The Punch – Australia Day
Tony Abbott’s incendiary comments about immigration are the type that could ignite an Australia Day tinderbox.
Speaking at an Australia Day Council dinner, the federal opposition leader used language reminiscent of the darkest days of the Howard regime.
”The inescapable minimum that we insist upon is obedience to the law,” he said.
You don’t need a Masters in Semiotic Analysis to understand the hidden message: Migrants are criminals.
What a comforting message for the hordes of Indian students, routinely attacked late at night in Melbourne and Brisbane.
Abbott evoked Howard’s Tampa mantra about “deciding who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.
Perhaps his budgie-smugglers are restricting the flow of blood to the brain.
- Fact #1: Australia’s migrant and refugee intake – of 180,000 and 14,000 each year – is a drop in the ocean, compared with that of the US or Europe.
- Fact #2: The vast number of refugees are looking for new homes because the Coalition of the Willing blew their old ones up.
- Fact #3: Australia’s population is expected to rise 64 percent to 36 million by 2050, reducing the number of workers per retiree to 2.7 from about 5. Our ageing population means we need more skilled workers.
- Fact #4: If we accept the benefits of globalisation – fancy consumer goods, communication technology, travel – we must also accept a diversified population. The McMansion on the quarter-acre block might not survive, but there’s not much we can do about that.
- Fact #5: Governments are supposed to spend our tax dollars building infrastructure to cope with a growing population, not scare people into arming themselves to fend off ‘interlopers’.
Abbott’s comments coincide with ramped-up rhetoric by right-wing commercial radio broadcasters, barely concealing their glee as they flog Australia’s racist rump to bring home the ratings.
While by no means the worst offender, radio host Derryn Hinch could have chosen more appropriate words when Melbourne’s railways buckled under the intense heat.
“Gee,” he said during a live cross to a reporter at Flinders Street Station, “it must be like Bombay down there!”
In Sydney, the usual suspects dress their distaste in the language of the people, speaking of those “not like us” and …
Late last year 2GB’s Alan Jones lost his case over anti-Lebanese comments prior to the Cronulla riots, but the fine of $10,000 was merely a slap on the wrist.
Jones was found to have engaged in ”reckless hyperbole calculated to agitate and excite his audience”, by calling Lebanese migrants, among other things, vermin.
But it’s not just what people say that stokes the fires of hate.
Symbolism plays its part, with Coles, Big W and Target this year selling an astonishing array of t-shirts, eskys, towels, undies, beer coolers and kids’ clothing emblazoned with the Aussie flag.
“Australian, born and bred,” reads one.
“All Australian Baby”, screams another.
Simply wearing this stuff encourages division; just add alcohol for a potent Cronulla cocktail.
Whatever happens today, 2010 will see the politics of race writ large, as border protection dominates the upcoming election campaign.
The best thing Tony Abbott can do is to stop being a Joker – and put the race card to the bottom of the pack.
FEDERAL Warringah MP Tony Abbott said he believes Monday’s Australia Day fracas in The Corso was not racially motivated and alcohol was to blame.
The ugly scenes involved a large crowd of mainly young men, some intoxicated, draped in the Australian flag and running through The Corso causing damage and chanting various nationalistic slogans.
Some youths had scrawled slogans on their bodies such as “Aussie Pride”, and three teens on the beach drew a map of Australia on their stomachs with the words “F*** off we’re full.”
One of the teens, who had words on her stomach, has since apologised for her actions.
