Tony Abbott: Australia Day has many meanings
“My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia. A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one.”
Fri, 22nd January 2010
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION ADDRESS TO THE VICTORIAN AUSTRALIA DAY COUNCIL
The Hon Tony Abbott MP
Leader of the Opposition
Australia Day has many meanings. To some, it’s just a holiday. To others, it’s a celebration of the good things about our country. To Aboriginal people, although perhaps a dwindling number, it’s sometimes considered invasion day. Strictly speaking, though, it commemorates the formal establishment of modern Australia. It marks the first arrival of the ways of life, the habits of mind and the processes of government that have defined this country.
Our unreflecting assumption is that the people who founded modern Australia were Australians. In fact, the people who raised the flag and toasted the Crown on January 26 1788 were Australia’s first modern migrants. The loyal toasts soon descended into a riotous party, a very Australian thing it might be thought. That does not alter the essential fact that our nation is as much the product of the people who’ve come here as of the people who’ve been here.
Except for the half million or so who identify as Aboriginal, every other Australian is an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants since 1788. Unlike any other, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants. New Zealand has a proportionately larger indigenous population and North America has been settled for almost two centuries longer. This means, of course, that the immigrant who feels like a stranger in our midst is really at the heart of the Australian story.
To the extent that it is a celebration of our nation, Australia Day is necessarily a salute to an immigrant culture. In stating the obvious, I intend no disrespect to the Aboriginal people, whose sense of community and connectedness to land and whose laconic and stoic approach to life has become part of the Australian character. What’s curious, then, is the ambivalence that many Australians feel about immigration even though it’s so central to our national experience.
Within a generation, Australia’s settlers felt somewhat different from their connections in Britain. To this day, a strong sense of kith and kin with other English-speaking peoples has co-existed with an equally powerful sense that we are unique. The populist view that everything about Australia is beyond reproach, especially from outsiders, exists in tension with a restless striving to be better and a sense that we’re not yet our best selves. It’s “the moral middle class” versus the instinct to give “three cheers for Australia”. We do indeed have a history to be proud of, not just because it’s ours, but because it’s been a record of exceptional achievement.
Long before modern notions of human rights, white men had been hanged for the murder of blacks. Within a century, the former penal colony had amongst the world’s highest standards of living. It was the Australian army on which many of the decisive battles of World War One turned. It was in Australia that notions of the equality of the sexes and the equal dignity of every person regardless of birth or wealth first and perhaps most fully took hold.
Central to Australians’ self-perception has been this idea of a country where the most disadvantaged could get ahead provided they were prepared to “have a go”. The First Fleet contained a smattering of many nationalities as well as large percentages of Scots and Irish. The gold rushes brought an influx of Americans as well as Chinese, not all of whom returned to their homeland. A generation before World War Two, Australia had significant Italian and Greek communities. Then there was the post-war influx, first of Eastern Europeans, then from the Mediterranean, and later from Asia.
As the historian Ed Campion describes Australia: the English made the laws, the Scots made the money and the Irish made the songs. As Cardinal Moran put it, it was in Australia that the Irish first knew justice under the Crown. Australia happens to be the only country in the world (apart from Israel) where Jews have held the positions of army commander, chief justice and head of state. These days it’s of only passing interest when a premier is the son of Italian immigrants; a governor is of Lebanese descent; or a minister identifies as Aboriginal. It just confirms for us that people’s contributions are not determined by their backgrounds.
For all the misguided and sometimes cruel treatment of Aborigines, the ethnic typecasting and occasional snobbery which still exists, Australia has rarely seen domestic discrimination based on race or culture. Conversely, despite Chinatowns and Little Italys in our big cities, based more on economic opportunity than conscious desire to stay aloof, Australia has largely avoided the ethnic and cultural enclaves that now exist in many of the countries of Europe. The welcome customarily extended to migrants has been amply reciprocated. Successive waves of migrants have quickly adapted to their new country and, at least by the second generation, thought of themselves as Australians.
Immigration to Australia has been a success almost unparalleled in history. Why, then, does it regularly feature on the list of issues that people are concerned about? Three factors seem to be at work here. First, unauthorised boat arrivals have raised fears that Australia’s borders are again uncontrolled. Second, some recent immigrants seem resistant to Australian notions of equality. And third, there is concern about whether the natural and built environment can cope with the population pressures that immigration contributes to. There is, I suspect, an anxiety that the great prize of Australian citizenship is insufficiently appreciated and given away too lightly.
Australia’s problem with unauthorised arrivals is smaller than that of the United States, where would-be immigrants merely have to swim the Rio Grande; or that of Europe where would-be immigrants only have to cross the Mediterranean or move to the more attractive parts of an increasingly borderless continent. Still, in a world where crime and terrorism are international in scope and where every developed country’s social security system is under pressure, a policy of benign unconcern about new arrivals would defy common sense. The first duty of every government is to its own citizens. Its responsibilities to non-citizens have to be consistent with safeguarding the welfare of its own people.
