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Australian Multiculturalism: successes, problems and risks

By John Menadue - posted Wednesday, 27 November 2002


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.

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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.

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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.

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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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