PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
" TERRA AUSTRALIS TO AUSTRALIA" CONFERENCE
CANBERRA 21 AUGUST 1988
The Australian Academy of Humanities is doing itself and the
nation a great service in sponsoring, as the centrepiece of
its Bicentennial activities, this conference " Terra
Australis to Australia".
It is a pleasure for me as Prime minister to open the
Canberra week of the conference which is to be devoted to
analysing multicultural Australia.
Because if it is to have real significance, our Bicentenary
celebrations must be marked not only by times of great
rejoicing not only by magnificent sights such as Sydney
Harbor on Australia Day but also by the serious process of
assessment of our national identity.
In studying multicultural Australia, this conference will
indeed be probing close to the heart of our national
identity. In our Bicentenary year it is most appropriate that we note
the truth that Australia is a land of immigrants.
Immigration to Australia Mis extended over the full two
hundred years of our European history.
The foundations of our free society were built upon the
labour of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish pioneers, many
of them sent to this land in chains. in the nineteenth
century they were joined by farmers from Germany, goldminers
from China, and plantation labourers from the Pacific
Islands.
Through the massive post-war influx of people from Greece,
Italy, The Netherlands, Eastern Europe and elsewhere,
through the subsequent arrival of settlers from Lebanon and
Turkey, in the trauma of the aftermath of the Vietnam War,
successive waves of immigrants have sought to build a new
life in this land.
We should not fool ourselves into thinking that life for the
new arrivals was easy that they were always welcomed with
open arms that there was no hostility directed at them by
existing residents of this land. 1289
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But where in the past, Australians frequently reacted with
fear, and selected immigrants on the basis of race, colour
or nationality; and where in the past we somewhat vainly
hoped to assimilate immigrants so that they looked, ate,
dressed and played just like ' an Australian', more recently
we have had a bolder and a fairer vision.
Successive post-war governments Labor and conservativehave
moved to a principle of non-discrimination in selecting
immigrants, and to the policy of multiculturalism in
integrating them within a diverse but cohesive Australian
society.
As a nation we have come to accept that all Australians
whether Aboriginal Australians, descendants of the First
Fleeters, or new arrivals have a right, within the law, to
develop their cultures and to contribute them to the wider
Australian society.
It is regrettable, but broadly true, that each group of new
arrivals in Australia has been greeted by predictions that
they will never be successfully integrated into the
Australian community.
But the reality of the Australian experience is that each
group of new arrivals has successfully defied those
predictions. Their success is an essentially Australian one.
The blending of cultures, and their development within the
Australian environment, has been a constant feature of the
last 200 years and it is one of the special characteristics
that makes us distinctively Australian.
One of the great attributes of Australian society is its
capacity to offer all ne wcomers a fair go. one of the
enduring aspects of the Australian identity is its
diversity. This is not to say that Australia has no central values.
The reverse is true. our democratic institutions, our
belief in the freedom of the individual, our commitment to
the rule of law, our recognition of the creative worth of
entrepreneurial initiative and of the beneficial role of the
state in assisting those who need assistance, our shared
language all these are fixed elements of the Australian
community; values which we will not diminish.
within this diversity, as I declared on Australia Day this
year, the one test of Australian identity is commitment to
the future of our nation. It is that commitment not
colour, or ethnic origin, or religion, or cultural
background that makes one ' an Australian'.
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I am proud to be the Prime Minister of a nation which, with
bipartisan political support, has followed this enlightened
and decent path into the future. Under my leadership I give
my pledge, I give my Government's pledge, that there will be
no turning back.
Now, for many years it would have been unnecessary for a
political leader of either party to spell out such basic
facts about the community.
Because for as long as most of us can remember, the major
political parties have been at one on the central issues of
immigration and ethnic affairs.
There has been a bipartisan recognition that discrimination
should play no part in our selection of potential immigrants
or our treatment of new settlers. For many years, official
Australian attitudes towards migrants have been
characterised by decency and tolerance. And, in part as a
consequence, these attitudes have permeated through most of
the community.
In these circumstances I would be avoiding my
responsibilities as Prime Minister of this country if in
addressing you tonight I did not take head-on the issues of
this debate.
