Affinity Intercultural Foundation

The Rudd Government won the 2007 Federal elections on values. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is known as an ethical man and we are promised that the policies of the Labour Government will pass through the ethical lens. The Howard Government dropped the use of multiculturalism in favour for an assimilationist social integration policy. Recently, the Rudd Government showed signs of reversal by announcing the formation of a Multicultural Advisory Committee. I recently spoke with the Honourable Laurie Ferguson, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services, about the multicultural policy of the Rudd government.

When we say Australia is a multicultural society, what comes to your mind?

Firstly, statistical reality comes to mind. You know that everyone says 45% of people have either been born overseas or have one parent born overseas as a result of the heavy post‐war migration to this country. Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for refugees, when he was in Australia two weeks ago, said this country is the best country in the world for settling refugees in terms of the settlement process. These are some aspects of why we are so multicultural. But also very strong government policy in regards to accepting people, to give it strong government priority and to emphasise the positives of migration, skilled migration initiatives and attracting tourists.


Australia does take large numbers of refugees and migrants. As a society how does multiculturalism manifest itself?

Well, very active government systems try and overcome bigotry. We’ve seen this in Diverse Australia Scheme. A significant number of grants are provided there. Firstly, the government is active in financing groups to basically try and overcome tensions, discrimination and racism. In the new funding scheme we’ve also, for the first time, brought into the foreground the emerging issues, which allows the government to react to crisis situations. For example Camden, where there’s been anti‐Islamic feelings around the development application of a school there or in Adelaide where there’s been tension amongst African youth together with some violence and alienation. So, I guess there’s an active kind of government intervention in support of organisations trying to make sure they’re not marginalised, not outside the system. This country loves to allow a large degree of freedom for various groups to pursue religious and cultural values. We don’t define, we allow people to self‐define.


You mentioned the Diverse Australia Scheme. Can you tell us more about that?


This is our updated Living in Harmony initiative. The main changes are, firstly, when we came into government we wanted to look at how effective it’s been in the past. Maybe, it was too much of the same old thing, same old people talking to each other.


People sometimes think that when people have access to different cultures, that increases understanding. Sometimes there is a counter factor. A recent inquiry into Australia’s attitudes showed two important things. First, they don’t always blame Anglo‐Saxons for not engaging. The survey showed some other ethnic groups are not too keen to mix with other people. And second it showed that in areas of high migration people are 10% more negative than the rest of Australia. So, in these kinds of areas you get the ability to meet people and understand them and that’s positive sometimes, but you also get competition for space. You’ve lived there for 60 years, you’re 75 years old, you’re seeing your area change, seeing people move next door to you, they’ve got certain social practices – I’m not talking about religious practices –, they’re younger people and you feel threatened. So, we asked ourselves whether previous schemes are really hitting the difficult areas.


Secondly, w had a view that maybe the people getting the grants are the ones that are the best organised. We want to encourage groups that aren’t capable of writing a 400 page thesis for a grant, so we brought in a new $5,000 and less grants scheme to help smaller groups. We had 912 applications. Last year we only had 300. We also have special new allocation to put money in reserve for some crisis or complex problems that may come out of left field.


Your ministry has recently announced the establishment of the Multicultural Advisory Committee. How were the members selected and what are your expectations from this board?


The board was elected by a variety of things coming together. Advice from the immigration department, people that I have met, advice from people like Stepan Kerkyasharian, but mainly people I have observed. And I guess one emphasis was on people who do real work. We did not want to have a committee of fifteen religious leaders or fifteen university academics. I think we’ve come up with a very good committee.
I went to the first meeting. This is a committee of people who haven’t got ‘big heads’. They don’t think they’re too important. They’ve been in real life experiences.


We expect them to re‐fashion the debate. We think that unfortunately over the last 20 years the previous government was able to attack multiculturalism and diversity. We want to fashion this into an image of nation‐building for an Australian identity. Multiculturalism is for everybody not just minorities or migrants. Perhaps, we can put more emphasis on citizenship – what your responsibilities are and not just benefits received.


Where do you see your main policy difference between your government and the Howard government?


Well, I distinguish John Howard as an individual rather than as the government. I think John Howard represented a particularly conservative 1950s isolationist view, which is not the view of all liberals. John Howard really was a person that tended to manipulate nationalism, exclusion and a worldview that was very simplistic in terms of ‘black and white’. So, we see things in a more muted kind of way.
It’s different in so far as I’m the Junior Minister in multiculturalism. We are emphasising this, we are actively engaged and we got rid of previous contracts from Migrant Resource Centres. They had to sign contracts that they couldn’t criticise government policy. We very much see organisations in the sector as our friends, our allies and not our enemies. So, we’re very positive about these things. We are very strong on diversity and acceptance. and I think John Howard wasn’t.


