The politics of inclusion and division
The Voice referendum – an “appeal to our best selves”
The Prime Minister’s Lowitja O’Donoghue Oration – “A moment to unite” – delivered in Adelaide, is an appeal to unity. To those who believe the Voice would deliver nothing of substance he stresses its importance as a step along a long path in making a real difference for Aboriginal Australians. To those who believe it would be a radical disruption to our system of government, he is reassuring about its limited powers, citing the opinions of constitutional experts.
He reminds us of the 1967 referendum – “a unifying moment, one that appealed to people's decency”. That was about Aboriginal Australians being counted, a small but important symbolic step. The next step is about Aboriginal Australians being heard – the Voice “will be about listening” he says.
Importantly he stresses “Australians will be asked to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia – not as a race”. The Voice has nothing to do with “race” – a concept scientifically debunked 150 years ago. It’s about the original people, “aboriginal” people, who have lived here for thousands of years before 1788.
A video of the half-hour oration, delivered in Bonython Hall, is on the ABC website, and there is a transcript on the Prime Minister’s website.
There is also a separate transcript of the Prime Minister’s discussion with Jane Lomax-Smith, Lord Mayor of Adelaide, which includes references to initiatives by state governments in realizing the visions of the Uluru Statement.
Those who were involved in the 1967 campaign remember that it had its critics on two sides – those who believed it was mere tokenism and those who believed it would upset the political order. But once people recognized its importance as a step along a long process, there was 91 percent support for constitutional change. Writing in The Conversation Duncan Ivison of the University of Sydney stresses that as in 1967 the Voice will pluralise and enrich Australia’s democratic conversation. “What is distinctive about the Voice is both its democratic pedigree and its democratic character”, he writes. It will be an institution for “public reasoning”.
A report on Chinese-Australians
For the last three years the Lowy Institute has conducted surveys of Chinese-Australians – the 1.4 million Australians born in China or who have Chinese ancestry. The survey results are published in a report Being Chinese in Australia: Public opinion in Chinese communities, prepared by the Institute’s Jenifer Hsu.
It’s a report about immigrants and their descendants who have a positive view of Australia and who find it a good place to live.
The most striking aspect of the survey is that in just the two years between the 2020 and 2022 surveys, those views, and similar positive indicators, have strengthened.
The report covers some attitudinal differences between Chinese-Australians and other Australians. Chinese-Australians tend to be less trusting of the UK, Japan and India, but more trusting of China, than other Australians. Compared with other Australians, Chinese-Australians are less enthusiastic about the US alliance and AUKUS.
Respondents were asked about their confidence in individual Australian and other political leaders. Albanese enjoys the highest ratings – significantly higher than Dutton. This goes against the established wisdom that immigrants who are heavily represented in small business and who come from countries with communist governments are naturally attracted to the Coalition.
Unfortunately Chinese-Australians still experience a degree of discrimination: 35 percent of respondents reported that in the last twelve months they have been treated differently or less favourably because they are of Chinese heritage. The good news is that over the three surveys there is lessening evidence of discrimination.
It’s not clear why Lowy does not conduct similar surveys among other immigrant groups. It would be most revealing to learn how migrants from the UK, for example, have settled into their new country.
The threat from the far right
Before clicking on the links, have a guess about the origins of two recent writings about the threat posed by right-wing terrorism – The growing concern over older far-right terrorists: data from the United Kingdom and The targeting of infrastructure by America’s violent far-right.
No, they’re not from The Guardian or the New Left Review. In fact they’re published by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center.
The former is mainly about lone terrorists in the UK, such as the Brexit fanatic Thomas Mair who killed MP Jo Cox. The latter is about “accelerationists” on the far right, often gripped by conspiracy theories, who seek to blow up the sources of evil, such as 5G towers and voting machines programmed by left-liberals. We may associate “accelerationists” with the communists of past years, who would urge followers to eschew social-democratic parties and support parties on the right, because the right would accelerate the inevitable end of capitalism. It is now the right, particularly in the US, who want to wreck the joint to make way for a new order.
So far Australia seems to be less under threat from far-right terrorism that the UK or the US, but recent demonstrations by Nazis and other white supremacists in Melbourne have come as a shock. In the Senate Estimates hearings ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has been asked whether we face a growing threat from Nazis, and whether ASIO is directing sufficient resources to protecting us from such groups. His response is summarized in a post on the ABC website by Tim Lowery and Nabil Al Nashar: ASIO warns neo-nazi groups are seeking to recruit more members. These groups are smart enough not to explicitly promote terrorism. As Burgess stressed in his Annual Threat Assessment in February, the concern of ASIO and of police is about behaviour, including the promotion of violence, not beliefs. But the border between expressions of beliefs and promotion of action is not sharp.
Also on the ABC’s website is an interview with Greg Barton of Deakin University, a specialist in terrorism: ASIO boss says neo-Nazi groups becoming emboldened. (8 minutes) He echoes Burgess’s points, but he also suggests that ASIO was a little slow in paying attention to right-wing terrorism until the mass murders in Christchurch mosques in 2019. He also questions the way intelligence organizations classify terrorism, separating out religion-inspired terrorism from other manifestations of right-wing terrorism, but these are matters of definition. The main point is that bodies like Islamic State actively recruit people to engage in terrorist acts, while individuals and small cells of people tend to emerge from other right-wing movements, inspired but not prompted by these movements’ organizers. The latter are much harder to track.
Barton also warns about the risk of extremists infiltrating political parties, as has occurred with the Republicans in the USA.
Burgess reminds us that violence can be promoted by the use of symbols, particularly displays of the Hakenkreuz (swastika) and the Nazi salute: there is a strong case for banning them. Two Liberal Party Members of Parliament, Michaelia Cash and Julian Leeser, have prepared bills outlawing the public display of Nazi symbols. The Australia Institute’s Benjamin Walters agrees with the purpose and spirit of these bills, but he points out that there are difficulties and possible unintended consequences in them: Ending Nazi symbols: let’s get it right.
Racism in Australia
The latest Essential Report asks respondents to react to a set of statements about racism. More people agree with statements such as “Australia is a racist country” and “I have personally experienced racism or racial discrimination” than they did in response to the same statements in 2019. But it’s hard to interpret this trend – does it reveal more racist behaviour or more awareness of racism?
There is a statement “People are scared to say what they really think because they don’t want to be labelled as racist.” A statement so framed is a means of teasing out people’s own views. Two thirds of respondents agree with the statement. There is strong agreement among older people (78 percent), Coalition voters (71 percent), and voters for independents or other parties (88 percent).