By Jorge Andres
Australia ... a reminder of where we live may be in order. This is not the poorest, not the most ecologically run down, and certainly not the most packed bus in town. Nevertheless the driver doesn't want anybody else to get on and some of the people sitting comfortably in the back seat want those standing to be thrown off.
Asked whether immigration levels should rise, "our" Prime Minister said: "No, I don't. I think they should fall. That's why we cut them". As for the person who has given fish and chips a bad name, she thinks we are already over-crowded with Asians, and Aborigines for that matter.
There is growing opposition to these views among the corporate world, and the political and media paparazzi. Many think it "commercial suicide" to be seen by the region and the world as isolationist and racist. Australia's fledgling multinationals can't afford their potential money machine — cheap Asian labour and natural resources, and a significant and growing market for goods among the Asian upper middle class — to be spoilt by a un-neighbourly image.
Despite opposition from some powerful quarters and the growing chorus of liberals embarrassed by the revival of "White Australia", the racist wave still seems to be rising. And the Liberal government is the prime culprit.
Howard is willing to take some flack from big business for putting the "big economic issues" aside, because he is a political strategist and has more foresight than the average company director. The main lesson that the ALP has taught the Liberals is that you can't attack the living conditions of the Australian working class without a mechanism to control, or at least redirect, anger and opposition. Labor had the Accord, Howard is opting for "popular" scapegoats.
The racist option was presented to him by Pauline Hanson. Her great contribution was to keep the blood off Howard's hands while handing him the perfect scapegoat — perfect because it was ready made out of the racist hangovers of Australian history, and the still widespread racism among the very "battlers" that Howard is wooing as a new social base for the Liberal Party.
The battle against racism can't be won by Malcolm Fraser and Kerry Packer. Those workers who know better must stand up and convince their families, friends, workmates and neighbours of the basic facts.
"They" take our jobs
You turn up for a job as a factory general hand. One hundred people are already in line. If you get rid of the 10 "chongs" and maybe 15 "wogs" and 20 "lebos", you're still competing with 54 people for one job. There's two choices: start on "the Irish" and eventually condemn the person in front of you as a "poof", or demand that more jobs are created with the record profits that big business is making in these so-called hard times.
Look around — those who are suffering the most economically are recently arrived migrants, especially those with a different language and a bit of colour in their skin. In February 1995, workers born outside of Australia made up 25.6% of the labour force. Compared to Australian-born workers, their overall unemployment rate was 25.8% higher and their overall participation rate around 9% lower. Overseas-born workers of non-English speaking background (NESB) had an unemployment rate more than 50% higher than that for Australian-born workers.
During the economic decline of the last decade, as most expanding industries shed unskilled labour, many NESB migrants were left outside of the few job-creating sectors of the economy — recreational, personal and community services.
Even having formal skills is no guarantee for NESB migrants. The 1995 State of the Nation report documents one example: In a Melbourne textile firm, of 12 NESB women working there (none of whom had been asked by management about their qualifications), one woman had been a family planning officer in China, one had book-keeping experience, another was a chef, three had teaching diplomas from Vietnam, one had completed a book-keeping certificate in Australia, and another had part of a child-care certificate.
"They" destroy the environment
Last week, NSW Labor Premier, Bob Carr, reaffirmed his (and his Liberal partners') opinion that immigration should be cut because Australia's "carrying capacity" was already over-stretched.
Australia contains 1% of the Asia-Pacific population on 34% of the land mass. Only four countries in the world have an equivalent or lower population density.
In any case, there is no scientific measure of human "carrying capacity". The type of use and management of natural resources has a proven impact on the population density that is environmentally sustainable. Sensitive environments, such as a tropical rainforest, can be destroyed irreparably by a small population forced to rely on firewood as its major energy source. On the other hand, most of coastal Australia could sustain large increases in population if the political will existed to invest in infrastructure, job creation and environmental care.
Actually, a consistent presentation of the "over-stretched carrying capacity" view would argue for replacing the high-consuming (per capita, more environmentally destructive) wealthy Australians with low-consuming immigrants from Third World countries. Throwing out Pauline Hanson, John Howard and Kim Beazley might be a good start.
Too many in the environment movement have also fallen for the view that salvation comes at the hand of corporate profitability and benevolence. It's taboo to suggest that, really, the only good business is a publicly-owned and -managed business. Private profiteering, not population growth (much less its skin colour), should be blamed for every major environmental problem on this land.
"They" are un-Australian
A "real" Australian, who supports Collingwood and drinks booze like water, already has more in common with a "wog", who never misses an inter-Milan game and drinks probably more booze, than "he" has with many other "real" Australians.
Assimilation has nothing whatever to do with people wanting to have the same taste in food, watch the same sports or play the same music, and everything to do with erasing "bad" foreign habits like a perspective and experience of mass working-class struggle against exploiters. The Irish might have been white-skinned, but it took them 150 years to "be trusted" after their role in important working-class struggles such as the rebellion at Vinegar Hill near Parramatta in 1804. Until the 1950s, leading banks in Hobart maintained a formal policy of denying jobs to men and women of Irish-Australian background.
Multiculturalism, too, was seen by its architects, including Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki, as a way of promoting "social cohesion" — tolerant assimilation, you might say.
What is indispensable for solidarity among a nation's citizens is not cultural sameness or multicultural fetes, but a just economic and political order. This requires fighting against the political manipulation of gender, colour and other differences which serves to promote "social cohesion" in a society which, in fact, is based on systemic inequality and the exploitation of the working class as a whole by corporate Australia.
While no self-respecting liberal would close Australia's doors to political refugees, and most would agree to family reunion intakes, beyond that it gets fuzzy.
Most accept as a valid entry assessment criterion an immigrants' "ability to contribute to Australia". But which Australia? Why should we judge people's right to immigrate on the basis of how much they can contribute to Murdoch's managerial skill pool, or the amount of investment capital they bring with them? Surely we should measure an immigrant's potential contribution on the basis of what they might add in terms of Australia's contribution to the development of a more just global order.
Australia should take in more political and economic refugees. More importantly — because we cannot solve the problems of the world by simply relocating them — Australia should end its support for all repressive regimes that produce refugees and poverty. Instead, Australia should promote solidarity with all working people worldwide who, on the whole, don't want to emigrate so much as progressively transform their own countries.
I am for replacing the driver on this bus of ours, taking on more passengers, and sharing the driving around.