Multicultural Australia Papers

AUSTRALIAN ETHNIC AFFAIRS POLICY FOR THE 80's

The Hon, A.J, Grassby, Commissioner for Community Relations

These Occasional Papers on aspects of Australia's multicultural i p . society are published to stimulate discussion and dialogue. The opinions expressed in these papers need not represent those of the publishers. o „ ~ o The Clearing House on Migration Issues, 133 Church Street, Richmond, 3121, welcomes contributions to this series from individuals or organisations. MULTICULTURAL Clearing AUSTRALIA PAPERS House Already Published on Most recent publications in this series:

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The time has now come to set objectives for building unity out of the diversity which is Australian society today.

This task must embrace all the component parts of the Australian population, not just some of them. This submission examines ethnic affairs policy considerations for all Australians.

In this connection it is important first to identify and then overcome the considerable confusion which exists at the present time over who and what is an Australian. It % is this confusion which is responsible for a good deal of the racial discrimination detailed in my Annual Reports to the Australian Parliament from 1976 to 1980.

Professor Manning Clark, 1981 Australian of the Year, has identified three different kinds of Australians:

(1) Aboriginal Australians (2) "British Australians" of mainly pre-war vintage (3) "Non-British" Australians of mainly post­ war vintage.

The Australian Ethnic Affairs Council has attempted its own carve-up of the Australian people and has created yet another series of divisions in which the greatest and most important comprise a group designated "the hosts" or "the host society". These are not the Aborigines but appear

.../2 2 to be a socio-political elite given the general designation "British" whereby, in a numbers-boosting exercise, the legitimate English content is expanded to embrace all those assimilated as such over the years and all those who should have been, such as the Irish, even if they were not.

The attempts to perpetuate the cultural aggressions of the past by continuing the myth of "British" homogeneity can only reopen old wounds and perpetuate old divisions.

Presumably those not of this elite are forever in the shadows as former citizens of the mythical land of "Migrania".

Australians are recognised today as the most diverse people in the world outside of Israel.^ Australians are also the newest people on earth. A larger percentage of our people is made up of post-war settlers tl^an any of the other great migrant nations such as the USA, Canada, Brazil or Argentina.

It is important to recognise that the one valid and continu:ng base for our nation is the founding people with 40,000 year;' residence in Australia. Any attempt to pursue an ethnic affairs policy without acknowledging this fact and building upon it is to ignore the one unique input which makes Australia a signal nation and provides not only a historic base but a historic continuity.

Who Are The Australians?

Before setting out policy considerations it is necessary first to indicate to whom they are addressed. They are addressed to the Australian people and to the fact that Australia is a polyethnic, multicultural and multilingual society.

The following represents a range of inputs, not exhaustive by any means, about which my Office and Dr Charles Price, of the Department of Demography, Australian National University, are broadly in agreement. Other components, including the Greek, Irish, Spanish, Scottish, and others are the subject of continuing research. . . . /3 3

Aboriginal 160,000 English 6,500,000 Italian 800,000 - 1,000,000 New Zealanders 600,000 German 540.000 Yugoslav 250.000 Dutch 200.000 Arabic-speaking 190.000 Indian Sub-continent 102.000 Scandinavian 100,000 U.S. Americans 100,000 Polish 100,000 Chinese 60,000 French-speaking 53,000

Who Runs Australia?

It is evident that Australian leadership is not representative of the ethnic mix of the population in either parliaments, government, the professions, trade unions, or in the management of private industry.

The most recent analysis of who comprises the ruling elite in Australia was carried out by Dr William Bostock, of the University of Tasmania. His findings demonstrate the dilemma of the 80's - how an almost exclusively monocultural, mono­ lingual and homogeneous elite can administer the world's most cosmopolitan country. ( 2 )

Dr Bostock states that more than 80% of all the operational elites were born in Australia and 75% of them have English family links. Most non-Australian-born academic elite are from the United Kingdom, while an incredible 50% of all those in the business elite are temporary residents employed from overseas by multinational corporations.

The Australian elite comprises a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ethnicity of which more than half are a product of non-Catholic private schools.

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Among the media elite, two-thirds of the ABC leaders and 55% of the media owners attended non-Catholic private schools. In fact, five private schools dominated the media elite.

So our multicultural society is guided by a group of one predominant ethnicity which, as Dr Bostock has pointed out, has a high degree of homogeneity in values, attitudes, political and administrative behaviour and even dress.

As far as Aboriginal Australians are concerned they are not yet adequately represented in the decision-making machinery set up to handle their interests.

Terminology

Against this background it is fundamental to any rational and menaingful discussion to get the terminology right.

I introduced the word "ethnic" to embrace all Australians of all backgrounds. It is derived from "ethnos", meaning people or folk, as opposed to "kratos", meaning city or state.

This submission proceeds on that basis.

1. NATIONAL IDENTITY

There is an identifiable Australian culture. It has from the outset of white settlement been multicultural, multi­ lingual and polyethnic. Migrants have been a part of it since 1788. The only identifiable Australian culture apart from the impact of migrants is Aboriginal, and this is still essentially how Australia is perceived from outside Australia.

Every culture has recognisable characteristics and the Australian characteristics are an amalgam of all the backgrounds from which our population was drawn. There is a large literature in the field of Australian identity,

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and the contemporary aspect of it is the degree to which it is again being remoulded under the impact of post-war mass migration.

One of the Australian characteristics is a recognisable style of public administration in the past which withheld legitimacy from groups other than Anglo-oriented. It is in the struggle between colonialist attitudes and social realities that Australian history since 1788 may be understood.

