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Well thank you very much, Philip. To you and to Neville Roach, the
Chairman, can I express very warm personal thanks. This is an ideal
forum for me to record my immense appreciation and respect for the
work that Philip Ruddock has done as the Minister for Immigration
and Multicultural Affairs. Quite deservedly he enjoys a wide affection
and respect, not only in the communities that this audience represents
but also in the broader Australian community. He handles a portfolio,
which is never free from day-to-day controversy and difficulty, with
enormous sensitivity and skill. And I do want to record, quite unreservedly,
my immense gratitude to you, Philip, for the fine work that you've
done in the period of a little over three years. I know that everyone
in this audience welcomed the return of the immigration portfolio
to Cabinet after the last election. And Philip does bring a very strong
voice in relation to those issues as well as, of course, contributing
very constructively in the broader deliberations of the Government.
To you, Neville, can I say thank you very much. You're a very
busy man. You have a lot of other irons in the fire as well as your
role as Chairman of the Council and I think you've done an outstanding
job. And I want to say to all of the other members of the committee,
thank you from the Government for the work that you've done.
As Philip said, all of the detailed recommendations will be examined.
I can say to you that the essential thrust and the main elements of
the report are, of course, endorsed by the Government. Most importantly,
what the Government endorses are the values that are expressed in
the report.
What holds a nation together more than anything else are its common
values. I share Philip Ruddock's optimism. I share his positive
note. The experiment that Australia represents, if I can call it that,
of bringing together, in a quite unprecedented way people from the
four corners of the earth and doing it consistently over a period
of time and continuing to do it, both in a humanitarian way as well
as in a nation-building way, as we again remind ourselves this week
as we prepare to receive the first of the 4,000 refugees from Yugoslavia
that will be received within our midst, that it really has been a
quite remarkable experiment.
And Neville is right to use the adjective Australian before multicultural
because what he's really putting his finger on is that we have
developed an Australian way of doing things. And, increasingly, not
only in relation to settlement and other policies but also in other
areas of public life and public policy, we are developing a quite
unique Australian way of doing things. Not that there is anything
strange about that. We've always found a particular Australian
way of doing things. And one of the elements, one of the genius elements
of the Australian story is the way in which we have been able to retain
the good bits that have been contributed to Australian society by
the various tributaries, cultural tributaries, that make up our nation
and reject the bad bits.
Much of our society, of course, is heavily influenced by our British
and other European heritage, by no means of course exclusively, and
that's an important part of the Australian history. But we've
been very clever. We've taken the good bits and we've rejected
the bad bits. A long time ago we decided to reject the class-consciousness
that was part and parcel of much of our European heritage. We rejected
that a long time ago. But we've retained the habits of civil
discourse, of freedom of an open media and, of course, the rich cultural
treasure that we have inherited from Europe.
When I addressed the Australian Unlimited Conference in Melbourne
last night I spoke very optimistically about our country. I said that
it occupied a special intersection of history, geography and culture
and it really does. There's no nation on earth that, in this
part of the world, in the Asian Pacific region, that has such profound
links with the nations of Europe, shares such values in common as
we do with the nations of North America, has taken people from 140
source countries. And more recently, and certainly not exclusively,
we've taken large numbers of people from the nations of the Asian
Pacific region. And they have made an immense and beneficial and positive
contribution to the modern Australia.
So with all of those linkages and occupying that very special intersection,
as I call it, of history, geography and culture, we have an opportunity
and a place in the world that no nation on this globe has or can possibly
rival. But what we need of course to convert that fortunate conjunction
of history and geography and other circumstances, into an enduringly
positive advantage for the Australian community is of course to maintain
the values of which Neville spoke, and of which this report speaks.
And they are the values of tolerance, the values of understanding,
of respect for cultural difference, a sensitivity to ethnic diversity,
an understanding that when people come to a country which however
friendly it may be is nonetheless different and strange. There is
a process of adjustment, and there is a process of understanding that
is needed from those of us who were either born in this country, or
have lived for a long time in this country.
Now we Australians have done it rather better than most. It doesn't
mean for a moment some new comers have not been subjected to bigotry,
discrimination and intolerance. And like any country that has been
in the general successful, we've had individual blemishes and
dark spots and we have a collective responsibility on all occasions
to stare down tendencies towards extremism within our community. And
I do want to make it very plain on behalf of the Government, without
ambiguity, that we stand totally and utterly and uncompromisingly
opposed to any form of discrimination of any person in this country
based on ethnic background, nationality, race, colour of skin, religious
or political convictions. And it is a cornerstone of the Australian
way that we resist bigotry and we resist intolerance.
I think we have come a long way in this country. I think the debt
that we owe to the successive waves of migrants who have embraced
the Australian way is incalculable. With exception of course to the
indigenous people of our country which occupy a very special place
in our history, we are all in one form or another immigrants or the
children of immigrants. And that will continue to be the case. And
in that way Australia is one of only a relatively small number of
societies that can say that. And it gives us a special, I suppose
understanding, of the difficulties, particularly for those of us and
including many any in this audience who were not born in Australia,
a special understanding of the difficulties of adjustment that people
must encounter when they first settle in this nation.
And I believe that the principles espoused in this report encapsulate
what most people think. We believe in treating people decently, we
believe in the unity of the Australian nation above all else. But
we respect and understand the fact that if you were born in another
country you retain a special place in your heart for that country.
And there is nothing that in my view that diminishes the wholeness
of the Australian nation in that being fully recognised.
I think we have been very successful. Philip is right to refer to
the cohesiveness that was retained at the time of the gulf war. I
can understand the feelings of many people from the former Yugoslavia
about events which are now occurring in that country. And I was sad
that in some of the ANZAC Day marches the Serbian-Australian contingents
felt unable to participate. But I was delighted that in many parts
of Australia, including in Melbourne, they did. And that particular
day which has such a special place of hallowed reverence in the Australian
history and the Australian experience, above all celebrates respect
for those who fought together and does not in any way seek to perpetuate
hatreds in relations of those who fought in opposing armies so many
years ago. It's a day to celebrate sacrifice and valour together
and not indeed to focus on different and past dissent.
But I think we have been very successful and the reason we've
been very successful is that within the individual commitment and
affection that people have to the culture and the land of their birth
they have developed, and all of us have together, acquired a common
overriding commitment to the values of the Australian nation. They
are unique and special values. They've been contributed to from
many sources, and they have over a period of time evolved into a distinctive
and quite outstanding, and quite tolerant and humanitarian Australian
culture. And I think the values espoused in this report resonate very
well with the Australian experience. I have great pleasure in launching
it. I warmly thank you Neville, and all the members of your committee
for your work. I think it contributes greatly to the ongoing debate
about the Australian story and the Australian identity. Thank you.