Transcript Auditing Multiculturalism - the Australian empire a

Auditing Multiculturalism the Australian empire a generation after Galbally

Andrew Jakubowicz
 Professor of Sociology,
 University of Technology Sydney
 Address to FECCA Annual Conference
 December 4 2003
 Melbourne
Multiculturalism Is the Australian Way of Life?
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The term 'Australian multiculturalism' could be redundant in
25 years as more and more Australians adopt it as a way
of life, the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs,
Gary Hardgrave, said (July 2003)
 “There was also mention of coolness towards
multiculturalism, which I have always considered a
careless use of the wrong word - multi-ethnicity being the
right one…” Frank Devine on what attracts him to Mark
Latham Dec 2003
 “Australia is not a multicultural society…. It is a multiracial
monocultural one…!”
Reflecting on Multiculturalism
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Multiculturalism became a way of framing Australian
modernity
Governments had to deal with the reality of globalisation trans-border movement of capital, culture and people, upon
which Australia is critically dependent in a competitive
market place.
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Multiculturalism has been an attempt to deal with two
dimensions of Australia as a modern ‘empire’ in
globalisation:
external: defense against competing empires, and
internal: subjugation and ‘normalisation’ of diverse
population (the mirror of disability policies)
Aims of this presentation
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What can an audit do? There are no set criteria or
standards, so controversy is a valuable methodology
 Focus on the Federal sphere - try to frame process and
explain apparent contradictions
 Identify critical moments , high and low points, in policy
development and change since 1978
 Identify outcomes after 25 years
 Distinguish between rhetoric and reality
 Identify explicit and implicit trajectories for next decade
What sorts of criteria are relevant to Audit?
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Outcome focused:
 Social Power - governments, courts, key social and
economic institutions
 Economic - equal opportunity, economic inequality not
linked to ethnicity
 Inclusion - employment, media, sport, civil society
 Symbolic - legislative, expressive, creative
 Cohesion - education, crime, segregation, attitudes
The Strategic Crossroads of 1978
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Assimilation focus government policy on integrating immigrants as
individuals into the social fabric
regard ethnic cultural practices as residual and declining
regard ethnic cultural maintenance as problematic and not
supported by government
unproblematic sense of core Australian culture
to
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Ethnic Rights
recognise communal nature of ethnicity and assign rights
based on ascriptive criteria (either voluntary or compulsory)
regard nation as both culturally and structurally pluralistic
commit social resources to maintenance of communal
cultures and delivery of services through ethnic structures
reconceptualise nation as composed of cultural minority
groups recognised in law
to
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Multiculturalism
identify tension between national cohesion, communal
identification and individual rights
seek balance between mainstream services responding to
general needs and ethnic services providing culturallyresponsive programs
use multiculturalism to assert national core values and
allegiances while recognising value of diversity in relation
to identity and communal support.
But what does “multiculturalism” mean? And to whom?
Government approaches to Cultural Diversity in Australia
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1978 Multiculturalism A (Galbally/Georgiou) - Services to
Immigrants against the resistance of mainstream
 1984 Access and Equity/ Mainstreaming
 1989 Multiculturalism B - Social Justice and National
Cohesion
 1993 Multiculturalism C - Productive Diversity
 1995 Global Diversity
 1996 One Nation
 1998 Australian Multiculturalism- Roach/Sinodinos
 2004 The Multicultural marketplace - Government
achievements make no mention of multiculturalism; ALP
has no policy…
Administrative Orientations
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Legislating for individual rights - the Anti Discrimination
pathway
Legislating for cultural rights - the Multicultural/Ethnic
Affairs pathway
The charter of service approach - focusing on bureaucracy
and delivery to clients
The crises of ethnicity - what is multicultural citizenship?
The moral basis of Australian multiculturalism
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Hierarchy of cultures
 Hierarchy of religions
 Capitalist
 Patriarchal
 (just look at federal cabinet and the high court)
The Old Ethnicities and social power
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1996 - the Irish Catholic ascendancy
 Paul Keating PM
 William Deane GG
 Gerard Brennan CJ
 2001/3 - the English Protestant reassertion
 John Howard PM
 Peter Hollingworth/ Gen Jeffery GG
 (tho Celtic presence remains with) Murray Gleeson CJ
Harmony…
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“National research has confirmed that the overwhelming majority of
Australians genuinely respect and value the diverse make-up of our
community and support the concepts on which the [Harmony] initiative
is based.” (DIMIA Website)
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This statement may refer to SBS research for marketing -or it may
disguise the secret government research showing hostility to diversity but does endorse government decisions to abandon support for ethnic
diversity, and target local inter-group collaboration. The latest word
from the Minister’s Office is that the 1996/7 research was a working
paper and that they intend to carry out new research… maybe
Major Achievements
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Multicultural institutions - SBS, HREOC, DIMIA, Living in
harmony, Partnerships, Productive diversity
Dual citizenship
Charter for public service
Racial discrimination and vilification legislation
Arts for a Multicultural Australia
Significant failures
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Govt does not recognise multicultural Australia as a policy success
ALP has no policy on multiculturalism
No national product champion for Multiculturalism
No Bill of Rights
No Multiculturalism Act (cf Canada)
No Affirmative Action (cf Women)
No national ‘knowledge creation’ about cultural diversity
Monocultural Cabinet (0/17)
Monocultural High Court (0/7)
Moncultural ABC (0/7 govt. appointees, but one Indigenous))
Manifest and Latent Trajectories of National Policy
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Manifest:
 celebrate cultural collaborations;
 assert national social priorities;
 assert cohesive national identity;
 foreground economic profitability;
 marketise services;
 recruit ethnic leadership into ‘B list’ elites
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Latent:
 reinforce traditional cultural hierarchies;
 isolate Australia from global civil society;
 build culture of secrecy and fear;
 reduce human rights;
 reduce services and service quality;
 force greater use of voluntary female labour;
 intensify exclusion and urban segregation;
 intensify underclass.
Conclusion
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As we have been many times before, we are at a time of
decision
The Audit suggests two possible agendas:
Move towards passive alienated monocultural-dominated
quiescence
Move towards active respectful multicultural citizenship