Page 828 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
members of this place today—the last achievements of the Whitlam Labor government. The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 made racial discrimination unlawful in Australia and, as my colleagues have said today, the act made it against the law to discriminate in areas such as seeking employment, buying or renting property, engaging in buying goods or services such as opening a bank account or wanting to buy a car, trying to access public facilities such as pools and libraries, advertising, joining a trade union, and certain offensive behaviour offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates people of a certain race, colour or national or ethnic origin. It is this last point on which the federal government is seeking to take us backwards, but I will come back to that in just a moment.
Continuing the building of the multicultural project, the Fraser Liberal government commissioned a far-reaching review into immigration in 1978 that, according to the department of immigration, included a three-year rolling program to replace the annual immigration targets of the past, a renewed commitment to apply immigration policy without racial discrimination, a more consistent and structured approach to migrant selection and an emphasis on attracting people who would represent a positive gain to Australia. In the 1980s and 90s, further reforms were made to entrench a multicultural Australia. State and territory governments passed their own acts, including the ACT who passed its own Racial Discrimination Act in 1991. Governments also did a lot to help immigrants integrate in the Australian community.
The transition to a multicultural Australia has transformed this country. It has transformed this country but we would be naive to think that there have not been attempts to undermine this great project. In 1996 Australia elected a Liberal government led by one of the few critics of multiculturalism, John Howard. In the 1980s Mr Howard tried to push the idea of a one Australia policy that would have led to a huge reduction in immigration from Asia. His government in the 1990s quickly got to work defunding programs and policies that were aimed at educating migrants and providing support for new arrivals. Within such an environment we should not have been surprised to see the rise of Hanson-ism in the 1990s.
Since that time multiculturalism has been consistently under attack, and this in turn has led to real-world consequences—consequences like the Cronulla riots, consequences like the way that we currently treat refugees and asylum seekers. In recent years we have even seen an increase in overt discrimination.
My colleagues have already talked about the article in the Herald Sun dated 6 April. The latest mapping social cohesion survey by the Scanlon Foundation found that last year 19 per cent of Australians were discriminated against because of their skin colour, ethnic origin or religious beliefs, which is up from 12 per cent in 2012. It was the highest level since the survey began in 2007. I make these points because I want to highlight the role that people like each of us in this Assembly can play in setting the standard for what is acceptable behaviour in this country.
I turn to the current review into the Racial Discrimination Act by the federal Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. As Dr Bourke has eloquently argued today, we have entered a new paradigm where the perceived rights of bigots are considered to be more important than the rights of people to not suffer from offensive behaviour. I
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video