Page 3181 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 11 September 1991
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MR DUBY (12.22): Mr Speaker, multiculturalism plays an important part in Australian life today, and I think all members have acknowledged that in their speeches. Australia is probably one of the most multicultural societies on earth. I think that the old Anglo-Saxon, Celtic culture which was here prior to the postwar immigration, particularly the large postwar immigration, has benefited greatly from the influx of cultures from all around the world that we see in Australia today.
I agree with the comments made by Mrs Grassby. I think it is fitting that there should be an ethnic broadcasting network here in Australia's national capital, in the city which in Australia is the most multicultural in the whole of the Commonwealth. Not only the members of the ethnic communities benefit from something along those lines; I believe that all members of society, in particular the old Anglo-Saxon, Celtic groups, will benefit from listening to the news, and the slant and attitude to life which is generated on ethnic broadcasting in radio stations. You only have to look at how our lives generally have been enriched since the introduction of SBS television. In most Australian homes now we can see broadcasting in a visual form from all across the world. It does provide an insight into various types of cultures that are existent here in Australia today. I support the motion entirely.
I must admit that I was a little bit distressed by some of the comments that Mr Collaery just made. The implication, frankly, that I gained from those was, if anything, rather paternalistic. The implication is that these poor immigrants apparently are incapable of making their own decisions about how they are going to vote. To sheet home the blame to the Labor Party, to say that somehow the Labor Party can manipulate these groups, that they can somehow get them to vote in a certain fashion because these are only ignorant immigrants who do not know their own minds, to my way of thinking smacks of paternalism.
One only has to think back to the 1950s and the 1960s when much the same was said - that the large postwar immigration that we had, of people fleeing from communist regimes, was used exclusively by Mr Menzies and the Liberal Government at the time to keep Labor out of power. I often heard it said that the only reason Labor could not get in was that the immigrants were voting against Labor because they did not like communists and socialists, et cetera. The fact of the matter was that Labor did not get elected in those years because they could not get enough votes; it was not because people were manipulated. The community as a whole was susceptible to the red-under-the-bed syndrome.
But, as I said, some people say that the ethnic communities of Australia today are not sufficiently aware of the political implications of that great right that we have here in Australia, the right to vote. Many people have come to Australia from countries where that right has been denied them. I find, when I talk to people who are from
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