The problem with simply accommodating boat arrivals is not (at this point) the numbers it would add to the immigration programme. There is a principle at stake here. John Howard’s declaration about Australians controlling who comes to this country resonated because it struck most people as self-evidently and robustly true. As well, we can’t be confident that the numbers would stay at the 3000 or so who have arrived since the Rudd Government adopted what it said was a more compassionate approach; or that they would peak at the 4000 who arrived in the year before the Howard Government first imposed tough and effective border protection policies.
Many conscientious people continue to be dismayed by what they see as the harsh treatment of boat people. Of course, Australia has an obligation to people in fear for their lives or to those who have been found to be refugees but this has to be balanced against our obligation not to become a soft touch for everyone seeking a better life. Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to deter people who want to force themselves on Australia. The alternative to mandatory detention is the risk that people might disappear into the community. The alternative to “locking up women and children” is separating family members. The alternative to strict border protection is tacit encouragement for people to risk their lives at sea. It’s this element of danger which creates the distinction between boat arrivals on the one hand and, on the other, people who arrive without putting themselves in peril, on a valid visa, and only subsequently become unauthorised over-stayers.
It’s far from obvious how to strike a judicious balance here. Giving boat people what they want is not self-evidently morally preferable to strict deterrence if it encourages more of them to take great risks on the open sea. The critics of border protection policy under both the current government as well as its predecessor need to ask themselves at what point would the size of any unauthorised influx become a concern. They further need to explain why it’s better to wait for the problem to become worse before tackling it. Still, a country that’s alive to the shades of grey inherent in aspects of government policy is more likely to find an acceptable balance between competing moral claims.
For their part, the supporters of border protection need to understand that it’s no reflection on boat people that they want to come to Australia. Why wouldn’t people who might otherwise wait in camps for years try to short-circuit the process especially if they’re plausibly told that getting to Australia means the beginning of a new life? At worst, boat people are guilty of choosing hope over fear. Although the main villains, of course, are the people smugglers, a government which allowed desperate people to think that getting on a boat might be a shortcut to permanent residency in Australia would hardly be blameless.
A strong border protection policy is perfectly consistent with a large and inclusive immigration programme. In fact, it’s probably essential if the public is to be convinced that Australia’s immigration policy is run by the Government rather than by people smugglers. It’s not surprising that the 67 per cent of Australians who thought that the immigration intake was too high in 1993 had dropped to just 34 per cent by 2004 even though the intake had increased.
Under the Howard Government, there was little public questioning of a large immigration programme because people were persuaded that it was being run firmly in Australia’s national interest. As well as strict border protection, the former Government doubled to four years the period of residency required for citizenship, reduced new migrants’ access to welfare and gave more weight to the ability to speak English in the immigration points system. The Labor Party may not have liked these changes but it did not oppose them perhaps because it understood that perceptions of an open door policy were undermining Australia’s traditional openness to immigrants.
The last thing that any Australian should want is to make recent immigrants feel unwelcome in their new country. After all, they have voted with their feet for Australia in a way that the rest of us have not. That’s why we should be especially concerned at the possibility that ethnic Indians have become the victims of racially motivated crime. This would be worse than a law enforcement problem. It would be an affront to our self-perception as society where people are judged on their merits rather than on their skin colour. Conversely, the rise of ethnic gangs and perceptions of ethnic street crime threaten the community understanding that migration should be overwhelmingly a net benefit to Australia.
The former Mufti of Australia Sheik Hilaly’s highly publicized attacks on women and Jews have struck many people as un-Australian and prompted much anxiety about importing social problems. Ninety years ago, so did the attacks of Archbishop Mannix on the conduct of the First World War and there were calls for him to be deported. There has hardly been a time when there were not some reservations about the loyalty of particular ethnic or religious groups. A generation or two on, all of them have eventually become as Australian as everyone else.
It’s not necessary to be an immigrant from a traditional society to find much about modern Australia challenging. There are plenty of descendants of the First Fleet who deplore the constant questioning of authority and what they see as the licentiousness that is an element of contemporary Australia. Still, Australians are profoundly uncomfortable with any perspective on the world that is said to be ordained by God without the need for recourse to reasoned argument.
Australia makes very few demands of its immigrants. There is no ideal of Australian-ness to which they are expected to conform. There is no expectation that migrants will lose their affection for their country of birth. The policy of multiculturalism expressed our willingness to let them assimilate in their own way and at their own pace because of our confidence in the gravitational pull of the Australian way of life. Even so, the inescapable minimum that we insist upon is obedience to the law. A corollary of our non-discriminatory immigration programme is our requirement that Australians should treat other Australians with respect even where they disagree with them. It would help to bolster public support for immigration and acceptance of social diversity if more minority leaders were as ready to show to mainstream Australian values the respect they demand for their own.
