I thank you for the invitation to be the 1999 B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Orator. That you have invited me on this occasion is a double privilege. First your great organisation, true to its proud tradition now going back 156 years, has been a persistent and persuasive voice for sanity in recent times when darker forces have sought to divert Australia from its destiny as a decent, tolerant society – I am honoured to be associated with you.
Second, while the pedant within me keeps insisting, rightly, that the new century and millennium does not in truth commence until 1st January 2001, conventional wisdom has us, now, in the dying days of the twentieth century. It is therefore an appropriate time to be undertaking our social audit – to be asking who and where we are and what can we be in the future?
As the Jewish people know more that any other on the face of the earth, we are shaped by our history. While our aboriginal citizens trace back their origins in this country for at least forty thousand years I ask you to remember that European settlement in Australia covers just three lifetimes. Without any ugly jingoism and certainly without any sense of complacency, I deeply believe, however, that we are entitled to have a genuine pride in where we have come in that time and what sort of people Australians are. For, by any reasonable criteria, the Australian achievement has been remarkable.
As I have said recently no nation has had more unpropitious origins. One should never derive pleasure from the mental imbalance of others, but we should thank God for the erratic behaviour of George III. With the loss of their American possessions Britain saw the new Antipodean colonies as predominantly dumping grounds for poor wretches adjudged as criminals by their judicial system – a sprinkling of condemned political activists, but mainly the desperate poor and rootless of a rapidly industrialising society. Transportation to the eastern colonies ended in 1852 and to Western Australia in 1868. By that date some 165,000 men and women had been transported as convicts from Britain and Ireland.
Coinciding almost exactly with the end of transportation to the eastern colonies, the discovery of gold in 1851 brought an exciting new rush of migrants into this already feisty mix of convicts and free settlers. These were the times following the French Revolution and the onset of industrialisation which were described by the eminent Australian Historian W K Hancock as “a period filled with a deafening clamour for rights and a few shrill protests about duties”. The diggers arrived in their tens of thousands, the independent men, the assisted immigrants, the disillusioned Chartists, the revolutionaries of Europe. In just a decade the population of the colonies was trebled by this influx impatient for gold and just as impatient of anything which denied the equal rights of men.
The circumstances of the colonies were making the protests of the old world the common starting point of the new. The ideas these individuals brought with them confirmed existing democratic elements and became reflected in the general attitudes and assumptions of the Australian people.
These attitudes and assumptions went further than merely asserting the rights of the individual in the matter of the franchise – important as that was. The impetus for change went deeper. There was a conviction that this land was new, not only in terms of settlement but in relation to the power structures of Britain and Europe. Australian nationalism involved the dynamic assumption that the social hierarchies and political and economic inequities of the old world were not sacrosanct.
Distance may have been a tyranny but, in terms of what we have become, it was also a blessing. In this remote continent, recently acquired ownership or control of land had not had time to entrench the privileges and respect that centuries of power had created in the old country. Britain had transported its convicts but that convict stock and the independent immigrants who joined them showed a healthy scepticism about any attempt to transport Britain’s hierarchical style of status or rights.
This scepticism, melded with the work of influential radicals, had produced a climate of pragmatic egalitarianism but not social revolution. It was a Frenchman, Albert Mètin writing in 1901 (Le Socialisme Sans Doctrines) who made the acute observation: “Australasia has not contributed much to social philosophy, but she has gone infinitely further than any other country in the practical field.”
Indeed the new nation of 3.8 million people which came into existence on the 1st January 1901 had substantial reason for pride and confidence in themselves. A vast continent had been explored, the foundations of great primary and mining industries had been laid, substantial infrastructure in communications and other public services established, and the statute books of the constituent colonies, now States, contained a range of legislation which, as Mètin observed, led the world by the social standards of the time.
The Australian character had by now come to be associated with the concepts of mateship and the “fair go”. Those concepts had been graphically reflected in both the conduct and aftermath of the bitter and often violent industrial confrontations that racked the colonies in the 1890-94 period, particularly in the shearing and maritime industries. In the immediate sense the solidarity and mateship amongst the striking workers could not withstand the combined power of military, police and non-union labour deployed against them – the unions were comprehensively defeated.
But in a far more enduring way, that bitter period entrenched the concept of the “fair go” into the institutional fabric and practice of Australian society. A move to establish a system of conciliation and arbitration developed out of a widespread conviction that recourse to force for the settlement of disputes in industry should not be tolerated again – that freedom should not be euphemistically equated with licence for either side to impose its will upon the other without regard to the public interest. The record of the three Convention Debates of the 1890s – 1891, 1897 and 1898 – show that these sentiments emerging from that time of confrontation were responsible for the inclusion of the conciliation and arbitration power in the constitution of the new Commonwealth. The federal court, established by the early exercise of that power, created the concept of a basic wage as a minimum standard below which no-one could be employed – a concept which has endured to the present day.