It is a very subjective issue whether Australians identify with Australia in the same way as others do with their countries. Identification operates at two levels : there is great identification with and love of the Australia of the bush, beaches, surf, waterways, the outback, etc., although it is still probably ambivalent - the urge to rape the environment is still irresistible but this is to some extent offset today by the protective involvement of the environmentalists.

On the other hand, identification with the Australian polity is weak and even cynical, and this often reflects the attitudes of Australian leaders towards the led. I believe that the new ethnic proletariat is adding to the reservoir of those alienated from many Outmoded Imperial forms. Certainly the old Imperial symbols of power have always left a good half of the nation unmoved. The events of 1975 accelerated an existing alienation from the old symbols of our society but it is still too early to judge the pace and direction of changes already on the horizon.

The time has passed when "instant nationalism" can be sold like soap by the media. Such campaigns if only directed at non-Anglo-Saxons would indeed be disturbingly divisive.

The experience of my Office indicates that there is an urgent need for "whole community" campaigns to promote better community relations and a greater sense of equality, fair play and unity among all Australians. . . ./6 &

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Such campaigns should be in the best traditions of community education, broadly based from the kindergarten through the whole spectrum of formal education to Local, State and Federal Government agencies, the churches, industrial organisations, trade unions, service clubs and indeed every community-oriented body in existence.

"Whole town" experimental work undertaken by my Office in Rockhampton and Kempsey demonstrates the basis for such community education programs.

The effect of migrants upon Australian society is to have created the nation we know today and everything in it apart from Aboriginal culture. Migrants should not be locked into either "developing their own activities or organisations" or "influencing mainstream organisations". The terminology is astray because they should be free to encompass the entire range of activities within the Australian democratic structure as will help attain their just aspirations.

In the early post-war years migrants had to form their own organisations to survive. In more recent times many have actively sought to influence general institutions. There is a continuing and valid role for both approaches but people must be accorded freedom to practise either approach or both.

It is my appreciation that no one who comes to Australia fails to be influenced to some degree or other by the ruling ethos of the society. This is readily observed when the Anglo-Australian goes to the country of his ancestors, England, and finds himself holding attitudes at variance with those of his relatives.

This can also be observed among Greek and Italian Australians, while the differences between a Cantonese Australian and a Cantonese from Hong Kong, Singapore or Malaysia are the subject of comment by Cantonese communities in all those places. . . ./7 4

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There are Australian characteristics, Australian attitudes and an Australian lifestyle. Ethnic organisations are part of that. What would an Australian parade be without a Scottish pipe band?

The question has been raised concerning whether there should be an alternative set of organisations to cater for the diversity of Australia. I do not believe that in terms of administration at any level there is any need or desire to have duplicate organisations. Nobody is asking in Australia for regional Parliaments along the lines of the Basques or the Scots, the Sicilians, the Welsh, the Croatians or the Bretons.

The overwhelming demand in Australia is that the institutions which are supposed to serve everyone should be geared to that objective and not exist to service a monolingual and mono- cultural segment of the population.

* The use of the word "mainstream” in a discussion of Australian society is often misleading. In coming to grips with the realities of Australian society today it should be recognised that it varies from State to State, city to city, suburb to suburb, and school to school. For example, in many suburbs Anglo-Australians are in the majority, in others they are not.

To Assimilate or not to Assimilate?

Is assimilation inevitable? Experience in the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia indicates that assimilation has been a dismal failure wherever it has been practised as a national policy. It was also a dismal failure in Australia and gave rise to active and virulent racism in many sectors of the society.

The racist hangover in Australia is almost entirely due to the tensions created by the assimilationist policies that prevailed until 1973 when the national policy was changed in a dramatic break with the past.

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In its pure sense, "assimilation" is a natural process in people growing like each other because of living together. This process is two-way and affects everyone. But in the narrow cult sense in which the word is used here there is great confusion because "assimilation" seems to be "special assistance programs for migrants". What is at stake is not the content of the programs but their objective and orientation. The question also evokes the fear of a ghetto, which needs to be put to rest.

Common sense, historical experience here and overseas, and the implications of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 on special measures for disadvantaged groups all underline the need for assistance programs but they must be matched by equally effective programs of community education for all, otherwise we have a situation similar to that in some rural communities where there is a racist backlash against funding of special programs to help disadvantaged Aboriginal people.

It seems an entirely academic point whether such programs would "delay or encourage the assimilation process" since this is an entirely undesirable process if it means brainwashing people out of their heritage.

In following the slogan "one nation, one flag" it is important to recognise that the symbols themselves have to be Australian and not ethnically biased. Quite appart from the discussion whether the present Australian flag is adequate, the display by Australian institutions such as banks and local government bodies of the flag of the United Kingdom may be very commendable to commemorate the fact that the founders of the Bank of New South Wales were UK-born or, as far as local governments are concerned, that they were established in a time when Australia was an English colony.

But it does not inspire any sense of loyalty as far as non-Anglo-Saxon Australians are concerned, any more than the flying of the Italian flag on special occasions from

.. ./9 9 the local town hall influences the Anglo-Saxon Australian one way or another. In fact he may well react negatively to the Italian flag, whereas he might feel that his own ethnic flag should always be given a place of honour. The . symbols of the nation must be for all the nation, not just part of it.