At a time when there was more anxiety than now about the composition of the intake, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke conceded that immigration policy had become a kind of bipartisan conspiracy of the elites against the public. It would be a pity to stifle debate on population policy in the way that concerns about immigration policy sometimes have been. Population growth has such ramifications for so many other policies (such as whether it’s realistic to meet substantial emission reduction targets) that debate should certainly not be shut down even though some people fear that it might be code for hostility to immigration.
It’s not surprising that people worry about immigration when our cities seem to be bursting at the seams and when existing and planned infrastructure can hardly cope with the present population let alone the additional 14 million (almost entirely due to immigration) that the Prime Minister expects by 2050. An alternative to discouraging immigrants, as the former NSW Premier Bob Carr tried to do, is to ensure that the facilities exist to cope with current and forecast numbers.
It’s easy to be despondent about the capacity of many of our state governments to provide the infrastructure that a significantly higher population will require. In the past 15 years, for instance, the NSW Government has announced $28 billion worth of rail projects that have never gone ahead. It’s easy to worry about the future environmental sustainability of Sydney and Melbourne, each with seven million people, when land and water resources are already under such pressure. In the mid 1960s, though, when Sydney’s population was just two and a half million, the extra one and a half million it now has would also, no doubt, have seemed completely unmanageable.
Dysfunctional state governments notwithstanding, Sydney’s roads, sewerage, health and education infrastructure has coped (if only just). In some respects, it’s even improved. Thanks to deep ocean outfalls, water quality on beaches has improved. Thanks to a better understanding of pollution and effective measures against it, the sharks are back in Sydney Harbour. Outside peak hours, it’s easier to drive around on a motorway network that’s not too far away from being joined up. A higher population has been consistent with a better life for most people because we’ve had the economic and technological strength to sustain it.
Prime Minister Rudd’s endorsement of the Intergenerational Report’s population projection should be much less of a worry than his lack of endorsement of the specific wealth-boosting reform plans that would make it sustainable. We can’t count on 180,000 migrants a year for the next four decades without also planning for the infrastructure to make this feasible.
It can be done though. Since 1970, an Australia that’s four times richer has more than coped with a population that’s two times greater. What’s needed is the same foresight and commitment to economic reform over the next 25 years that the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments brought to the last 25 years. It’s good that the Prime Minister is talking about the need for planning and for courageous decisions to meet the challenges of the mid century. It would be even better if he would actually make some prior to the next election. That would give Australians more confidence that the national government had not succumbed to the cycle of spin over substance which so often afflicts state politics.
Australia’s population is a function of the death rate, the birth rate and the immigration rate. Obviously, the death rate should be as low as possible. The birth rate should be determined by the choices that Australian families make. The immigration rate should depend upon the strength of Australia’s economy, the confidence of our society and the readiness of potential migrants to make a commitment to their new country. The right population for Australia is the one that these choices determine. With the best technologies, including the harvesting of urban rainwater otherwise wasted, there’s no reason to think that Australia has a fixed carrying capacity, the population equivalent of the Goyder line.
My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia. A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one.
My ancestors arrived in this country from Cornwall in 1830. A person is a citizen of the country he/she was born in, I am therefore Australian by birth and not by immigration.
We give out citizenship to newcomers like the latter day Romans, far too easily! Does citizenship really make New Australians or is it just a rung up the ladder of welfare for those who have no intention of ‘mucking in’ with the rest of us?
Abbott needs to firmly detail what he really means about immigration as most of us, excepting the two twisted individuals Matt and Malcolm, have a problem with expanding our already overburdened nation with more people.
At last count, there was approximately 40 million refugees wanting to go to somewhere in the west as they hear it is utopia with easy access through most nations borders. Do we want them all to come here? Is that what Abbott is hinting at?
Abbott also needs to firmly lock in place a population number based on our present failing infrastructure. Immigration is now concerning more and more people and will become an issue to be pushed by the Australian Protectionist Party. Our policy is simple, we will push to have a referendum on who and how many can come here, not be dictated to by a dysfunctional United Nations.
Abbott embraces multiculturalism wholeheartedly, a failed policy that is leading to our cultural destruction. In this regard he is no different to the Progressives who have inflitrated all main stream political parties. I asked him to deny his progressivism on his blog. I did not receive a reply!
On that response I can only make one assumption!
Labor or Liberal policy is only different in the detail, so until the APP is federally registered I will not be voting for any main stream party.
I have to say that Ralph and his supporters are living in another age and in another country to be truthful. The first settlers and they were settlers, established a nation, that is true. But as Tony Abbott makes it clear, these people are the same people as whom immigrate today. They are people seeking refuge. They established a nation that sought to be independent of Britain. This tradition is what Tony Abbott is what is making noticeable and comparable to the experiences of today’s refugees.