The current debate about immigration has seen the collapse
of that bipartisanship. It has seen a dramatic and tragic
erosion of the web of consensus that united the political
parties on this issue. And it has been accompanied by a
marked increase in the explicitly racist tempo and
temperature of comment in some parts of the community.
The Opposition leader has explicitly called for a slow down
in the rate of Asian immigration.
He refused to associate himself with the Bicentennial
Multicultural Foundation because of the word
" multicultural".
He patronised ethnic communities and effectively encouraged
the creation of ethnic enclaves by allowing as he put it
" the right of people of say, Greek descent to preserve Greek
customs and Greek language within their own family." I
emphasise " within their own family" as though to speak a
language other than English on the streets, to dance
something more exotic than the quick step, was unacceptable.
The National Party leader has said explicitly: " Asian
immigration has to be slowed," because there are " too many
Asians coming into Australia."
The Nationals' Senate leader has called euphemistically for
bringing the immigration stream " back into better balance"
which means reducing the " excessively high proportion of
immigrants from Asia". 1291
These comments are unprecedented in contemporary Australian
politics in their discriminatory references to race. They
are as ugly as they are blatant. And yet they stand
unretracted by those who uttered them.
Mr Howard is currently campaigning on what he deceptively
calls a " one Australia" policy.
if by the notion of " one Australia" we mean a cohesive
society, free of conflict, in which all Australians have a
fair go, and in which all are committed to our nation, them
that is squarely within my concept of multiculturalism.
If " one Australia" means that we respect the institutional
structure of our society the rule of law, parliamentary
democracy, English as our national language then that is
central to multiculturalism.
And significantly, these concepts are precisely central to
the concept of multiculturalism articulated and given effect
to by Mr Howard's predecessor Malcolm Fraser.
To this extent, then, Mr Howard is not articulating a new
truth about Australia because commitment to Australia and to
its institutions has always been an essential element of
multiculturalism. Cohesion within Australia has always been
the partner of our cultural diversity.
But Mr Howard's " one Australia" concept is not just about
those things. It is based upon the belief that all
Australians have to conform to one set of unchanging
attitudes; it doubts the commitment of immigrants to this
country; and it implies that certain Australians, by reason
of race or ethnic origin, are less able to integrate into
Australian society.
In a recent speech, Mr Howard extended his " one Australia"
slogan to cover other issues issues of industrial
relations, equality of opportunity and Aboriginal Affairs.
In short, " one Australia" is a Trojan horse, a slogan for a
broad ideology of reaction which Mr Howard is trying to
develop, to bolster his leadership, now that he has no
credibility on central issues of economic policy making.
In the field of immigration and ethnic affairs, the " one
Australia" ideology seems to connote a return to the dark
days of narrow-minded intolerance, fear of difference and
pressure to assimilate.
It is less about uniting Australians than dividing them.
Mr Howard himself may not share these views of that minority
in our community which is explicitly intolerant and racist.
But he is playing with fire since that minority sees
Mr Howard's current position as lending support to their
ugly beliefs.
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It is not insignificant that the " one Australia" slogan is
shared with an extremist right-wing organisation which is
currently pushing a particularly distasteful brand of
anti-Asian politics.
The papers presented at this conference reveal that such
extreme views have often been espoused in the past. But
there is no place for them in the present. And they must
not be allowed to determine or detract from our future.
The truth has to be understood clearly.
It is not good enough for Mr Howard to talk of " one
Australia" on the one hand while standing by his
discriminatory and inflammatory comments about Asians.
I want to make it clear that the breach of bipartisanship on
immigration and ethnic affairs issues has been a unilateral
one from within the conservative side of, politics.
I deliberately say " from within" the conservative side of
politics. For you will have noticed that in my earliest
public statements following the Howard/ Sinclair/ Stone
utterances I have said that there are decent people on the
other side for whom these positions would be as repugnant as
they are to me. My judgement has proved correct and I pay
tribute to those who are seeking to restore decency and
sanity to the conservative position.