It is my experience that post-war Australians have a greater desire to identify with Australia as a motherland than pre­ war generations. Most of the people 50 years and older were content for most of their lives to be British subjects, not Australian citizens. The post-war generations are passionately interested in becoming Australian but obviously not interested in becoming Anglo-Saxons.

The greatest single problem which has emerged in our five years of work in relation to a cohesive Australian community is attitudinal discrimination, aided and abetted by State and community bodies rooted in a monolingual and monocultural past.

2. THE ECONOMY

In relation to the economy, unemployment is the cancer of good community relations. The high levels of unemployment in Australia in recent years have given rise to tensions in the workforce, in the streets, and even among the children of workers in schools.

The first priority in achieving good community relations is the abolition of unemployment. Concurrent with this should be the recognition that Australia's workforce comprises the highest proportion of overseas-born workers in the world outside of Israel and that both management and trade unions need to take this into account. To underline this point (3) the Office of Community Relations has published extensively.

In the matter of recognising the polyethnic nature of the workforce the published papers of the Office indicate that

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both management and trade unions have failed to accord such recognition. Too many employers just do not know who their employees are and too many trade unions do not know who their members are. There is a gap in communication which it has been conclusively demonstrated has resulted in an unacceptably high turnover of workers and a climate which produces regular disputes.

Any attempt to separate workers into English-speaking and non-English-speaking categories is racially discriminatory and unacceptable. The nature of the workforce demands that special efforts should be made by employers and unions alike to serve workers of all backgrounds adequately in the appropriate languages, and using the most effective means of communication.

There is no doubt at all that the entry of large numbers of overseas-born women into the workforce for the first time in their lives has caused great family tensions and has resulted indeed in the break-up of families, the disadvantage and neglect of children, and much hardship.

Most Greek-Australian women, for example, have never worked in industry before coming to Australia. They had no intention of entering the workforce. Economic circumstances influenced them to do so and problems arise within the family as a result. There is a need for an urgent emulation of the programs already inaugurated by a minority of sensitive employers and unions so that the entire workforce is adequately catered for.

The impact of technological change was examined by the Myer Inquiry into Technological Change in Australia. I note that it speaks of the impact of technological change upon "the migrants". This is however a very specialised subject. Very divergent views emerge on the impact of the new technology : the employers' perspective is that it will open up a golden age and create virtually as many jobs as it destroys. The employees' point of view is often that it will be disastrous for the unskilled workforce.

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Given the large grouping of overseas-born workers in this area of the economy it would seem that the impact of technology will be serious. This opens up the challenge of retraining programs which the authorities seem reluctant to introduce, since the talk at the moment is of resuming the migration of skilled workers rather than retraining our own.

If retraining were to be done locally there would be real need for the languages of the workers to be used and for their cultural values to permeate the teaching. This is a tall order, and was covered in detail in a paper prepared by Mr J.H. Houston of my Office for a National Adult Education Conference convened under UNESCO auspices xn 1978. (4 )

Another implication is that with growing leisure (and/or under-employment) there will be a premium on activity in the voluntary sector : entertainment, arts and crafts, sports, voluntary community work, etc. There will certainly be ethnic viewpoints on these issues and they should be sought from the appropriate quarters.

Future Prospects. There seems a general consensus about today that the long term outlook is good but the short term rather clouded, and the much vaunted "coming resources boom" will obviously not be labour-intensive, while manufacturing industry is seen as declining further, thus adding significantly to the incidence of unemployment. This underlines the need for retraining programs.

Increasing worldwide instability and growing population pressures in the Third World are both factors which will probably interact to generate more refugees and put pressure on wealthy and lucky countries such as Australia. If this is so there are real implications for community education programs to counter the tensions already seen in the case of Indo-Chinese refugees and the racist fringe.

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The classical case for immigration is that it increases the size of the local market, diversifies the economic needs of the community, and creates the climate for infrastructure development - streets, homes, schools, hospitals, etc. - which in turn generates employment and improves the quality of life.

Against this is raised the argument for ZPG and preserving the social environment. Implicit in the argument for immigration is the need to ensure sound community relations between old and new, majority and minority cultural groups. The impact of all this on Aborigines is also a key question very seldom raised. It all underlines the need for strong and continuing programs of community relations at all levels, whatever course is decided.

There is ample evidence that on the whole equality of opportunity does not exist in the economic system, whether for migrants or anyone else. Indeed, in many quarters today it would be strongly argued that it should not have to. If equality of opportunity is held to be a desirable goal, there would be a long way to go and much investment needs to be made in human and social resources to realise it.

Again I draw attention to the fact that institutional prejudice and discrimination form a powerful barrier to equality and to the reshaping of our institutions necessary to ensure a harmonious future whichever economic path is chosen.

It is debateable whether changes in living standards will be demanded in the next few years. The evidence from overseas countries undergoing such challenges, such as the United Kingdom and possibly now Reagan's America, would be that society will not accept such changes readily without eruptive tensions being generated. This is because the sacrifices are never demanded equally of all groups in society and the lower socio-economic orders grow

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tired of watching their "betters" become more affluent while being exhorted to make greater sacrifices on their behalf.

In Australia with abundant natural resources present, I cannot see a general willingness to accept lower living standards without the generation of great and new tensions in political life. In this situation scape-goating would certainly occur of low-powered groups in society, inevitably Aborigines and, following the patterns of the past, Asians, and so across the spectrum of the weak and the vulnerable. In the past the Irish followed the Chinese. I don't believe they would accept the role of scape-goats in the future.