And Reg, dont say that someone else would have wiped out the Aboriginals because that does not justify the imperialistic ambitions of the British empire. There was a nation on this land when the British arrived. In fact there were many and they were Aboriginal, small perhaps but in existence. The founding of modern Australia was built on the destruction of this society. This new civilization was built upon the belief that people could and deserve to have more in life, as Tony points out. This tradition, that the nation of Australia was founded upon is what makes Australia unique compared to America and and other colonies, because the Australian government sought to provide refuge from its conception until today. So called conservatives (ie Ralph) only want to conserve the love of a white nation and christian morals. But that is not Australia. That is not the purpose of our lucky country. Its purpose is to provide sanctuary to others like this land did (although in a destructively progressive way) to the first settlers and colonists.
What true conservatives should be aiming to do is preserve and conserve this unique quality of the australian land – to keep it as a friendly place where all come immigrate to and hold any view and belief under a liberal and free society.
Matt, the early settlers were not refugees; they were colonists seeking to create a new Britannia in the South Seas. The society that the settlers formed was created in the image of Britain. Moreover, most of the early settlers came for commercial rather than ideological or political reasons.
This notion that Australia was a reluctant member of the British Empire is utterly false. Even in the post-colonial period, Australia continued to see itself as a firmly British society long into the 20th Century. Consider the words of Prime Minister John Curtin:
“We are a British community in the South Seas, and we regard ourselves as the trustees for the British way of life in a part of the world where it is of the utmost significance to the British Commonwealth and to the British nation and to the British Empire – call it by any name that you will – that there should be in the Antipodes a people and a territory corresponding in purpose and in outlook and in race to the Motherland itself.”
Your assertion that Australia was unique compared to other settler societies because it was founded as some kind of giant lifeboat for the world’s poor, downtrodden masses is pure fiction. From the beginning of British settlement to the mid 20th Century, Australian immigration policy was concerned primarily with the maintenance of British hegemony. The aim was to buildup a British-descended population loyal to the Empire and able to exploit Australia’s resources for the benefit of the Empire. Clearly, the purpose of the “lucky country” (you obviously don’t know the origin of that term) was to benefit the British Empire. It was not founded, as you assert, on some lofty humanitarian notion of providing charity to every unfortunate soul on the planet.
Well Ed,
you are right in saying that the government of Australia was one that seeked to replecate a white society built and in support of the British Empire. But what I am saying is that, yes there were people such as the Hentys who settled here for commercial reasons, but the heart and soul of the nation’s people, and I dont mean the governing elite or financial regulaters as you describe, I mean the Irish, the Scots the English who settled in this country (then along with the other nationalities such as Germans, Americans, French) who comprised the majority of the people who were poor and downtrodden. To say otherwise is pure ignorance. In this respect and this is what Tony Abbott is pointing out, this nation was founded upon the idea that (perhaps under the imperialist oppression of the British Empire) a nation (and perhaps racistly white it became) could be built on the hard work of individuals with nothing but the spirit and will to better themselves and thus the society in which they lived and which gave them the opportunity to do so.
You see Ed, even John Curtin epitomizes this idea which he shows overwhelmingly was the true creation of Australia, through his actions during ww2 in which he practically said goodbye to British Imperialist sovereignty and then established the immigration department. Our independence has always been a driving force of Australian society, whether in alliance with Britain.
Ed, you and along with the others who have slammed Tony Abbott’s speech are fools, since you wish to keep in tact this idea that Australia should be white rather than accepting the other idea which is to give a better life and chance for everyone. Yes these ideas were both prevalent within early colonial society. But we ain’t living in colonial Australia!
Unless you are a racist or have absolutely no sympathy for your fellow man, you should be embracing the greater element of this country’s origins – the chance for a new beginning and life. I say lucky country because this term (whatever its origin!) should be used to preserve this idea rather than some bent christian racist version of freedom and equality that you and these other commentators seem to have.
Nationalism is a joke by the way. It isn’t constructive its destructive of liberal rights and social equality along with the harmony of society. The culture of our nation should be that there is no one culture, but all cultures, and that the government allows for all of them to coexist – which it can!
Matt Tynan’s poor literacy skills give voice to the fact that brainwashing took the place of fundamental education in his early years. His glib assertion regarding John Curtin is further evidence of a simplistic approach in what is taught in schools as ‘critical theory’. Wanting Australian troops to defend Australia against the Japanese did not amount to a turning away from Britain even if it were up to John Curtin to make such a decision. Even if that were Curtin’s intention, the Anglophile RG Menzies was elected in 1949 and remains Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister.
Matt Tynan’s further pronouncement that ‘Nationalism is a joke by the way’ is belied by the millions of people who have given their lives to protect their borders or homelands or other geographic entities for which they have felt loyalty. The rise of the nation state has allowed for economic and social security that has resulted in unprecedented prosperity and a sense of social identity that has engendered stability. But now, as the likes of Tynan seek to dismantle national borders and the value of citizenship, political and economic crises are threatening the social fabrics of many western countries. No country that accepts the unrealistic notion that the rich have an obligation to accept the poor of the world because of some presumption of moral obligation can hope to survive.
At the same time, a competent government must be ready to acknowledge problems linked to influxes of groups from some areas of the world. The likes of the Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland, who refuses to allow the public to know behavioural trends in some ethnic groups on the basis that we might make what he considers inappropriate interpretations, are very dangerous leaders. Similarly, Mr. Tynan is a dangerous lackey.
