Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

notes the Federal Government’s formal response to the recommendations provided by the Australian Multicultural Advisory Council; and

(2)

calls on the House of Representatives to:

(a)

endorse ‘The People of Australia’ policy which recognises the importance of the economic and social benefits of Australia’s diversity;

(b)

recognise the success of multiculturalism in Australia and policies that reinforce the benefits our diverse communities bring;

(c)

reaffirm support for multiculturalism in Australia and condemn political strategies or tactics that incite division and seek to vilify communities; and

(d)

continue the tradition of bipartisan support for multiculturalism and multicultural policy in Australia sustained by successive Governments over the years.

The genesis of this resolution, of course, is the recent announcement by the government of a new multicultural policy for this country. I would think that there is very little that the overwhelming majority of members of this parliament could quibble about in that policy. It talks about celebrating the values and benefits of cultural diversity in Australia. It says that our country is committed to a just, inclusive and socially cohesive society and that the government welcomes the economic trade and investment that we gain from multiculturalism. The other principle is that we will act to promote understanding and acceptance while responding to expressions of intolerance and discrimination regardless of where they come from.

I would also like to put on record my appreciation of the committee that worked over a long period of time to bring this policy forward. As I have said on previous occasions, it was not a committee of academics, theorists or ideologues. It was a committee of people with practical experience that ranged from a Polish woman involved in aged care in Victoria to, at the other extreme from aged care, a young woman of Filipino extraction from Adelaide who is involved with youth affairs. There was a Tasmanian policeman who had worked for many years with African refugee children in Hobart and there was a lawyer from Sydney, from an Indian background, a long-term public servant. These are the people who have come together to formulate this policy.

In its initiatives it stresses the establishment of a Multicultural Council to be an independent champion of multiculturalism in Australia. It aims to promote a national antiracism strategy and a strengthening of access and equity for people so that services are available to everyone and you are not denied services or your rights because you lack language. It talks about funding multicultural arts and festivals and it finally talks about a multicultural youth program to make sure that new arrivals, recent settlement communities, young people, are brought into Australian society very strongly by participation in sport.

Going back to that festival proposal, I am very pleased to see that. Unfortunately, I think that the opponents of multiculturalism in some past years have had the advantage of construing multiculturalism as being for Muslims or Africans or new arrivals. Multiculturalism is for all communities, whether it is for the Welsh speakers who, back in 1948, had eisteddfods in Sydney Town Hall, or whether it includes German Oktoberfests or the Greek festivals that we see around the country. These are the kinds of things that the government should be looking at financing to make sure that the message gets out there that it is for all Australians.

Our nation has had, bar Liechtenstein and Israel, the highest proportion of its people born overseas. It has accepted seven million people since the Second World War and on two occasions nearly one million a year in the early postwar years. Our nation has been built around a labour force that is prepared to work on major national infrastructure projects. It has been built on the contribution of peoples with very real skills, a process that continues to this day.

Our alternative to multiculturalism has been seen in the past. There was the dictation test which, for instance, in the period 1902 to 1909 passed only 52 applicants, on racial grounds, out of the 1,357 people who sat for it. There was the infamous case of Egon Kisch, who came to this country to warn Australia about the growth of Nazism in Europe. Eventually they had to test him in Gaelic because he could speak virtually every other language in Europe. That was an example of the way in which that test was utilised.

We have the choice. Go to the oral history of this country. Sir Henry Bolte said that he feared throughout his political career that the Australian people would find out that he was of German extraction, because, if they had, he never would have got anywhere politically. Ours was a nation—in the words of Tim Fischer in a conversation I had with him—which in the past, in the Riverina in New South Wales, discriminated against Germans during the Second World War. We jailed Lutheran ministers, one of them a Jewish convert, because we thought he might be pro-Nazi. In the First World War there were other infamous cases when every Greek family in this country was investigated, through their neighbours, because it was feared that King Constantine I was pro-German and would change the allegiance of Greece in the First World War. These are examples where racism, denigration and marginalisation caused great anguish and drove people to extremes.

Last week the former minister for immigration, the member for Berowra, made what I thought was a plausible case for the shadow minister for immigration and for another member of the opposition. Quite frankly, he failed at any point to defend Senator Bernardi. There has been a large area of bipartisan support over a long period of time. I go to many events with the member for Berowra—we have been to hundreds of them together in Sydney and other places—and he puts up a very strong case that the Liberal Party has got a proud record with regard to the development of multiculturalism in this country.

However, it was very noticeable last week that he did not rise in defence of Senator Bernardi’s conduct. The Liberal Party has to take a strong stand about the significant number of outbursts by this gentleman—not just one but a significant number. We have heard him say that he feels very troubled that in some small sections of this country where there is a significant Islamic population McDonald’s and other companies might sell halal meat. He says that he does not want to eat meat that has been blessed in a particular way because it, supposedly, means that he is going against his religious beliefs. What a lot of twaddle! Quite frankly, these companies are acting like other commercial enterprises. They are reacting to demand in the marketplace in those areas.

In recent weeks he has also talked about sharia law being introduced into this country by a consideration of Islamic compliant finance. We can sit around and we can dream that there is no Arabic world. We can dream that a minority of people in this country have particular beliefs about interest and interest being charged. In the real world we have to deal with that reality. This country has an opportunity to get into markets and be involved in an area of finance that is expanding around the world. To say that because the government might give tax equality to this form of finance it is in some way condoning sharia law is preposterous.

Senator Bernardi also made the very speculative and unquestioning comment that the current government has financed Islamic groups that ‘try to prevent Muslims from integrating or talking to infidels’. He has not cited any organisation financed by this government or the previous government in the immigration sector that does these things. I would be the first to agree with him if we were to find that we were reinforcing Islamic obscurantism and marginalisation campaigns by extreme fundamentalists in our system. He gave no example whatsoever of any group that is currently being financed. While he is described by some people as the attack dog for the opposition, I prefer the comments of Senator Brandis, who said people who engage in this kind of thing are more reminiscent of schoolyard bullies.

In conclusion, this motion says that we should celebrate the reality that this country has experienced a major nation-building process that is renowned around the world. A survey in the last day or so says that a significant majority of Australians support multiculturalism—57 per cent are for it and 29 per cent are against it. This is not unusual. Canadian surveys also show that about 10 to 12 per cent of people are extremely antagonistic and on the verge of racism. In the same survey a shattering 65 per cent of people said that we should not reject people entering this country in the refugee intake on the basis of religion—19 per cent disagreed. Those surveys by Essential Research indicate that the centre ground of the Australian people are supportive of a diverse intake. In recent years the Scanlon Foundation, in more significant research, traced very strong support for the current level of intake of people in this country in the belief that we gain through diversity.

Sixty-one per cent of Australians believe it is more for political gain than real belief. As I said, the attempt to politicise this area can lead to the marginalisation of people, greater suffering for individuals and families being ostracised from the mainstream of this country and the labour force, and can reinforce extremism. I commend this motion to the House.

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