Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2005 are part of a wider debate in this community which is being actively fostered by the government and gives rise to a considerable concern about where Australia’s society is heading, what the underlying ethos is for the community on which our society is built and what it is going to be in the future.

The citizenship legislation ostensibly proposes to change the period of eligibility for citizenship by extending it from two years to four years. Like the previous speaker, the member for Charlton, I support the amendments that have been moved by the member for Watson. The introduction of the legislation occurs in the context of a wider discussion initiated by the government under the guise of a discussion paper put out by the member for Goldstein which contains a number of suggestions, including a compulsory English proficiency test for new migrants and a range of other propositions, most of which are directed ultimately at pushing Australia back to a more monocultural world where it is universally acknowledged that there is a dominant perspective, a dominant set of values and a dominant cultural dimension which those with different origins are expected to adapt to, to adopt, and, in some respects, to genuflect to.

That is the subtext of what is happening with this legislation and a variety of things that the Howard government is pursuing. Of course, it is not a great secret as to why this is being pursued. We are seeing the slow, gradual revival of a monocultural, assimilationist philosophy as the core explanation for what Australia is, how our society functions, what its norms are and what its values are, and we are seeing the mounting expectation that people should comply with these autocratically determined values or norms—usually handed down by the Howard government or some members of its cheer squad in the media—and that those who do not are in some way guilty of being un-Australian, guilty of not fitting in and susceptible to exclusion and, sometimes, to the most extreme forms of exclusion, like deportation.

That is the subtext of all of the things that have been initiated in recent years by the Howard government, all for deliberate political purposes. To divide Australia—to single out particular groups of people, the vast bulk of whom are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, law-breaking or misbehaviour, and to brand them as being in some way inferior, as being in some way second-class citizens or as failing to fit the decreed definition of what it means to be Australian—is deserving of opprobrium and disdain from the majority of the community. To me such division is profoundly offensive. It threatens to return Australia to a situation where we are viewed with some fear and disregard by our neighbours; where, in the wider world, we are seen as a nation that has a dominant ethos that is racially driven; and where there is a set of implicit discriminations in the way our society functions that are designed to exclude particular kinds of people, to shut people out and to send messages that people of certain backgrounds, religions or ethnic origins are in some way secondary to or less Australian than the rest of us.

We should not in any way be naive about this, because in doing this the Howard government is clearly reflecting sentiments that are quite widespread in the Australian community. After decades of progress in eating away at those sentiments, driven by both Liberal and Labor governments—driven by prime ministers such as Malcolm Fraser just as much as by prime ministers such as Bob Hawke—after decades of progress in this country in eating away at racial discrimination, at intolerance and at dominant cultural identities that ultimately exclude other people, after decades of progress under governments of both major political parties, we now have a government headed by a man who has made it his mission to return Australia to a world where people who come from less dominant backgrounds are in some way relegated to a secondary position in Australian society. So let us be under no illusion: this is what this legislation is ultimately about. It is a small part of a wider strategy that is about excluding people. It is about differentiating. It is about dividing Australia. It is about ensuring that that underlying sentiment in much of the Australian community, which has slowly diminished, is legitimised and recognised as entirely appropriate and that discriminating against people on the basis of their racial or ethnic origin or religious orientation is mainstream. It is okay. It is normal. That is ultimately what this is all about.

Like most if not all members of the House, I have attended many citizenship ceremonies over my time in parliament and they are always, without exception, inspiring and moving events. They are profoundly Australian, because, compared with the kind of razzamatazz that you would typically see with equivalent events in some other countries, they are just a good balance. They are relatively low key. They do not go on for too long, usually. We sing the national anthem. We have a brief speech by one or two people—perhaps the mayor, or perhaps the federal or state member of parliament. There are the formalities of the ceremony and we hand over a certificate and some kind of symbol of the local area, like a native plant or something like that, and then subsequently there is a little bit of refreshment, photos and all those kinds of things.

In my experience, the people going through that ceremony are pretty well universally excited, proud and very pleased to be becoming Australian. In my electorate—more so than most—when I turn up to those ceremonies I see an extraordinary array of diversity. I see people from literally all around the world, and rarely do I see a dominant group of people. So it is not that common these days in the citizenship ceremonies I am part of to see people from one particular background as 30, 40 or 50 per cent of the group. Typically, you get all sorts and that is a fantastic thing for this country. It has made us a stronger, better country over the last 30 or 40 years—and long may that continue to happen.

But what the Howard government is doing is chipping away at the underlying sentiment which has made us such a success as a society in modern times: the underlying sentiment of tolerance, of decency, of recognition and acceptance of difference within a wider framework of commitment to the rule of law, of commitment to democracy and of commitment to equal treatment for men and women and an understanding that we all need to have space to live our own lives, to fulfil our own dreams and to pursue our own goals. That is what is at threat here. That is what is under attack here—an underlying ethos that is about real Australian values, true Australian values, not the American version that is so often peddled by the Prime Minister.

We should see Australian citizenship as something that we want people to take up. When people become permanent residents of this country—and certainly this was a dimension of the Hawke and Keating governments’ view on these issues—we should want them to become citizens. If you have acquired the right to permanent residency in this country, our starting point, from the position of government, should be that we want you to become a citizen. So why we would be actively putting barriers up, barriers that really raise the question of why, if this is necessary to try and exclude people or to make it harder for people to become citizens, were they granted permanent residency in the first place. It really flies in the face of the whole ethos of an inclusive notion of Australian citizenship.