Here, here Greg!
I find it incredible that individuals like Matt Tynan can claim they are defending some kind of Australian tradition, yet at the same time advocate a course of action that would inevitably result in the complete and utter destruction of the Australian nation as we know it. Open borders, as Matt Tynan is essentially advocating, would mean Australia ceasing to exist in all but a geographical sense.
Matt Tynan fails to understand that a nation is more than a random collection of people who happen to live in close geographic proximity, and nations do not have an unlimited capacity to absorb immigrants. At some point, the host population will be swamped, the country’s historic identity and culture will be threatened and national unity will be undermined. Not that Matt Tynan gives a damn about Australia’s founding, Anglo-Celtic majority culture and people. According to him, Australia is obliged to absorb all the peoples of the world into our society and submerge our historic character as a Western, Anglosphere nation. Further, anyone who argues against national suicide through massive, unrelenting immigration is nothing but a loathsome white racist who has no compassion for his fellow man.
“Ed, you and along with the others who have slammed Tony Abbott’s speech are fools, since you wish to keep in tact this idea that Australia should be white rather than accepting the other idea which is to give a better life and chance for everyone.”
So, in other words, you believe that we are obliged to allow the entire world – every one of the 6.5 billion people on the planet – the right to migrate to Australia in pursuit of a better life if they so wish? Is that what you are advocating? If so, then you really are a dangerous lunatic.
Like Ralph said, every sane person knows we must have some limits on immigration. You obviously don’t fit into that category.
Ed no where in “you and along with the others who have slammed Tony Abbott’s speech are fools, since you wish to keep in tact this idea that Australia should be white rather than accepting the other idea which is to give a better life and chance for everyone” did I mention that we should open our gates to 6.5 billion people. Haha! I really cant see where I have written that. What you and Greg Deane seem to think is that I am wanting the entire country to triple its population over night. I don’t think this at all. What I do think is that we should continue to try to allow people to move to Australia, in an appropriate way. By this I mean through well planned and regulated immigration systems.
And to Greg Deane, what I am trying to say is that I realize the fact, and it is a fact, that the Australian nation has held, with iron, cold fingers, its belief that this nation should be of a white and anglosaxon heritage and culture. What I am trying to say about this however is that this ideology is stupid, racist and inhumane, and negates greater, more humane and far more intelligent traditions as (however negligible you think them) that like the opportunity for people to seek refuge and greater happiness, like the original settlers of this land were seeking.
And about nationalism –
you said that nationalism is justified because – “millions of people who have given their lives to protect their borders or homelands or other geographic entities for which they have felt loyalty”. This is what makes nationalism so ridiculous. Nations should allow for complete secular laws and allow for all religions and peoples to live as the choose as individuals, cultures pertaining to groups of people and their lifestyle but separate of the state and thus able to coexist with all other cultures and thus people. From this equality and stability the idea of a secluded ‘nation’ becomes reduntant, as there is nothing to defend from. What you have mentioned (above quote) is the result of nationalism – death and destruction. By your logic the Nazis are a perfect example of how nationalism is justified and great. You have enhanced the joke of nationalism, I think!
You truly are a fool to think that the nation has, by itself, created great societies and stability and a myriad of other unjustifiable ‘facts’. The west’s prosperity has been built, and still remains to be built on the toil of the downtrodden, now today in other countries. Nations have created barriers between people so that we no longer value the lives of others. The ‘nation state’ as you describe it has been built on the destruction of people’s lives, and still remains as such in many ways. Immigration will always remain because of these reasons. Nationalism allows for people like you Greg and like you Ed to think that the reason for other nations backwardness is a complete result of their own actions. Now I’m not advocating socialism, but by embracing nationalism you can easily, through the power of your own blinding ignorance, just leave others to rot in places where their standard of living was not created by their own actions at all.
This reality is apart of our own history as the first settlers were themselves trying to escape this exploitation and ignorant socioeconomic divide of an inhumane world, part of which still exists today.
So, ultimately yes, whilst we still elect representatives to take care of our rights to live and act however we want as individuals, ‘places’ around the world should ultimately be that places. I am not advocating the destruction of national identity, although in the future it will become redundant, I believe Australia should be a nation for everyone, a nation of people who call themselves Australian because of their diversity, not the other way around.
Here, here Ed!
We should not be ashamed of our British heritage. It is good that Mr Abbott recognises that. As far as ‘invasion’ goes, well, if the British did not come in 1788 the Japanese certainly would have in 1941 and there would be no aboriginal heritage at all. As far as high immigration; Australia cannot sustain it. Rudd planning for an extra 60 per cent population by the year 2050 is completely insane. Recently I took my deaf daughter to a specialist at the HobartRoyal Hospital. Absolute bedlam. The system and infrastrutue is not coping; perhaps Mr Rudd can spend some time in the waiting line for a spot of reality. Most of rthe 180,000 (and plus) immigrants go directly on centrelink benefits, adding more strain. Many will not assimilate. While we are aborting 100,000 Australians annually, we are importing twice that number from countries that we should be not accepting immigrants in such large number. However, immigration again, will be a non issue between the two main parties in the next federal election. Too much imput from the United Nations on this issue; as Bruce uxton ocne asked, “obligated to whom? Australia!”
