Ethnic bells tolling under the white Southern Cross

There is little doubt the bells are tolling the demise of the once superior ability of the ALP "to work the ethnic votes".

On Friday 21 March, due to security concerns about protesters intent on telling their local MP that he was "not welcome", Tony Burke, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, was forced to leave a Muslim prayer event at the Australia National Sports Club in western Sydney.

One reason advanced is that he had failed to stand up for the unconscionable bombing and killing of Palestinians in Gaza, women and children in particular.

It was a protest borne of the failed expectations of the government, and a potent omen of the democratic spirit under duress, heralded with roughly written words on placards, and not quite the Eureka Stockade flag of 1854 with the white Southern Cross on a blue background, professionally printed on to textured cloth.

All the same it was an ethnic revolt that challenged the mantra of our being the most successful multicultural nation on earth.

On 28 March, at the Golden Lane Restaurant in Moreton, Queensland, Peter Dutton, Opposition Leader, in front of a group of assembled Chinese community leaders, pledged $225,000, for the Chinese Museum of Queensland (CMoQ) to develop its website and start planning for a permanent building.

It all started with Senator Paul Scarr doing the iconoclastic, at the launch of the new CMoQ website on 1 March 2025.

He was touched by how the Chinese were treated on the evening of the Brisbane North elections in 1888, curated for CMoQ's online exhibition, Remembering Brisbane's Night of Broken Glass. He said that it was not enough just to tell the happy stories: unhappy ones ought to be told too. History must be confronted.

Until then the only Chinese the two Parties embraced were those who make good fellows of themselves before their white VIPs.

Paul Scarr broke that taboo. He has given the Chinese a licence to speak up from their perspective.

"Anti-Chinese riots had a consequence" he told us, naming two Chinese merchants who had filed for insolvency the following year.

The last Liberal incumbent of Moreton, Gary Hardgraves, was said to have been rewarded by John Howard for his demonstrated ability to work the ethnic communities in Moreton.