The challenge of who pays to facilitate change is a difficult one. In all justice management and government should pay since no one else can. But in practice the result of economic reorganisation could well be to lay off the last on. This harsh law of the market place would seem to challenge much of what we have put forward as desirable.

These same harsh laws are at work in the current tendency for casual women workers to come into the workforce because they are cheaper to employ - no overheads for holidays, superannuation, etc. - than permanent male workers. This is one of the most significant developments in labour force economics in recent times as brought to light in the 1981 conference a few weeks ago of the Australian Institute of Political Science in Canberra.

Many of these women workers are immigrants and serious strains may develop in their home life. Often they are driven to work because of their husbands' unemployment or under-employment and sometimes simply by the need to survive in a time of loss of real buying power. The outcome is not only personal tensions and often tragedy in the family, but severe strains in our society, and will be expressed in future no doubt by delinquency rates, drug and alcohol misuse, cost of social services, etc. .../14 14

All this seems inevitably bound up with the triumph of the "free market economy" but the human price to be paid is great.

3. EDUCATION

There is a ferment throughout Australia in education circles ranging from State Education Departments, Catholic education authorities, aca’demic educators, teachers and parent bodies, the Australian College of Education,etc., right down to pre-school associations in regard to multicultural education.

Pre-eminently the federal Education portfolio has undertaken extensive studies over several years past of the concepts of multicultural education and ways in which these concepts may be realised at every level of Australian education. Within this framework the Schools Commission has made available tens of millions of dollars for innovative and developmental projects. With this money innovative educational activity throughout Australia is under way. Similar funds have been made available by the Tertiary Education Commission, the TAFE authorities, and, in the field of curriculum, by the Curriculum Development Centre.

My Office has convened historic conferences in several States and at the national level to explore the issues and reports have been published and are available. An essential feature of this whole process has been the genuine attempt to consult with grassroots ethnic opinion.

The current situation is that multicultural education proposals have all been drawn up and are ready for implementation but governments and top educational administrations lack either the will or the priority to put them into effect on the total scale necessary.

A second language for all should be a feature of the core curriculum. This battle is currently being fought.

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Bilingual education (that is, education via the medium of community languages) has been canvassed by the Schools Commission, especially in the case of immigrant children arriving at the secondary level, who would otherwise be thrown on the unskilled labour market without enough grasp of either their own language or the new one. ( ’ ' • As indicated previously there is a great need for retraining of migrant workers via their own languages. It is also essential to retrain the teaching force to handle a community language, and all levels of education should include intercultural studies to develop skills of harmonious living in a multicultural society.

About 100,000 Australian children attend ethnic schools in 30 languages. These afternoon, evening and weekend community schools are the only means for so many Australian children to save their home language and heritage. The issue of whether government funds should be made available for ethnic schools has been overtaken by events : for several years some States have been providing subsidies or grants. South Australia pays an annual subsidy of $28 per head; New South Wales distributed some $180,000 in 1980 on a needs basis; Victoria proposes to allocate $100,000 next financial year; Tasmania gives some $4,000 assistance to each school, with larger grants in special circumstances, and it has been announced that the Commonwealth will fund through the Schools Commission ethnic schools throughout Australia to the extent of $30 per pupil per annum.

In relation to library services, taxpayers have the right to expect provision to be made for their needs in reading materials, educati^”*! services, and information services relevant to their culture and language. This is merely an extension of the policy of multicultural television and ethnic radio applicable in Sydney and Melbourne.

To ask whether government libraries should reflect the nature of the Australian people betrays, perhaps deliberately, a lack of recognition that an Australian need not have English .../16 16 as a first language. He may even be a 9th generation Australian (the maximum possible for a non-Aboriginal Australian) and still wish both himself and his family to learn and to cherish and to use the language of his fathers.

All students should be exposed to an education which takes account of the cultural backgrounds of all members of the Australian community. "Learning about Australia" should include learning about the heritages of all Australians, both in their overseas homelands and in their contribution within Australian history and society.

It is desirable that everyone in Australia should speak English and every effort should be made to bring this about. It is equally important to recognise that for many people it is an unattainable goal and the evidence of Anglo-Australian attempts to learn other languages bears this out. Certainly, English should not be made a prerequisite to acceptance for entry to Australia, since this would cut across humanitarian policies of family reunion and would unbalance the ethnic composition of the migrant intake leaving undue emphasis on people from the ex-Bxitish Empire.

There is a manifest need for a national------language----- policy,------as detailed by Dr David Ingram and many others. An important aspect of language policy would be adequate government funding for language maintenance and development.

There is an urgent and crucial need for community education programs at all levels of society and throughout the country. Without proper emphasis on this matter we can assume that growing tensions will divide the community and that this will be both uneconomic and wasteful of human resources. The key point in such education programs is that they must be geared towards the entire society making due allowance for the various viewpoints within it.

My Assistant Commissioner (Studies & Research), Mr J.H. Houston, at the "National Ethnic Forum" in 1979 dealt with (6) the need for a total community education program. - - ./17 17

• jV> t ' - li In the sphere' hcrf education'"the experience and position of my Office flak been made quite clear in a further series l; of papers.

To ask the question in the following terms is again to betra'y a racially discriminatory attitude, as it assumes that Australians are all Anglo-Saxons: \ • •• •• . '

"What account should school'curricula take of the different cultural backgrounds - of students? What should be the balance between learning about Australia and learning about migrants' heritages?"