Could we say that ‘exclusionists’, ‘black and white’ attitudes are over by the defeat of John Howard in 2007 elections?


Oh I think so. Howard was able to kind of manipulate this debate. In a way he pictured the people who support multiculturalism as unpatriotic, not about our flag, not about one nation. So, we have to kind of make sure this debate is re‐positioned and I think we’re going to find a lot of supporters of the Liberal Party, who are also seeing this as a national policy we’ve got to do.


When we say multiculturalism in the US, race differences comes to mind whereas in Britain more about social class differences are understood. In Australia when we say multiculturalism ethnicity or ethnic issues come to mind. Is that a reality that we have that we cannot avoid?


I can’t agree with Britain. Britain has major race issues. The reality is that we’ve avoided strong ghettoisation. Part of the reality in the UK is that its intake has not been very diverse. It has massive concentrations of people of one ethnicity, one religion in some towns. We have to avoid social segregation and we have to avoid concentration of poverty in parts of Sydney in particular. Melbourne has not got the problems as badly as Sydney and I think we really have to start being honest that this Western belt has massive social problems. We kind of have to liberalise the possibilities for younger people to have various options in life.


There is a tendency that when people become affluent and feel they can find their way through the society, they tend to move out into new areas.


The Turks have spread into the Westmead area for example. Go back ten years and there was no Turkish community in this area but we still have some people who can live their whole life in this country, only in one community, separate from the rest of the country. We have parts of Sydney where people can live in a street where everyone speaks the same language; they can work in places where everyone speaks the same language; they can go to schools with people like themselves. This is not going to help the country. We’re going to try to give people options.


What can those communities do to prevent this? After all, people would want to live with people they can relate to. What can the government do in partnership with those communities?


We can try with refugee humanitarian settlement. It’s nearly impossible but we have to be conscious of the need to diversify settlement. If we put every person who hasn’t been to school for 15 years because they’ve been in camps and families who lost their parents and have dislocated families into 15 suburbs in the whole city, we’re going to have a lot of problems. And that part of immigration is not easy. Housing rental pressures mean that you go to suburbs which you can afford.


I’ve only been thinking of this more lately. If we look at the Arabic speaking community in particular, in Melbourne they’ve integrated far better than in Sydney. The fact that they were very dispersed geographically gave them no choice but to integrate. I think in Sydney the over‐concentration leads people to living very narrow lives, and this is something we’ve got to look at. We have to start being honest with these problems.


The migrant settlement program covers the first five years of migration, then there is the assumption that five years will be enough for migrants to integrate into Australia.


Do I think that it will be far better that we fund the ethnic community a lot longer than five years? Yes, I do. But we are under pressure all the time from the finance realities. The finance department thinks English education can be done by cheaper price. Some people want to widen the refugee convention to make more people come to Australia as refugees. But if you only take 13.5 thousand refugees a year, increasing categories means that those most in danger are competing with people with less danger because you have widened the criteria. In theory, I totally agree with you. We really need to improve our performance in these areas of ethno‐specific age care. People are often in nursing homes that don’t have any cultural appreciation of their particular needs and that’s a good example of why we need to go beyond five years. We have to marshal positive forces to convince the Government that more money needs to go in these kinds of issues.


Media diversity is also important part of multiculturalism? Have you got any expectations and plans in this area?


One of the important things in this country is that we expect the media to convey the Australian nuance of culture. I strongly support the local community radio. Community media is a repository of our history. If you advertise Eid or Bayram, or if you cover somebody getting married, or you advertise a soccer club’s first meeting, these are important part of our history. Media is also keeping people informed of the community; what’s happening in the homeland and giving them very important information about access to Government services.


In terms of plans, I guess our main target is trying to get across to mainstream media. The sensationalist reporting is a problem. We have a number of courses in the Department of Immigration, funded universities in order to try and increase the receptiveness of the mainstream media to multiculturalism and community needs. I have got to be honest, those interested are a little predictable: ABC, SBS and the Fairfax group. The ones that are a real challenge are only half interested. This is a problem.


Do you think at the moment the local media has competition with international satellite channels and internet? Do you think these help multiculturalism or work against it?


It can be both. Even if I don’t understand their language, I can see things which are informative, and I can pick up things that are worthwhile to me. It can be worthwhile to the diaspora of the communities here in Australia, giving them information, access to events in their country of origin, football, culture and historical things about their country. All of that is positive. The danger is if material is brought to Australia which is totally antagonistic to our cultural values such as access equity, cultural preservation and freedom. There are some very professional radio and television stations that are broadcasted to Australia on behalf of some countries that give very professional and very dangerous kinds of tones sometimes.