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Australian Multiculturalism: successes, problems and risks

By John Menadue - posted Wednesday, 27 November 2002


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.

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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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About the Author

John Menadue AO is a former Australian Public Servant. He was head of three Federal Government Departments, including Immigration and Prime Minster and Cabinet. John was also a Telstra Director and Chief Executive Officer of Qantas. He is Chair of New Matilda.com, an independent online political newsletter.

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