While the men and women of the colonies had therefore very much put their own stamp on the new Australian nation, for a great proportion of them the ties to the United Kingdom remained strong. And its wars were our wars. Six hundred and six Australians died in the Boer War but this was as nothing compared with the carnage of World War I. Of the 324,000 Australians who served overseas in that conflict 61,919, or almost one in five, were killed. This horrendous loss of so many of our finest young men was a tragedy for the country - you may get some idea of the impact by realising that it is equivalent today to Australia losing a quarter of a million men - but it was also a defining moment for our young nation. And more than anything, it was Gallipoli that forged a sense of nationhood. Churchill’s grandiose strategy was fatally flawed but our soldiers, in their mateship and courage against impossible odds, created a sense of proud Australian identity that has lasted to this day.
The Second World War, in a different sense, was a turning point in Australia’s history. Like the First, it started as the United Kingdom’s war, but with the entry of Japan on the side of the Axis powers in December 1941 it became a matter of Australia’s national survival. And that survival was ensured when my great Labor predecessor, John Curtin, in January 1942, uttered perhaps the most memorable words to come from any Australian Prime Minister: “Without any inhibition of any kind, I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links and kinship with the United Kingdom.” Curtin repudiated Churchill’s absurd proposal to retain on the other side of the world the Australian troops who had established a magnificent fighting reputation in the Western theatre and brought them back to fight alongside the Americans against the Japanese. When victory was finally achieved on the 15th August 1945, Australia and its international relationships were never going to be the same again.
In the darkest days of war Curtin assembled some of the finest minds in the country under the guidance of another great servant of the Australian people, Nugget Coombs, to plan for a better and different post-war nation. Within a previously unheard of commitment to full employment, Australia embarked upon one of the most massive official immigration programs in history. Under this program, modified but maintained ever since, some five and a half million people from more than 140 countries have come here to make Australia their home. The overwhelming preponderance of pre-war stock from the United Kingdom and Ireland has been infused by immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and, lately, southern Africa. Despite the casuistry and the misgivings of some who yearn for days beyond recall, we are, if language means anything at all, a truly multicultural nation - a nation enriched not only by the cultures but by the values, the habits and the disciplines of peoples from around the globe.
It would be idle to pretend that this fundamental transformation of our society has been achieved without pain. I can still recall with embarrassment those epithets of “wogs” and “dagos” directed mindlessly at the early immigrants from southern Europe. But, wonderfully, the “fair go” has prevailed and a people who have drawn so much strength from the great British traditions of parliamentary representation and the rule of law have absorbed and benefited from the traditions of our new citizens.
The great blot on our otherwise visionary immigration policy was of course the White Australia Policy embedded, in the first year of the federal Parliament, in the 1901 Restrictive Immigration Act. Fortunately, considerations of morality, demography, and economic realities merged in the 1960s and early 1970s to bring this abhorrence to an end. The gradual dilution of the UK/Irish preponderance in the origins of our people coincided with the end of the Commonwealth preference in trade as Britain joined the Common Market in the 1960s and with Asia’s emergence as a new, dynamic centre of economic growth and a force in international trade. Just as intelligent self-interest led Britain to loosen her economic ties with us, so did Australia come to understand that past emotional attachments could not stand in the way of relations with our more immediate, and increasingly dynamic, region.
Those relations could never be optimal while White Australia remained part of our policy and practice. In one of the most enlightened acts of bipartisan political co-operation in our history the policy was formally and finally abolished in 1973. Australia had both the confidence and the good sense to abandon a racially discriminatory policy which was morally repugnant and economically insane.
There are those in our community, their prejudice matched only by their ignorance, who are attempting to revive the anti-Asian bias of earlier days. It is imperative if we are to realise Australia’s true identity in the twenty-first century – if we are to have confidence in ourselves at home and abroad – that we expose this nonsense for the danger that it represents to our future.
In the first place we should remember that Australia’s relationship with Asia and Asians is not a recent phenomenon. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards the Macassan traders of what is now Indonesia were one of the earliest groups to have contact with Aboriginal Australians – in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Arnhem Land and the Kimberleys. In the nineteenth century Afghan camel drivers helped open up Central Australia to European settlement; Chinese came in tens of thousands to the goldfields of Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia; and Japanese helped establish the pearling industry in the north-west.
Important as those early links were, they fade into insignificance when we understand the centrality of Asia to Australia’s present and future well-being. As I predicted in my first week as Prime Minister, Australia has become increasingly enmeshed with the Asian region and has benefited enormously from the dynamism that characterised its economies until the second half of 1997. At that point more that 60% of Australian exports went there. Our tourism industry offers greater opportunities for employment growth than any other and Asia has been critically important in its development. It has invested massively in the industry and Asians have been the most rapidly growing component – comprising more than 50% – of our overseas visitors. Income from the education of some 150,000 Asian students in Australia has become a significant factor in the earnings of foreign exchange.
