JOCK COLLINS is a lecturer in economics at the University of Technology, Sydney, and author of Migrant Hands in a Distant Land. He was interviewed for Green Left Weekly by SUJUTHA FERNANDES.
What have been the stages of the government's attitude towards migrant settlement?
Immediately after the war, the attitude was governed by the assimilation philosophy, which basically meant that immigrants had to be treated the same as everyone else: there were to be no specific programs or services. So immigrants faced entrenched disadvantage in areas such as education, health and housing.
As a consequence of that, immigrant groups mobilised to end the assimilation model. There followed a brief period of the integration model and after that, from the mid-'70s, we moved to multiculturalism. Not only is the cultural baggage of migrants accepted but, more importantly, programs and services were to be introduced in order to help achieve equity between migrants and non-migrants.
In your book, you speak of the need for a Marxist analysis of the immigrant experience. How does this analysis account for the racism experienced by NESB (non-English speaking background) people and the sexism experienced by NESB women?
The general process is what we call the racialisation of migrant labour. Different migrant groups were set apart and treated as inferior. Racist ideology justified the paying of the Chinese and Italians and other NESB immigrants much lower wages.
In the postwar period this was repeated. Refugees who came from eastern European countries were to take only those jobs that other immigrants and Australian-born people didn't want.
In a similar way, we can understand the sexism that immigrant women face, because the labour market has always had a gender divide. Women have always been paid less than men even with the same skills and have always been concentrated in jobs that were viewed as needing less important skills. So sexism also has a deep-seated attitudinal presence. NESB women have suffered from the highest unemployment rates and have faced some of the worst working conditions.
Do you see a need for migrant communities to organise independently in defence of their special interests?
Migrant communities to some extent were turned in on themselves because they were neglected and ignored. They set up ethnic associations initially to continue cultural traditions, but in the '50s and '60s these organisations became very important in the mobilisation against assimilation policies. These groups lobbied very strongly for English as a second language in schools and for other reforms in welfare, health, education and employment.
The ethnic community has continued to be a very important voice. They fight against anti-Asian immigration policies, refugee policy or other issues relating to immigration. A lot of the organisations fight for the rights of those immigrants among the have-nots in our society.
The rights of immigrant women and domestic violence against immigrant women are the sorts of issues that immigrant organisations take up. Of course, there is not equality for immigrants, and that struggle continues
Do you believe that there is a link between economic recession and racism?
Yes, there is a link between economic recession and racism. It is no coincidence that the Blainey debate in 1984 followed what was then the worst recession in the postwar period. In that climate Blainey was able to get a lot of publicity for his claim that migrants take Australian jobs.
The research is clear that migrants don't take the jobs of the Australian-born. Because of labour market segmentation, migrants perhaps take the jobs of other migrants. Yet in recession there will be the greatest opposition to migrants, because the way racism works is that immigrants are scapegoated for problems of the broader society. In the recession migrants become scapegoated for unemployment, at other times they may be scapegoated for environmental problems.
We must be very wary that the anti-immigrant racist backlash that occurred in the early 80s with the Geoffrey Blainey debate doesn't recur.
The idea that immigration leads to environmental damage is gathering momentum. Where is this argument coming from, and does it have any basis?
The link between environmental damage and immigration is quite a long one, and the key danger here is that immigrants are going to be scapegoated for what is a fairly complex problem. The idea that Australia's environmental problems are caused by immigration really feeds on xenophobia: the cause of our environmental problem is seen as not from within Australia but from outside. The solution is to put up the walls around Australia, and somehow we will have some sort of environmental paradise.
Not only is that impossible in todays's increasingly international world, but it is also incorrectly based. The key problem with our environment stems not from the outside but from the fact that the market mechanism makes it profitable for firms to deplete and destroy the environment, and from the fact that anti-pollution legislation and other sorts of restrictions and government interventions are tokenistic and very limited.
In blaming migrants for the environment problem, we reinforce the whole tendency to scapegoat migrants for complex problems, and this is central to the weaving of racism historically in Australian society. It worries me that progressive people concerned about the environment seem to slip very easily into this easy answer.
Given a certain number of immigrants coming into Australia, the impact on Sydney depends on a whole number of things: the rate of out-migration, the extent to which urban consolidation increases, the density of inner-city suburbs and so forth. There are a lot of factors that mediate the relationship between the immigration intake and an environmental problem.
The other thing that annoys me is that the impact of tourism is much greater than immigration. No-one is concerned about the impact of tourism on the environment, because they can see the dollar signs before their eyes. People are concerned about the impact of immigration on the environment because it is less clear whether there are dollars to be earned. The environmental movement has got to be very careful that it's not playing into the hands of those who would like to accelerate the anti-migrant racism that we've got a very long history of.
[Jock Collins will be speaking on "The 'new' racism" and "Is Australia overpopulated?" at the International Green Left Conference in Sydney, April 1-4.]