Any Australian school that does not recognise and teach ■v 1 • about Aboriginal Australia and the multicultural nature of the society is not a good Australian school but a bad one. v

The problem is that 80% of the teachers are of Anglo-Saxon background, often teaching a class in which Anglo-Saxons are a minority. The imperatives for change are with the teachers in the first instance. * ‘ . i .i '■ i' .■ ■ ■ v. ■ • • '• ' ‘ ' • ‘ ■

It has been clearly demonstrated, and most recently by evaluations in the A.C.T., that where there are language and cultural programs introduced in the primary schools, community relations improve greatly as well as helping to better equip Anglo-Australian children with a second language and improve their first.

Sadly, only 10% of Australia's 160,000 teachers have any training that would equip them to deal with a polyethnic class situation and only 25% of the 20,000 now in training are receiving any special instruction in this area.

Australian school systems - and there are some 15 of them - are probably the worst in the world in terms of language recognition. In their extirpation of the community languages other than English they have been guilty of promoting a considerable amount of active racism. .../18 18

Ethnic slanders, particularly against Aboriginal Australians, have led to perpetuation of racist attitudes' where otherwise they may have died out. It is important trfcrfc the schools of Australia should recognise i;he nature of the society and provide for a proper recognition of community languages other than English. In the meantime ethnic schools need funding support as they vill undoubtedly be tl\& only means by by which Australians ai Kindergarten and primary school can get access to second “language learning in the same way as children in most of the world.

4. ARTS AND THE MEDIA

Artistic expression in Australia involves the Aborigines, and every ethnic component including the English. The real question at issue is not the dichotomy between "Ang,Lo" and "Ethnic” culture - since "Anglo" culture turns out to be largely Continental in any case : music, art, sculpture, opera, ballet, etc. - but between highbrow and popular culture. Highbrow culture will already be largely non-Anglo, while popular culture should similarly be seen as expressing the folk arts of all the components of our society, and should be funded on this basis.

In a time of international cultural conformity under the impact of the new technology and the media there is obviously great need for government funding of popular culture if it is to survive. Much larger funding should be devoted to meeting this need and perhaps relatively less to avant-garde highbrow culture that lacks a homeland. UNESCO is putting great stress on the need to promote and preserve cultural identity, particularly of immigrant groups in multicultural societies and of indigenous minorities.

Government control of the ethnic media is a sinister prospect, as indeed is control of any media. The government monopoly of controlling ethnic radio and television needs to be matched by some government funding for the ethnic press if it is not to become a poor relation or disappear.

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It is also an important safety valve for some ethnic opinion, though it need not necessarily be seen as expressing grassroots opinion. There is a real need for community access radio and television to be developed along the 3ZZ model. '

• . . i ' Multicultural television and radio can only increase community understanding of Australia today in all its cultural diversity, but it would be better to ensure that all radio and television take on this challenge of reflecting the entire society. Since the electronic media today do not even fully reflect the range of opinion An the Anglo sector it is somewhat unrealistic to expect radio and television to fully express the range of viewpoints across the ethnic spectrum. £$y ■ ■ ' U ’ ■ : .!■■■/ Government ethnic radio and television developments which I personally initiated were conceived as catalysts and not ends in themselves. The objectives, must be to have public, commercial, community and access radio, and television all equally sensitive to the diversity of the society and its needs. '.; ■ • •: I The Age of the Ocker must give way;in the 80's to the Age of the Informed and Literate Australian.

The divisions in the Australian community at the present time are exacerbated by the inequality of facilities available to Australians of different backgrounds. If you happen to be an Australian whose first language is not English, then the library services of the nation make available to you one-third of a book. If you happen to be looking at art which falls outside a number of traditional art forms, then the government recognition on a dollar basis is $50,000. A paper on ethnic arts prepared by my Office (8) in 1978 deals with this aspect in greater detail.

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5. LAW

The major virtue in Australian Parliamentary institutions is that they are democratically based. The democratic principle is one that should be preserved and indeed further improved as it obviously is not operating either equitably or fairly in every section of the population. As far as the legal system is concerned, the rule of law is another feature which is unchallengeable but the. courts and their procedures are still inadequate to dispense justice properly. The fact that an Australian whose first language is not English has not under law the right to understand in his native language - and this includes Aboriginal Australians - is a grave defect which is causing continuing injustice.

The law does not take into account adequately the full ethnic nature of the society. The courts still follow a rule-of-thumb definition of the "ordinary man" who is by their definition an Antipodean Englishman. As long as this prevails justice will continue to be denied in some (9) places and at some times. It is not a matter of having a varying law to cater for cultural differences in the Australian community but the law should in fact be geared to the people and not the people dragooned into a law and a set of procedures which do not represent justice.

This was referred to particularly by Sir John Nimmo in the First Lalor Address on Community Relations in 1975 f U L . where he expressed his dismay that Aboriginal Australians facing a capital charge seemed to be the only people in court unaware of what was going on. Again our position papers are enclosed to deal in greater detail with this aspect.<12)

In addition, the Family Law Court should be given the resources to train and employ adequate counsellors schooled in the cultural expectations and backgrounds of their clients. There is an evident need for interpreters not only of language but of cultural values.

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The current viewpoint seems to be that the law should be revised to accommodate practices that are gaining social acceptance such as homosexual acts, prostitution and vagrancy, yet there is a curious double standard at work which would withhold such adjustments in —the practices of ’migrants"".

The classical example put forward for consideration in this debate is polygamy, but even here one may wonder which is more radical : to legalise multiple marriage within proper civil procedures and non-Christian religious sanctions in order to accommodate age-old ethnic cultural values, or to legalise non-marriage which is the trend at the moment, in terms of rights of succession of children, legal status of partner, etc.