The primary subtext, of course, is ultimately about Muslim Australians and is based on the views and in some cases the behaviour of an extremely tiny minority of people, and more particularly based on fears that reflect the views and behaviour of people from other countries who are neither Australian nor ever likely to become Australian. I find disgraceful that result of guilt by association, of the attribution of behaviours, views and motives that belong to people on the other side of the world from Australia who are entirely innocent of any misbehaviour, any wrongdoing or any law-breaking—the group vilification and attribution of those behaviours, attitudes and motivations to those people. The Howard government will be condemned by history for its chipping away at the underlying notion of decency and fairness in Australia and the still fragile notion that all people are entitled to a fair go and equal respect and equal opportunity irrespective of their religion, their race or their ethnicity.

Probably the largest group of Muslims in Australia are Turkish Australians—not typically associated with some of the more lurid headlines we see about al-Qaeda, about terrorism and about Islamic extremism. But in the welter of propaganda that is directed against Muslims in Australia, they are the kind of Muslims who are caught in the crossfire. Even something that is carefully and narrowly focused on one or two individuals, if it is not done in an appropriate way, ultimately ends up smearing large numbers of innocent law-abiding people who have integrated into our society, who continue to adhere to their religious beliefs, fulfil their religious obligations and, at the same time, are hardworking Australians who contribute to our society, go about their business and do not cause problems for others.

Like, I suspect, virtually every other member of the House, I find Sheikh al-Hilali’s expressed views on women totally offensive and outrageous. It is worth pointing out that had they been expressed in this country 40 years ago, the reaction would have been rather different. I can remember growing up hearing very similar views from people in equally prominent and important public positions. It is very clear from opinion poll data that there is a substantial minority of the Australian population, particularly men, who basically hold the same views. That does not justify Sheikh al-Hilali expressing these views, but we need to keep in mind the context that these views are by no means as exotic as we might like to think. It is to the great credit of our society that we have managed to change the dominant view about the role of women in our community and particularly about sexual violence, but we should not for a moment assume that that is totally entrenched or universal. It is not. So we need to keep in mind that those views are by no means totally exceptional in our community.

I condemn those views, but I also applaud the comments of Mick Keelty urging caution, particularly with respect to the media, with regard to the blanket condemnation of Muslims and the spreading of guilt by association. I want to mention one particular example of this which occurred in the Sunday Herald Sun on the weekend. It is normally a paper that I find basically pretty balanced and good; its politics are not exactly mine but, by and large, it does not tend to offend in this regard. However, my friend Khalil Eideh, who is a Labor candidate for the Legislative Council in Victoria and who is a Muslim of Arab origin, has been subject to an extremely unfair campaign over recent months of vilification and guilt by association on matters where his alleged misdeeds really do not stand up to any serious scrutiny.

This article was about a particular Lebanese Australian man who runs a website that is clearly extremist of some description or other, and he was described as having close links with Khalil Eideh. There was a photo of Khalil with that article, and the obvious purpose was to smear Khalil Eideh or to spread the guilt by implication to him because of his alleged association with an Islamic extremist. The evidence for this close association that was provided in the article consisted of two things: firstly, this particular man had attended community functions run by the Alawi Islamic Association, which Khalil has been the president of, and, secondly, he had put out a press release some months ago defending Khalil when he had been criticised in public. If that is close association, then there are an awful lot of very dubious characters around the place that I have to check my associations with, because that clearly has no connection with what any of us would see as genuine close association.

Khalil Eideh tells me that he barely knows this man, yet he is subject to guilt by association in the highest circulation newspaper in the country, which is suggesting that in some way this makes him an Islamic extremist. That is the kind of thing that is happening, and there are many more serious examples of this. That is the kind of thing that Mick Keelty was talking about. He was right to warn us about these things. But what is particularly disgraceful is that that kind of climate is being deliberately created by the Howard government for its own political purposes to divide Australians and to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment for its own political ends. That is where the real disgrace lies.

Finally, I cite an example of the successful integration in our community of a community in which at least half of the members come from a non-Christian background—probably half are Christian and half are Buddhist. They are Asian and they were subject to a lot of attacks and pressure about Asian immigration over the years, but they have triumphed and are a great success and, I might add, a great testament to former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser—and they are the Vietnamese community, with whom I have considerable contact. They have managed to survive and prosper in spite of often very negative contexts and now make a fantastic contribution to the Australian community.

One thing that is worth pointing out is that they still continue to campaign about events in Vietnam. They still continue to put pressure on the Vietnamese regime. They put pressure on members of parliament, and I note and applaud their attempts to persuade the Prime Minister to take a stronger line on human rights and corruption in Vietnam when he visits that nation in the very near future. I am happy to be associated with those campaigns. I am very pleased to note that one particular individual, Reverend Nguyen Van Ly, whose case I raised with the Vietnamese government when he was in prison several years ago, has finally, belatedly been released. However, there are many others in that position.

All of this campaigning by the Vietnamese community in Australia is done legally, lawfully and entirely within the laws and norms of Australian society. Is there anything wrong with that? No, there is not. It is a good thing, because ultimately Australia will benefit. So, if ever you want to see an example of where multiculturalism or where respect for each other’s different religions and origins actually benefits Australia, it is the Vietnamese community.

I support the position adopted by the member for Watson on these issues, but I again condemn the Howard government for playing with fire and creating and fostering a climate in this community which ultimately will do great damage to Australia and to the social harmony, diversity and tolerance on which we have managed to build a very successful society.

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