Opinion & Commentary
Why multicultural Australia is less welcome
Now that the electorate has shown resounding support for a principled approach to asylum seekers, a serious debate is emerging about what Australia can do for refugees and what we should do, in our own interest, about immigration more generally.
We have made the Indonesian Government face up to the consequences of giving people smugglers free reign. Asylum seekers in Kupang, Bogor and elsewhere are irate because they have paid large sums to go nowhere.
They have become a major nuisance to the country that allowed people smugglers to bribe their way in. So are their friends stuck on remote Pacific Islands.
The first step in stemming the highly profitable people smuggling business has been taken. The pipeline is being made aware. If Jakarta tries to push the illegal arrivals back to Kuala Lumpur, not only Indonesia, but Malaysia also, will answer our telephone calls.
The next step should be to speed up refugee processing by Australian and UN bureaucrats. The annual refugee quota should be filled quickly, with a contingency number selected, by March 1 if not by February 1. This would give positive confirmation that we are a nation committed to a fair go.
The third step should ask, in parliamentary debate, whether we are taking enough refugees and migrants more generally. A dominantly Anglo-Celtic Australia was more generous in accepting refugees per head of population in 1939 than to-day’s multicultural Australia. Multiculturalism has deterred integration to the point of raising barriers against refugees and immigration more generally.
How many refugees we can take cannot be determined in isolation from other humanitarian programs, notably family reunion.
We know that the migrants who are likely to contribute most to Australia are young, skilled and with a working knowledge of English. Thousands, if not millions of these are waiting out there.
Our humanitarian programs are also important, however, and deserve serious consideration in the light of international and national priorities and responsibilities.
But we must recognise, however, that refugees - economic and political – have been created by repressive and corrupt regimes that have failed to develop their countries. The market economies that have become rich by following liberal economic and social policies cannot accommodate even a fraction of the people being driven out of their countries by bad government.
The pressure of immigrants is not only coming from the Middle East. The countries of the former Soviet Union and most Latin American countries have emigrants pressing at the gates of Europe and the United States. Only the disastrous HIV epidemic has stemmed the tide in Africa.
Aid cannot solve the problem. The compassion that provides food, health and education for poor people is exploited by ruthless power-seekers who spend their countries’ resources on armaments and channel them to foreign bank accounts. Aid often makes it possible for bad governments to stay in power. It is not unrealistic to expect that while aid feeds millions of people and rebuilds the infrastructure in Afghanistan, the warlords will divide up the country to go back to growing poppies for the lucrative illegal heroin trade for the West.
To change the public response to increases in immigration, present policies have to be abandoned in favor of immigrants’ willingness to integrate into mainstream Australian society. A commitment to the responsibilities as well privileges of key Australian values, notably personal freedom, free speech and equal opportunity, is the issue.
Language is central. Australia has an English language policy that is not being implemented. In the 1930s, newcomers were asked to “please speak English” on trams and buses from the day they arrived.
All immigrants, even grandparents, can pick up enough English to be able to communicate. It is unacceptable that some immigrants, even second generation ones, speak poor English or no English at all.
Inadequate English is the principal reason why immigrants from non English speaking backgrounds have a worse employment and higher welfare needs than other Australians. The availability of English classes can no doubt be improved, but the prime responsibility to learn English lies with each newcomer.
Refugees and potential immigrants must be clearly informed of the principal liberal standards to which they will have to conform. People who desire to escape from illiberal, repressive and incompetent governments cannot be allowed to carry the sources of repression and incompetence with them.
The long term prospects of our occupying this great continent with a small population of 20 million are dubious. Our choice is likely to be between selecting the immigrants we take, and determining their number, or being flooded by people smugglers.
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About the Author:
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.
