Changing attitudes and policies

Certainly the numbers of Britons and Australians with this outlook has decreased but patches remain embedded in both places. It seems as if there is a co-dependency relationship, with Brits putting down Aussies and some Aussies, expecting to be put down, reacting by trying to trump the Brits in badmouthing Australia. This, in the face of a history of accomplishments that any nation should be proud of.

To give but a sampling: Australia had world’s first secret ballot; it gave women the vote in 1902; it was a pioneer in old-age pensions; and in setting up machinery for resolving labour-management disputes. Recently a United Nations index rated Australia as the third best country to live in, after Iceland and Norway, based on wealth, life expectancy and literacy rate.

The frequent accusation that the country is racist, based on the old “White Australia” legislation (removed from the law books in 1958), contradicts its record of peacefully absorbing peoples from some 240 countries, places and ethnic groups since the late 1960s.

But ethnic tensions have increased worldwide over the past decade and Australia has not been immune. When ethnic-based riots broke out on Cronulla Beach in late 2005, at least two reporters mentioned anti-Chinese riots in the gold fields in the early 1860s to show that the latest riot reflected a recurrent national pattern. My reaction: a country that has to go back 145 years to find another full-blown race riot must be doing something right; I wish my country had such a record.

When China’s president, Hu Jintao, spoke to the Australian Parliament in 2003, he praised the country for its cultural pluralism, apparently well aware of what was happening on that score. Now, with a Mandarin-speaking prime minister who has worked as a diplomat in Beijing and Stockholm, Australia would seem to have its best shot yet at finally becoming a part of its region. But unless Mr Rudd can gain public support for this change, it is unlikely to happen.

A concerted effort is needed to make the public aware of the benefits of more interaction with the region and equally important, to explain why its diversity is an asset.

A document setting down this policy in 1989 defined multiculturalism as “simply a term which describes the cultural and ethnic diversity of contemporary Australia”. It includes everyone, with Anglo-Australians as well other immigrants and Indigenous people encouraged to preserve their cultures. What goes out the window is the much earlier policy that immigrants should discard their cultures and strive to become Anglo-Australian clones.

For nearly 12 years the country has had a prime minister whose core beliefs were in the Menzies mould. Mr Howard detested multiculturalism and did all he could to resuscitate the 1950s policy of urging assimilation to Australian (read British) values. It will take some doing to put the country back on the path it started down three months after Menzies left office; but it is possible. Is a new day dawning for Australia? Stay tuned to see what happens.