Race: John Howard and the Remaking of AustraliaIn the last decade of the 20th century, racial issues became very prominent in Australian public life, moving from fringe to centre stage. This text seeks to explain this change and to make sense of this issue's increasingly disturbing profile in modern Australian life. Chapters include coverage of Aboriginal land rights, the treatment of asylum seekers, and the fate of reconciliation. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 11 | |
The new conservatism and the naturalness of bigotry | 49 |
John Howard Leader of the Opposition Prime Minister | 82 |
The politics of paranoia | 113 |
Pauline Hansons One Nation | 143 |
Interpretations | 199 |
The role of chance in national life | 222 |
Confederate Action Party | 228 |
Sources | 256 |
Select bibliography | 263 |
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Common terms and phrases
AAFI Aboriginal Aboriginal Affairs Aboriginal and Torres Aboriginal issues agenda argued Asian Asian immigration assimilation Australian Electoral Commission Bjelke-Petersen campaign candidate cent citizens Citizens Electoral Councils claims coalition conservative context culture David Oldfield decision economic equal rights ethnic Ettridge favour federal election Geoffrey Blainey Gerard Henderson Graeme Campbell groups hinterland ideas immigration intake immigration policy indigenous industry John Howard journalists Keating Labor land rights leader League of Rights legislation Liberal Party Mabo Mabo decision maiden speech mainstream major migrant million Morgan multiculturalism Nation vote National Party native title organisations parliament party's Pasquarelli Pauline Hanson political correctness politicians polls population prime minister Queensland election Queensland state election race racial discrimination racial issues racial politics racism reconciliation referendum role rural seats Senate significant social South Wales Table Torres Strait Islander traditional unemployment urban Victoria Western
Popular passages
Page 19 - The policy of assimilation means in the view of all Australian governments that all aborigines and part-aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians.
Page 37 - We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
Page 22 - racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or Impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms In the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
Page 6 - According to present knowledge there is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their innate mental characteristics, whether in respect of intelligence or temperament. The scientific evidence indicates that the range of mental capacities in all ethnic groups is much the same.
Page 6 - Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Page 26 - We are convinced that migrants have the right to maintain their cultural and racial identity and that it is clearly in the best interests of our nation that they should be encouraged and assisted to do so if they wish. Provided that ethnic identity is not stressed at the expense of society at large, but is interwoven into the fabric of our nationhood by the process of multicultural interaction, then the community as a whole will benefit substantially and its democratic nature will be reinforced.
Page 61 - Art thou called being a servant '( care not for it : but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
Page 156 - We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australians by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups.
Page 7 - All normal human beings are capable of learning to share in a common life, to understand the nature of mutual service and reciprocity, and to respect social obligations and contracts. Such biological differences as exist between members of different ethnic groups have no relevance to problems of social political organ* ization, moral life and communication between human beings.
Page 100 - One of the great changes that has come over Australia in the last six months is that people do feel able to speak a little more freely and a little more openly about what they feel ... I welcome the fact that people can now talk about certain things without living in fear of being branded as a bigot or as a racist'.