Now that you have observed “What I am trying to say about this however is that this ideology is stupid”, Matt Tynan, I see how wrong I am. There is no way such irrefutable logic can be countered. I see now I am nothing but a redneck, bogan, cracker waycist.
Please, Matt Tynan, will you put your beliefs as you have provided them here, into a litany of truths that lesser beings can recite each morning before a portrait of you? Will you, Matt?
I will if people want me to!
Though clearly Tony Abbott is preferable to Rudd as Prime Minister, or either of his two immediate predecessors, Nelson and Turnbull, he has been disappointing in his fence-sitting on both climate change and immigration.
I think he may be being politick by avoiding any hardline opinions that would cause him to be pilloried by the Fairfax and ABC media machine. But if he would make a clear stand and fight an election offering a clear alternative he could well stand a better chance of becoming Prime Minister. The likes of Plimer and Monckton have made it abundantly clear to anyone who is ready to listen that anthropogenic contributions to climate change are miniscule, relative to the earth, sun and the universe.
As for immigration, as Ralph points out, descendants of British settlers are the progeny of colonists, not immigrants from another culture. Some immigrants are welcome because they have made genuine contributions. Tony Abbott does say, “A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one”, which seems like a way of bringing in some sort of safeguard against extravagance humanitarian or chain migration.
But I, for one, am not interesting in subtle, dog-whistle implications. I want a leader who will strive to safeguard the traditions and culture that have built Australia into a strong nation that is now under threat of being irretrievably fractured by incompatible elements of diversity. I find it disturbing that Tony Abbott draws a parallel between Hilaly, who is egregious, save as a Muslim leader, to the rest of the community, and Archbishop Mannix. The archbishop was a spokesman for a larger segment of Australia that the Irish Catholics, even though during World War I they counted for more than 2%, the current, purported level of the Muslim population. Mannix stood for all those who were opposed to the war in Europe, many of whom were part of the majority that voted against conscription.
I think that Abbott’s views are more hardline that his speech reflects. But he needs to understand that a hardline is needed to counter the smarmy, lunatic excesses of K Rudd.
I sent the following letter to Tony Abbott:
Dear Mr. Abbott,
I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some statements you recently made in your “Australia Day” address to the Victorian Australia Day Council on the 22nd of January, 2010.
In your speech, you asserted:
““Except for the half million or so who identify as Aboriginal, every other Australian is an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants since 1788. Unlike any other, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants … This means, of course, that the immigrant who feels like a stranger in our midst is really at the heart of the Australian story.
To the extent that it is a celebration of our nation, Australia Day is necessarily a salute to an immigrant culture.”
This statement seems to imply that anyone who is not an immigrant, or who does not identify with immigration as a key aspect of his own being, is not a “real” Australia. It also suggests that newly arrived immigrants are more Australian than people whose ancestors have been here for generations. I believe that is deeply insulting to many Australians.
In truth, we are not—even in a figurative sense—a nation of immigrants or even a nation of descendants of immigrants. The British and Irish settlers of colonial times, the ancestors of Australia’s historic Anglo-Celtic majority, did not simply transplant themselves from one existing nation to another (which is what defines immigration), but from Britain and its territories to British colonies. They were not immigrants, but colonists. Immigrants only came later to an Australian nation that had already been formed by those colonists and their descendants. As the late American scholar Samuel L. Huntington pointed out, “Immigrants are people who leave one country, one society, and move to another society. But there has to be a recipient society to which the immigrants move.” In Australia’s case, the recipient society was formed by those colonists who came here in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In any case, apart from its politically correct function of diminishing long-standing Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent, the “nation of immigrants” motto is meaningless in practical terms. Except for open-borders ideologues, everyone knows we must have some limits on immigration. The statement, “we are a nation of immigrants,” gives us no guidance on what those limits should be. Two hundred thousand immigrants per year? Two million? Why not twenty million—since we’re a nation of immigrants? The slogan also doesn’t tell us, once we have decided on overall numbers, what the criterion of selection shall be among the people who want to come here. Do we choose on the basis of family ties to recent immigrants? Language? Income? Nationality? Ethnicity? Victim status? First come first served? The “nation of immigrants” slogan cannot help us choose among these criteria because it doesn’t state any good that is to be achieved by immigration. It simply produces a blind emotional bias in favour of more immigration rather than less, making rational discussion of the issue impossible.
