Page 547 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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diversity of our cultural makeup”. The derivative “multicultural” was still necessary to refer to the actual demographic diversity of Australia, Zubrzycki said, but the “polysyllabic noun ‘multiculturalism’ had outlived its purpose” and was associated “with all kinds of negative attitudes and incidents of political separatism”. Instead he proposed the slogan: “Many cultures, One Australia”.
This is the danger of this motion. Ms MacDonald, in her wisdom, is seeking the endorsement of the ACT Assembly to lock the word multiculturalism in place for all time to ensure that it can be used in only one way. That would be a terrible thing. It would erode the very meaning of the word because, as we all know, the meaning of words change over time.
Actions speak louder than words, and if you have to rely on the use of a word to assert or prove that something exists, then there is a fallacy in your argument. For instance, in 1972, when the Whitlam government came to office, they claimed to be in favour of multiculturalism. In 1971, 140,000 people immigrated to Australia. The first act of the incoming government was to slash the number from 140,000 to 110,000. So much for encouraging cultural diversity! But there is more. Remember that the figure went from 140,000 to 110,000. In 1974, it went to 80,000. In 1975, the planned migrant intake was reduced to 50,000 people, the lowest under Labor since World War II.
What was the first action of the incoming Fraser government when it won election in 1975? In 1976, the new government immediately increased the size of the migration program by 40 per cent to 70,000.
Mr Hargreaves: Go, Big Mal!
MR SMYTH: Go, Mr Fraser! There would be many who would attempt to take from Jerzy Zubrzycki his title of the father of multiculturalism. We have to be careful about modern legend. Those that have not done it like to talk about it and write it, but history is always accurate. In an article entitled “Popular Support Not Required” for the Institute of Public Affairs, Michael Warby writes:
Some questions to test your understanding of recent Australian history: which was the first major Australian political party to adopt multiculturalism as official policy? Who was the first Federal politician to refer to multiculturalism in Parliament? Who was the second? Which Federal Government was the first to make multiculturalism public policy? When did multiculturalism achieve the support of the majority of Australians?
The answers are: the Liberal Party; Malcolm Fraser when Liberal Party immigration spokesperson; Michael MacKellar as his successor; the Fraser government; and not before the mid-1990s. So we need to be very careful when we start endorsing individual words.
This motion lacks intellectual rigor because to have a truly multicultural country you actually need to have a multicultural society; you actually need to have diversity. You cannot have a multicultural society without first having a culturally diverse society. How was that achieved post-war? Yes, John Curtin had a part in it, but who for 23 years fostered and improved it and built up the intake to Australian society? The
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