At this point the law is somewhat of an ass in that while it agonises oyer some varieties of marriage it ignores others.

There is also need for police attitudes and training to be recognised as areas rf pressing concern.

6• POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Australian Parliaments do not represent adequately the diversity of the Australian people since the way to Parliament is through the established Party system, which at the grassroots level is only just beginning to come to grips with the nature of the society. Both the Liberal and Labor Parties have made a start in this direction by establishing Branches in which business is conducted in a number of different languages. In 1970 there were four overseas-born members of the National Parliament, one Italy, one from Ireland and two from England. This has since been expanded but nevertheless the numbers at the moment remain at a token level.

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At the same time it should be recognised that the interests of ethnic communities cannot be entirely satisfied by formal incorporation into the existing parties.

The recent suggestion that Australian citizens who happen to be overseas-born might be divested of their citizenship and deported is the most divisive suggestion to be made in a generation. It would lead to first and second class citizenship and in part would devalue Australian citizenship to a new worthless level.

Every migrant who comes to Australia is supposed to be counselled along the lines that he has been invited to Australia and given the opportunity to come with the idea of becomiag a citizen. This should be followed through. It would certainly enhance the status of Australian citizenship to make it cne sore crxteiion for voting in all elections. Currently Australian citizenship is considerably debased by the fact that automatic voting and other rights are conferred on people from 42 countries of the old British Empire. It also leads to serious racial discrimination and cruel anomalies.

For example, if two brothers came to Australia, one born in Athens and one in Nicosia, and were involved in criminal activities, after five years the brother from Athens could still be deported. The brother from Nicosia could not. There is neither rhyme nor reason in this set of circumstances at the present time. This discrimination should clearly be removed, either by abolishing the citizenship requirement altogether, or malcing it for only Australian citizens.

Vital forums for ethnic opinions are the Ethnic Communities Councils in each State and Territory, and the National Federation. There i3 a need for this lobby to be increasingly recognised as a legitimate force within Australian decision-making, as has traditionally been the case with manufacturers, rural interests, the RSL, etc.

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A case might be made out for the application of the "affirmative action principle" in the need for government support and subsidy, perhaps on a temporary basis, to enable these Councils to emerge as fully representative and viable organisations, based on the moral principle that their presence in Australia is the direct result of governmenti programs of large-scale migration and that a moral responsibility devolves from this to ensure access by ethnic communities and their Councils to the democratic process.

There is considerable need for a continuous campaign of promoting Australian citizenship. Such campaigns can be conducted by using the range of community languages and by the proper recognition of cultural diversity in approaches required.

At the, J J local i government level there is need to remove111 IIJI the discriminatory basis of electoral eligibility which exists in some States on the grounds of property ownership. This is a hangover from the sharp class divisions of old Europe and has no place in a modern democracy.

On the other hand there is no need t

.1-1. • « Non-citizens should be eligible for service within the Australian Defence Forces, as they should in Australian public services generally, within the proviso that areas of close security would need to be open only to citizens of Australia. Service in the Armed Forces is simply a moral responsibility in view of the fact that non-citizens were drafted to the Vietnam war,Xu i. although '* - not forced to serve there. 24

7. WELFARE

All services in the health and welfare fields should be available to the whole range of Australians, irrespective of the language they speak or their cultural backgrounds. This is implicit in the universal access to welfare pensions and benefits by all members of the community. However, the practice has been - and is still justifiable in my view - for specialised attention to be given to certain groups within the community. Hence we have the Veterans' Affairs Department handling ex-servicemen's needs, Aboriginal Affairs handling Aboriginal needs, and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs handling "ethnic" needs. The dilemma is whether to continue what can ultimately become a divisive and exclusivist policy or to incorporate all needs within the one program. In the latter case there would need to be an assurance that the needs would still be understood and properly met.

The view of the Galbally Report, however, is to gradually devolve welfare services to the community - no doubt in line with the "small government" philosophy. This simply shifts areas of responsibility around : henceforth the government is less responsible for the delivery of services but more responsible for co-ordinating and monitoring what is actually provided by the myriad community groups. The most important of such groups are those within ethnic communities, speaking the same language and understanding the same culture as their clients. An affirmative action plan would provide for special attention - whether by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs or Social Security - to assessing and meeting such special needs and to training staff adequately.

It also implies a genuine community education program to convince the public of the real need of disadvantaged groups for specialised programs. Otherwise experience with Aborigines shows that a backlash is generated (apparently on racist grounds, since there seems to be

.../2 5 25 no backlash against dairy farmers, industrialists, or returned servicemen). Again it seems that community education is an essential concomitant of spending public money on the disadvantaged.

There is also a clear need for the training in all the relevant professions of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. To date, efforts to recruit, for example, Italian-speaking social workers to work in Italian agencies seem to have failed because of the greater attraction of working in government or general community agencies. It is therefore necessary to make this concept more acceptable and a more genuine alternative by undertaking appropriate recruitment and by adjusting the training program to make more meaningful provision for the needs of the culturally diverse.

The basis for government funding for ethnic welfare organisations should be:

(1) Identified need; (2) Inadequacy of general community agencies to cope with the specialised task; (3) Broadly based acceptability of an agency within its own cultural community - i.e. so that the grant of funds does not cause fragmentation or rivalry; * (4) A medium-term plan to provide adequate training courses at acceptable professional level for people from all cultural backgrounds and to adjust the courses to meet the needs of all communities; (5) The short term availability of appropriately qualified people within the cultural group; (6) Or in lieu of this, the availability of professionals without language skills but willing to work with an interpreter of the relevant community.