It is therefore not impossible to restore bipartisanship on
a non-discriminatory immigration policy and on
multiculturalism. Indeed it is in all our interests, and in the interests of
future generations of Australians, that bipartisanship be
restored. But it can only be done if Mr Howard retracts those
distasteful comments he has made and silences those in the
coalition parties who have echoed him.
And it can only be done if the policy making forums of the
Opposition reject any proposal that race or ethnic origin
become a criterion in the selection of new migrants.
The alternative Government of Australia must not persist
with its policy by codeword that basically suggests people
of particular races or ethnic origins threaten the social
cohesion of the nation.
On the other hand, if the Opposition insists on injecting
discrimination back into the Australian immigration debate,
then my response is clear.
I hope that it will never be necessary to fight an election
on this issue, but I have said that if it is necessary I
will fight on it. Because of my belief in the innate
decency of the Australian electorate, I believe we would win
such an election. 1293
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But I would rather lose an election than allow this country
to descend by default into the abyss of discrimination. To
allow that descent would be both morally repugnant and
economically insane.
There will be no discrimination by this Government. There
will be no return to the White Australia policy. We will
not run the risk that official administrative discrimination
against Asians today will tomorrow expand to other races,
other ethnic communities, other religious groups.
Let us talk facts.
We are a very different society from the colonial outpost of
1888. We are a very different society from the Australia of
1938 whose ties of trade, defence and immigration were so
closely aligned to Britain.
We are, in fact, a multicultural country. Today some 40% of
Australians were born overseas or have parents born
overseas. Half of them are from non-English speaking
backgrounds. we cannot turn back the clock. We have no
desire to.
As the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Greiner, put it
recently: " I don't think the debate is, should we have
multiculturalism or not? I think that's a non-debate. I
think the question is how do you make multiculturalism
which is the society we've got how do you make it work?"
Clearly, one way to make it work is through bringing some of
the one million or so people who are Australian residents
but not Australian citizens under the umbrella of
citizenship. In July, in my electorate of Wills, I had the moving
experience of presenting citizenship certificates to
Australians who had come to this country from 25 countries.
It was obvious that'those there saw citizenship as a symbol
of commitment to Australia. So too does my Government. it
is for that reason that we have made 1988/ 89 a year to
promote citizenship. This will build upon the pride in our
national identity which has emerged in this Bicentennial
year. No-one will be pushed or dragged into becoming a citizen.
If citizenship is to symbolise commitment for those
Australians who have chosen this nation as their home, it is
important to keep citizenship a voluntary act.
An open and democratic society must seek to persuade people
of the advantages of citizenship not force or compel them.
Indeed compulsion would be almost a contradiction of such an
open and democratic society.
The Government's aim in the coming year will be to publicise
the importance of citizenship, and to make all Australians
aware including those born here of theiTF-ights and
responsibilities as full participants in our society.
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Finally, let us not ignore the international perspective of
this debate.
It has become a truism over recent decades to assert that
Australia's future is inextricably tied with that of Asia.
This presents us with the great challenge, and the great
opportunity, of participating in and contributing to the
prosperity of the most dynamic region of the world the
economies of the Pacific Rim.
Australia cannot pretend to exploit those opportunities, to
compete in those markets, while hiding behind the
protectionist barriers of tariffs and quotas. We are
striking down those barriers.
Nor in exactly the same way can we pretend to be part of
Asia while hiding behind a 1980s version of the discredited
White Australia policy.
We have struck down that policy and we will not
countenance its revival.
Our future prosperity depends on it.
As the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, was
reported recently as saying, Australia risks becoming the
" very poor relations" of Asia if we fail to link up with our
region. It is with Australia's future in mind, that I return to the
auspicious occasion which has brought us all here.
This international conference has been mounted by the
combined work of many Australian institutions, sponsors and
organisers. And I thank Esso Australia for its generous
sponsorship of the conference.
For the conference is not only an academic exercise; it has
great value for the whole Australian community. I am
pleased to note that its proceedings will be published as
Stories of Australian Migration and will also be broadcast
on radio. in thsway I hope that some of the great variety
of visions of Australia past, present, and future, will
become better known and understood by Australians.
It gives me great pleasure to declare open the second
session of the ' Terra Australis to Australia' conference and
to wish you all well in your deliberations. .129