
contributes to the common good.
Australian culture, society and institutions are dynamic – today's
Australian society is different from that of yesterday. It is good to look
back and value what we have inherited. Federation was a great national
achievement, but our founding fathers didn’t get it all right. They
entrenched racism in our constitution and White Australia was the first
legislation of the Federal Parliament. Australian society today is more
open and tolerant than the society in which I was brought up. There never
was a golden age for the Australian cultural identity. Nostalgia must be
tempered with realism. Our cultural identity is a work in progress.
The most meaningful job of my life was Head of the Department of
Immigration and Ethnic Affairs under Malcolm Fraser and Ian Macphee in the
early 1980s. I knew that I was part of nation-building. I also learned at
that time that it was possible to manage a humanitarian program for
100,000 Indo-Chinese refugees while at the same time protecting our
borders. Malcolm Fraser showed that humanitarianism and border protection
could be managed together. John Howard tells us that it can’t be done.
I contend that Australian multiculturalism is our greatest achievement,
but it has always been fraught with tension. Its challenge is to risk
present comfort for a better future for ourselves and others.
As Moses and the Israelites discovered, change is risky and it can be
painful. But if it is properly led and managed it can bring great
benefits. The key for us is to get the scale and timing of change right.
My own experience is that innovation and improvement do not come from
sameness and homogeneity. They come from difference, diversity, challenge
and competition. Over the years, I think Australia has got it about right
– but not in the past year.
Facts about Australian Multiculturalism
Advertisement
Of Australia’s 19 million population, 28 per cent were born overseas
and a further 25 per cent have at least one parent born overseas. Net
immigration is about 75,000 to 100,000 per annum, which will give
Australia a population of about 25 million by 2051. Nine per cent will be
of Asian background.
According to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs,
the top 10 countries of origin are the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy,
Vietnam, Greece, China, Germany, Philippines, Netherlands and India. Two
hundred foreign languages are spoken, with the leading five languages
other than English being Italian, Greek, Cantonese, Arabic and Vietnamese.
Each of these five languages is spoken by more than 100,000 people.
Two thirds of second-generation migrants marry outside their cultural
and ethnic backgrounds. Forty per cent of Australians are of mixed
cultural origins. These quite remarkable figures belie the concerns about
ethnic separateness down the generations.
Asian groups have a high uptake of citizenship – for Chinese and
Vietnamese it is about 80 per cent. People born in the United Kingdom,
Northern Europe and New Zealand, have much lower uptakes of citizenship.
Citizenship is the legal glue that holds us together. It should be more
actively promoted as was proposed by the FitzGerald Committee in the
mid-1980s. I remain very skeptical about dual citizenship – with the
dual loyalty it implies.
Myths about Multiculturalism
It is often implied in our media that crime rates are high among new
migrants. Taking migrants as a whole, there is no evidence of this.
It is also suggested that multicultural societies collapse. New
settlers are inclined to stick together for mutual support and become ‘a
community of communities’. Over time however, they move out into the
wider Australian community.
We also hear concerns about ghettos in the United States and the
necessity to learn from the current European experience. I suggest that US
and European experiences are quite different from our own. In contrast to
Australia's planned immigration, the US waves of immigration in the late
19th Century and 20th Century were largely unplanned. We don’t have a
common border with a large and populous country like Mexico and America’s
problems have also been exacerbated by an historical slave class.
Europe’s problems have also been magnified by mistaken guest-worker
policies, a phenomenon Australia has always rejected. Moreover, the United
Kingdom and Europe felt morally and perhaps legally obligated to take in
millions from former colonies. When Papua New Guinea became independent in
1975, Australia refused similar rights for Papua and New Guinea residents
who claimed long associations with Australia.
Achievements
Through migration, Australia is much more dynamic and outward looking.
Although our early history was dogged by insularity, there has been a
significant transformation and we are now more tolerant of people with
diverse origins. A 1997 ANOP poll indicated that 78 per cent of
Australians felt that multiculturalism had been good for Australia.
New settlers have a strong commitment to succeed and have made
outstanding contributions to Australia. They are invariably industrious,
entrepreneurial and risk-taking. As Geoffrey Blainey said, referring to
Hitler: "when tyrants shake the trees, Australia harvests the
fruit".