To see the uselessness of the “nation of immigrants” formula as a source of political guidance, imagine what the British would have said if they had adopted it in 1940 when they were facing an imminent invasion by Hitler’s Germany. “Look, Mr. Hitler, we’re a nation of immigrant/invaders. First the Celts took the land from the Neolithic peoples, then the Anglo-Saxons conquered and drove out the Celts, then the Normans invaded and subjugated the Anglo-Saxons. In between there were Danish invaders and settlers and Viking marauders as well. Since we ourselves are descended from invaders, who are we to oppose yet another invasion of this island? Being invaded by Germanic barbarians is our national tradition!”
Since every nation could be called a nation of immigrants (or a nation of invaders) if you go back far enough, consistent application of the principle that a nation of immigrants must be open to all future immigrants would require every country on earth to open its borders to whoever wanted to come. But only Australia is said to have this obligation. The rule of openness to immigrants turns out to be a double standard, aimed solely at Australia.
It is also blatantly unfair to make the factoid that “we are all descended from immigrants” our sole guide to national immigration policy, when there are so many other important and true facts about Australia that could also serve as guides. For example, since its inception Australia has been a member of Western civilisation—in religion predominately Christian, in ethnicity predominately European, in language English. Why shouldn’t those little historical facts be at least as important in determining our immigration policy as the pseudo-fact that we’re all “descended from immigrants?” But immigrant advocates are incapable of debating such questions, because there is no rational benefit for Australia that they seek through open immigration. Their aim is not to strengthen and preserve Australia, but to transform it into something else.
Someone who is genuinely “engaged in their country’s history” and committed to “having both ancestors and descendants to keep faith with” would not defend open immigration. Conservatives seek to keep things the way they are – that includes our people, culture and way of life. Radically changing the demographic composition of our nation into something it has never been via mass immigration is the antithesis of conservatism.
Oz Conservative’s Mark Richardson on Tony Abbott:
Tony Abbott, leader of the “conservative” opposition, is at it again. Abbott is a man who talks the conservative talk but then walks the liberal walk.
Consider the issue of nationalism. If you were to read the following, you might think that Mr Abbott was a traditionalist conservative:
“Scruton, probably the English-speaking world’s finest conservative thinker, evokes a conservatism that’s founded on an instinctive love of country.
Conservatives are engaged in their country’s history, proud of its symbols, concerned for its welfare, attached to its values and vigorous in its defence. The instinct to defer to authority and to respect tradition – the sense that each individual has been shaped by the past and will influence the future, having both ancestors and descendants to keep faith with – is deeply ingrained in human beings, even if it’s under-appreciated by intellectuals. A conservative apprehends how so much modern thinking is actually in revolt against human nature.”
But all these fine words come to nothing. It turns out that his version of keeping faith with his ancestors is to promote the fastest possible demographic change to his country via mass immigration:
“My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia. A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one”
So we’re to have as many immigrants as possible and work harder. That’s the gist of Mr Abbott’s policy.
In the same speech, Mr Abbott rewrites history and denies that a distinctly Anglo-Australian nation ever existed. It seems that apart from the Aborigines, everyone else has been an immigrant and part of a multi-culti society and culture:
“Except for the half million or so who identify as Aboriginal, every other Australian is an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants since 1788. Unlike any other, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants … This means, of course, that the immigrant who feels like a stranger in our midst is really at the heart of the Australian story.
To the extent that it is a celebration of our nation, Australia Day is necessarily a salute to an immigrant culture.”
How does Mr Abbott manage to combine conservative sounding rhetoric with such radically liberal outcomes?
Mr Abbott is a member of a right-liberal party. Like all liberal parties the basic principle is “freedom” understood to be the pursuit of individual self-determination. This is Abbott explaining what the Liberal Party is about:
“Edmund Burke once defined a political party as people working for the national interest according to a particular principle on which they all agreed … The essential principle animating the Federation Fathers (whether conservative protectionists or liberal free traders, they mostly ended up in the first version of an Australian liberal party within a decade) was citizens’ greater freedom to pursue their individual destinies within the framework of a new nation.”
And in the same vein:
“The dream of greater personal freedom is probably the Liberal Party’s nearest equivalent to a “light on the hill””
According to Abbott a liberal is someone who embraces this freedom straight up, whereas a conservative is a bit more cautious, more of a slow learner:
“In a world where nothing exists in isolation and everything is connected, “liberalism” and “conservatism” turn out to be complementary values. The difference between a “liberal” and a “conservative” is not that one values freedom and the other doesn’t or even that one asserts and the other denies that freedom comes first. The difference between the ways liberals and conservatives value freedom is, perhaps, more the difference between love at first sight and the love which grows over time.”
The problem with making a freedom to self-determine the key principle is that it undermines many important traditional goods, including those of family and nation.
We don’t get to determine the basic form of the family, so therefore the traditional family becomes for liberals a restriction on our personal freedom. What liberals want instead is a variety of family types for individuals to choose from, none of which is to be preferred over another. Abbott is no exception:
“Supporting families shouldn’t mean favouring one family type over others. We have to resist yearning for “ideal” families and “traditional” mothers. Every family is a source of nurturing and security for its members.”