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The challenge of devolving funding to community bodies - whether the Red Cross or the Greek Welfare Association - is to effectively co-ordinate services, avoiding both overlaps and unmet needs. Flexibility is of the essence ; there needs to be ethnic-specific agencies, general community voluntary agencies, governmental agencies at Federal, State i and Local Government levels, and the use of bilingual professionals throughout these and of interpreters to aid » monolingual professionals where necessary.

The challenge of co-ordination is not to be minimised : there is some evidence that the effect of the Galbally Report has been to proliferate and fragment the welfare services with no demonstrable improvement in quality or availability.

It is obviously true that settlement programs are needed for the newly arrived, but it is also self-evident that the welfare agencies that service the general community are often woefully equipped to deal with their customers. There are Social Security offices, for example, in areas where Anglo-Saxons are in a minority, yet only Anglo-Saxons who are monolingual are sent to serve there.

There is no doubt that some ethnic organisations are better geared to deliver welfare and health services than government bodies which are often monolingual and monocultural in character.

The same applies in the Aboriginal sphere with, for example, * the Aboriginal Health Services to which the people relate so much more readily. There is a need in the health service * to have people who not only know the language but the customs and backgrounds of the patients and the clients.

Instances of failure in rehabilitation units at major centres in Sydney and the Australian Capital Territory and recent studies at South Sydney Rehabilitation Centre

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indicate how absolutely essential it is, if equality in treatment is to be given, to have ethnic workers who can bridge the gap between the monolingual and monocultural practitioners at the medical and nursing level and the patients.

As to "indicators of integration failure" the authorities need to develop a far greater sensitivity to social indicators such as mental health problems, health problems, welfare problems, schooling problems, in order to take action to minimise the human misery and maximise the economic investment in immigration. It is only since the Galbally Report that there seems to be any recognition that the past programs led to frequent failure to meet the needs. It is to be hoped that this mentality continues and the Galbally Report is not seen as having definitively solved all the problems.

In any case there is no lack of documentation of problems in submissions, addresses, papers, etc., prepared by welfare agencies and professionals in the field, the consensus of whose collective word over a period of time must be taken as authentic.

8. FOREIGN AFFAIRS It is important if Australia is to have any credibility in foreign affairs that a globally non-discriminatcry policy on immigration should be maintained. Anything else would be seen as a return to the White Australia policy which was deeply and burningly resented throughout the whole of our region of the world. it is accepted by Australians of all backgrounds that Australia's destiny lies in Asia and the Pacific because of the immutable imperatives of geography.

. . ./28 28

It would be naive to believe that Australian Governments would not take into account the background of the Australian people. They always have. The Australian colonists went to war on behalf of England on no fewer -than five occasions in such irrelevant regions to us as Sudan, South Africa * and Turkey. An example of how Australian Governments have to take into account the views of Australian people was the * way in which Australians of many backgrounds came together to work against the proposal that all foreign airlines but the British should be banished from Australia. It caused consternation and resentment.

Recognising that Australia's role will be more closely linked with the Asian and Pacific regions in the future, it is inevitable that there will be increasing demands for immigration from those countries. This is especially likely to be. the case with the emerging micro-nations of the i Pacific, with booming populations and limited economic opportunity. A return to a White Australia policy is 5k unthinkable, in terms of Australia's image in its region. But there will be a need to demonstrate openly that the policy is dead in practice as well as in word.

There would also be a need for continuing adjustment to a formal refugee policy, given the instability of the South-East Asian Region. Again it is important to stress that a community education campaign would be the concomitant of successfully increasing migration from this region.

$

The presence in Australia of large numbers of our population with links overseas is a useful asset to the building of an open and friendly foreign policy. However, there is a real need for the government to be seen to be open-handed in its treatment of groups emanating from countries from both east and west. For instance, part of the tensions associated with Vietnamese immigration have come from the tardiness of the government to initiate programs to admit and absorb refugees from other areas. .../29 23

An aspect of an even-handed policy is the- need to exercise great restraint at the political and administrative levels towards countries and regimes not of the saate ideological persuasion as the Australian Government of the day. This would be a factor in building a sense of security in the minds of the people from all backgrounds and encouraging their contribution to the development o£ a stronger and more cohesive Australia.

At the same time strong measures should be enunciated and taken against groups using Australia as a base for overseas subversion and/or terrorism, and a strict security check should be kept on activities of known extremists, whether of the Right or Left.

Some overseas governments feel a keen sense of obligation towards their nationals and former nationals in Australia, in the area of social services, education, and cultural identity. While this is to be welcomed in some ways it is a sorry commentary on the tardiness of Australia to recognise the validity of such issues.

In particular there is a need for funding and proper accreditation of ethnic schools, leading to locally produced textbooks to suit the teaching of Australian community languages. This has been a point of attention by many overseas governments and reflects poorly on Australia.

The current program of UNESCO calls for stronger measures on the part of the receiving government in migrant worker programs to further cultural and linguistic maintenance and the rights of minority ethnic groups. Moreover, Australia has made a number of cultural agreements and migration agreements with overseas source countries which impose obligations in the field of cultural and linguistic recognition. If Australia were to take all these obligations seriously, there would be less scope for overseas countries to fund their former nationals here. .../30 30

On the question of funding genuinely,political activity in Australia, rather than cultural or welfare activity, there can be no tolerance granted at all.