Newcomers have high educational aspirations for their children. In New
South Wales high schools, 25 per cent of students are of non-English
speaking background, but in selective schools where students are chosen on
merit, 46 per cent are of NESB. In NSW, the Higher School Certificate
results, which determine university entry, are dominated each year by NESB
students. First it was Greeks and Eastern Europeans, now it is students
from China, Indo-China and Korea.
The same trends are shown in university entrance scores. The Australian
Council for Educational Research has pointed out that for university
entrance scores, for Australian students, the average is 70. For Asian
students it is 79, other Europe 72, English-speaking 69 and NESB 72.
Integration into the global market is helped by 17 per cent of our
population fluently speaking a language other than English. This is
essential with Asia now taking 57 per cent of our exports. Our tourism
industry has also benefited from new people with new skills.
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.
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
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.
Government policies have also damaged our own sense of worth.
Confidence and a sense of self-worth gained during community participation
in the Olympics, fighting bushfires and in our response to the cries of
the people of East Timor has been compromised by our demonisation of the
boat people.
There has also been a cost to Australia’s international standing.
Even the United States is finding that military and economic power on
their own are not sufficient. Overwhelming military power did not stop the
attacks on America on September 11. A successful foreign policy requires
countries to be able to persuade and not just coerce others. Paul Kelly in
The Australian pointed out that ability to persuade is linked to
values that command respect and attention. Countries such as Canada, the
Netherlands and Scandanavia are able to influence and persuade beyond
their economic and military power by projecting values. Australia's
ability to project values associated with its open and strong economy,
limited military capability and unified, tolerant and multicultural
society has been put at risk.
National borders will always be porous, as the Aborigines found when
Captains Cook & Phillip landed in the 19th Century. At the end of the
line and with no land borders, Australia is better protected than most. So
our problem with boat people and asylum-seekers is relatively minor in
world terms.
We should maintain a sensible perspective. Refugee flows are usually
intense and brief and are driven by push factors of war, rape and
persecution in a country, rather than by the pull factors or barriers to
entry in recipient countries. Desperate people will always try to escape
persecution. Now that the Taliban regime has been overthrown it is not at
all surprising that the outflow from Afghanistan has stopped. The
cessation of the outflow has nothing to do with Australia’s border
protection policy.
As the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs states on
its website on unauthorised arrivals, the majority of smuggling into
Australia and other countries occurs by air. In seven out of the past ten
years, more unauthorised arrivals came to Australia by air than by sea.
As one door closes for unauthorised arrivals, another door is prised
open. If there is a demand, people smugglers will turn to entry by air and
to the counterfeiting of travel documents. When I was Secretary of the
Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, I saw almost daily new
counterfeit documents produced by people smugglers.
In highlighting illegal boat arrivals for electoral benefit, Government
rhetoric has conveniently ignored the 60,000 illegals in the country,
mainly UK and USA visitors who have cheated by overstaying their permits
and are much less deserving than most of the desperate people that come
unauthorised by boat.
Finally, the handling of the Indo-Chinese outflow by the Fraser
Government in the late 1970s and early 1980s, demonstrated that it is
possible to conduct a humanitarian policy while maintaining the integrity
of our borders. At that time, more than 4,000 came by boat but were
managed carefully and firmly. The major difference between Malcolm Fraser
and John Howard is that Malcolm Fraser did not attempt to exploit the
problem for party-political purposes, although he did come under quite
severe criticism by some unscrupulous people on the left in Australia.
The refugee numbers that Malcolm Fraser dealt with were vastly more
than the ‘threat’ that John Howard faced. At the peak in the late
1970s, there were about 400,000 Indo-Chinese in the refugee camps in
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In one year, we took 15,000 refugees
from Indo China alone. Instead of demonising refugees, we acknowledged
their plight and heroism. Bogus refugees were quickly processed and
deported. The rhetoric was intense at times but humanity was served. We
are now proud of what we did.
Democracies are not bad at protecting the powerful and the majority.
But they are not so good at protecting vulnerable minorities – children,
indigenous people and refugees. In times when populism and political
advantage is tempting, it is important that we hold to the international
institutions and instruments whose very reason for being is to protect us
from such excesses.
This is an edited version of an address to the
Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Conversazioni on Culture and Society, Melbourne
on September 7/8 2002.