Note that Abbott is not just saying here that we need to accept that there will be people who find themselves as single parents and that we should support their efforts to do their best for their families. He’s going much further than this and saying that we cannot even uphold the traditional family of dad, mum and the kids as an ideal to aim for.
If he were a straight up liberal you could at least concede that Tony Abbott was being true to his principles here. But consider the way he praises the Howard Government (in which he was a minister):
“An examination of the Howard government’s signature policies shows deep concern for personal responsibility, individual choice, reward for effort, the protection of families and respect for traditional institutions and values.”
He asserts that respect for traditional institutions is a praiseworthy good but then argues that we must resist supporting the ideal of the traditional family. Isn’t the traditional family a traditional institution? Isn’t it a key traditional institution? His position lacks coherence.
The liberal principle of individual self-determination also undermines traditional nationalism. We don’t get to choose our own ethnicity, so nations that are based on a common ethnicity will be thought an impediment to individual freedom and equality by liberals. Instead, liberals often argue for a “civic nationalism” based on citizenship, or for a “proposition nation” based on shared ideals or values.
Abbott is a proposition nationalist:
“Notwithstanding their frequent inability to articulate them, men and women live by ideals. Shared ideals and enduring values are what turn crowds into communities and peoples into societies and ultimately civilisations. They form the bonds of kinship and common purpose which constitute the social fabric and which allow diverse individuals to find a sense of place and belonging in something which transcends themselves.”
So it’s no longer kinship which forms the bonds of kinship, but rather shared ideals and values. There are many problems with this form of nationalism. First, liberals are understandably reluctant to specify the ideals and values too closely. To do so would risk excluding people who don’t share these beliefs from the definition of the nation. Abbott even goes as far as to reassure migrants that:
“Australia makes very few demands of its immigrants. There is no ideal of Australian-ness to which they are expected to conform.”
Abbott has turned here abruptly from the idea of “shared ideals” forming a sense of Australian-ness to there being “no ideal” of Australian-ness.
A second problem with proposition nationalism is that it’s much the same from country to country. When liberals do talk about the shared ideal defining the nation, it’s usually some kind of liberal value. So all of the Western liberal countries end up being defined much the same way. A person could just as easily be defined as an American, or an Australian, or a Canadian.
And yet we want our national identity to be distinct in some way. Abbott makes a lame attempt to make it sound as if Australia is somehow uniquely defined as an immigrant nation:
“Unlike any other, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants. New Zealand has a proportionately larger indigenous population and North America has been settled for almost two centuries longer.”
Sure. Every liberal Western nation is busy defining itself as an immigrant nation, but Australia gets to define itself as such more than the others because we were settled later and have a smaller indigenous population. It’s clutching at straws. If we define ourselves as an immigrant nation, then we are not unique, but interchangeable with all the other Western national identities.
Proposition nationalism also suffers from being unstable. Not only can the demographic nature of a country change over and over under proposition nationalism through limitless immigration, but there is no reason for the national state itself to stay in existence. If Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific nations all share the same values, then why not merge them into a new regional state, if there are political and economic advantages in doing so? Why not join together the European states into a single superstate?
There’s one final consequence of proposition nationalism I’d like to mention. If what binds a nation together is a shared ideal or value, then you will want to base your political party on this shared ideal or value.
But this then leads to distortions in your understanding of politics. It means that Tony Abbott can’t do what a real conservative has to do in order to conserve his own tradition, which is to set himself in a clear and principled way against liberalism. Instead, he has to try and show that liberalism and conservatism are only superficially different and really on the same page. Otherwise, the belief in the national “shared value” as promoted by your party falls apart.
Original post:
http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2010/01/tony-abbott-prattles-on-about.html
“Except for the half million or so who identify as Aboriginal, every other Australian is an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants since 1788. Unlike any other, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants … This means, of course, that the immigrant who feels like a stranger in our midst is really at the heart of the Australian story.
To the extent that it is a celebration of our nation, Australia Day is necessarily a salute to an immigrant culture.”
So, according to Abbott, anyone who is not an immigrant, or who does not identify with immigration as an integral part of their own identity, is not really an Australian.
It seems he would have us believe that a newly-arrived Third World immigrant is just as “Australian” as somebody descended from the early pioneers who founded and built this country.
In any case, the “nation of immigrants” mantra is historically incorrect. The British and Irish pioneers of colonial times, the ancestors of Australia’s historic Anglo-Celtic majority, did not merely transplant themselves from one existing nation to another (which is what defines immigration), but from the British Isles to a new territory where no nation-state previously existed. They were not immigrants, but settlers. Immigrants only came later to the nation already formed by those early settlers.
“My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia. A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one.”
Incredible.
You would think that someone who is “engaged in their country’s history” and committed to “having both ancestors and descendants to keep faith with” would not defend mass immigration. Conservatives want to keep things the way they are – that includes our culture and people. Drastically changing the demographic composition of Australia into something it has never been via mass immigration is hardly a conservative position.
Spot on, Ralph