The Australian Government should negotiate cultural agreements * with alj. the major source countries, but more importantly it should demonstrate its intention of carrying out the text » of these agreements faithfully. In particular, efforts should be made to fund cultural exchanges, educational contacts, publications and media materials, specific links between Australian institutions in culture, education, teacher training, etc., with counterpart institutions overseas, travel grants, student and teacher exchange schemes, etc. At the moment an air of tokenism seems to pervade the application of these agreements.

9. IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC AFFAIRS

A basic human right which has not been observed in Australia in recent years is the right of families to come together. There should be a complete overhaul of restrictions which keep Australian sons and daughters from their mothers and fathers, Australian parents from their children, brothers and sisters separated and, above all, the spectacle of parents of Australian-born children being arrested like criminals, held in jail and thrown out of the country is as barbarous as it is injurious to the common weal in Australia. It should cease forthwith. f

In answering the question as to which factor should govern the ethnic composition of future intake^ it is important to recognise that you cannot have a global non-discrimination policy on one hand and an ethnically discriminatory policy on the other. They are incompatible.

Immigration must take into account basic human rights and of course the capacity of the Australian economy to absorb additional people brought in for work purposes. . ../31 31

The same criteria need to be observed in the determination of refugee programs, plus the acceptability of such programs to the Australian population as a whole. It is not much advantage to a refugee to arrive in- a country and find t himself the object of slander and ridicule. It is always important to involve the community- and in this regard the » Indo-Chinese refugee program has bejen an outstanding example of how the community can be successfully involved. It is my assessment that the Indo-Chinese;refugees have had a better reception in Australia than anyone else in recent times coming with refugee status.

Selection criteria for migration to Australia should be related to social considerations as well as purely economic : the most natural increase will be through family reunion programs, complemented by the specialised recruitment of skills and the admission of refugees. In the skills field more vigorous efforts need to be made to ensure the recognition of overseas qualifications in Australia - a sorry saga for the past 15 years.

There is no necessary administrative link between the recruitment program, which could be geared with advantage to a Manpower Department, and the settlement services program which would be carried out by a specialised agency in the community relations field. This would have the advantage of not dividing the community into the old and the new, or "we" and "them", while managing totally to overlook the place of Aborigines in Australian society. This would permit a holistic approach to building a harmonious multicultural society out of all the components, irrespective of their cultural background or their length of residence. Moreover, it could then be linked closely with changing community education needs, since without this emphasis a good deal of the funds expended will be counteracted by the backlash they generate.

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Conclusion

There is an urgent need for national community relations programs to obviate the divisions which exist and which are born out of attitudijial discrimination. De facto apartheid exists in many communities in Australia, not because the government q£dains it as in South Africa, but because people think it 4^ the natural way and this has prevailed in some places for 200 years.

In every aspect of Australian life there needs to be an overhaul of institutions, services and personnel to ensure that the promises of equality contained in Australian legislation are brought to reality.

March 11, 1981 REFERENCES

Gras3by, A.J. : Challenges Facing Australia After a Generation of Mass Migration. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Bostock, Dr William W. : Alternatives of Ethnicity : Immigrants and Aborigines in Anglo-Saxon Australia, 2nd (revised) edition, Corvus Publishers, Melbourne, 1981.

Grassby, A.J. : Migrants in the Workforce. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Grassby, A.J. : The Challenge of a Multicultural Workforce. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations. Grassby, A.J. : Retraining Migrants in the Workforce. Canberra, 1980. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Houston, J.H. : On the Outside Looking In : Adult Education and Immigrants. A study commissioned farthe Australian National Commission for UNESCO by the Australian Association of Adult Education. Canberra, 1979. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Ingram, D.E. : The Case for a National Language Policy in Australia. Paper presented at 1978 State Conference of Modern Language Teachers Association of South Australia. Adelaide, October, 1978.

Ingram, D.E. : A National Language Information and Research Centred Submission to the Commonwealth Government prepared for the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations and the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia. Brisbane, 1978.

Houston, J.H. : Proposal for a National Community Education Campaign, "Know the Australian Family". Canberra, 1979. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

Grassby, A.J. : Education for a Multicultural Australia. Paper presented at ACFOA Summer School. Hobart, January, 19'78. Grassby, A.J. : Here Come the 801s. Address to Third International Community Education Conference, "Here Come the 80*s". Melbourne, 1979. Grassby, A.J. : Discrimination in Multicultural Education. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations. Grassby, A.J. : The Problems of Multicultural Training. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations. . . ./2 2

8 . Grassby, A.J. : Australia's Cultural Revolution : The Effect of a Multicultural Society on the Arts. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

9. Commissioner for Community Relations : Fifth Annual Report 1980. Canberra, 1980, Australian Government Publishing Service, p. 38. 10. Kirby, Hon. Justice M.D. : "The Australian Community and Anti-Heroes". 6th Annual Lalor Address on Community Relations. Canberra, 1980! Office of the Commissloner for Community Relations.

11 Nimmo, Sir John : "Racism in Australia Today". . 1st Annual Lalor Address on Community Relations. Canberra, December 1975. Office ofthe Commissioner for Community Relations. 12. Grassby, A.J. : Community Relations and Law Enforcement - A New Initiative. Canberra. Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations. Grassby, A.J. : Ethnic Communities and the Law. Address to seminar on Ethnic Communities and the Law. Melbourne, 1976.

Grassby, A.J. : It's Not Yet a Legal Right to Understand. Canberra! Office of the Commissioner for Community Relations.

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