Recovery is beginning in the recessed economies of Asia and they will resume high economic growth paths. Asia will continue as far as we can see into the future to be the region of greatest relevance to Australia’s economic prosperity. It will be the greatest market for our exports and therefore of employment generation; and it will not be open to our exports if we are not open to imports from that region. It will be the major international impetus to our tourism industry and a significant source of income for other services industries. A substantial proportion of our immigrants (just over one-third) comes from Asia, including most of our business migrants.
All of this has been possible because Australia has been well-regarded in Asia. We do not carry a burden of past oppression and exploitation in the region. Nor are we seen as a military or economic threat, but rather as a nation of material and human resources able to facilitate their development.
But it would be foolish in the extreme to assume a continuation of these attitudes if this country were to tolerate the peddling of racial hatred and discrimination particularly towards Asians. There are other places to invest, there are alternative tourist destinations, there are other places to educate their children, there are alternative sources of imports.
The fact is that it is neither moral nor does it begin to make sense to accept and live with the benefits provided by people and capital from abroad and then find them retrospectively guilty. If we were stupid enough to allow this to become the perception it is Australia which would pay the penalty – and it would be a high price indeed.
Equally important as the broad issue of racial non-discrimination is for Australia, domestically and externally, as we approach the twenty-first century is the specific question of our relations with our own Aboriginal people. I repeat this evening what I have said before: one does not have to be emotional with guilt to accept that by any relevant social and economic criteria the Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in our community who, far from being responsible for the problems of our society, or a threat to it, are most deserving of its compassion and special effort. (I must say, in passing, that the position of Pauline Hanson, and her diminishing band, who lump immigrants and Aborigines together as the scapegoats for all our ills is paradoxical. To be consistent in her anti-immigrant bias she should be the champion of the Aboriginal people, for they are the only non-immigrants amongst us!)
In particular, we do not have to believe that all those who were involved in removing Aboriginal children from their families were badly motivated. But surely we do have to believe that the fact of the stolen generations is a stain upon our collective history. Surely we are sorry that it happened and non-Aboriginal Australians should be prepared to say to our fellow Australians - the Aborigines - that we are. And that can only be done in a full and final sense by the Prime Minister through and with the support of the Commonwealth Parliament. “Sorry” is a small word but, genuinely expressed, it could have a huge influence in moving towards a real reconciliation between us.
I deeply regret that the process of Aboriginal reconciliation which my Government, with all-party support, launched in May 1991 with a ten year program to culminate with the centenary of federation in 2001 has stalled. As we said then, with high hopes, the program was intended “to bring about, through education, a greater level of awareness of Aboriginal history, cultures, dispossession, continuing disadvantage and the need to redress that disadvantage. In short, we must come to terms honestly with our own history as a nation. In so many ways this is a sad history which includes the dispossession, massacre and dispersal of Aboriginal people, confinement in reserves, removal of children from their families, and the destruction of aspects of Aboriginal culture. … this history – and much of it very recent history – needs to be recognised as the primary cause of the current disadvantaged position of Australia’s indigenous people.
The objective of the process is not to create guilt but to create an understanding of an important part of the history of Australia and the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in that history. The outcome will be practical and positive. All fair-minded non-Aboriginal Australians will have the opportunity to develop an appreciation of Aboriginal people and of their disadvantaged position in society as well as an appreciation of the richness of Aboriginal cultures and achievements and the special position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the indigenous peoples of this continent.”
As these high hopes have gradually dissipated the spurious claim that such a path to reconciliation would create division in the community has loomed large. I find the response of Dr ‘Nugget’ Coombs – who more than any other non-Aboriginal devoted himself to the cause of reconciliation – absolutely compelling: “It’s never divisive to correct injustice. The fact of injustice is divisive and will continue to be until we correct it and learn to live with it. People who benefit from injustice will oppose this, but you don’t stop working for justice simply because people around you don’t like it.”
More than anything else, I think, a fundamental misapprehension about the question of aboriginal land rights is blocking a decent approach to our relations with Aboriginal Australians. If we are to begin to deal fairly with this question we must understand the intrinsic significance of the land to traditional Aboriginal people. We white Australians who have been nurtured in a Judeo-Christian civilisation should have no difficulties in acknowledging the innate mysteries of religious belief. As one brought up from my earliest days in a religious household I still find perplexing many of the central tenets of the Christian dogma – the virgin birth, the Holy Trinity to name but two – but this does not diminish my readiness to respect the beliefs of so many others in our society who hold them as the foundation of their way of life. For our traditional Aboriginal communities their beliefs, their gods, are inseparable from the land. We may not ourselves be able to comprehend their beliefs but we should respect them. We must understand, in other words, that Aboriginal commitment to ownership of, or access to, land is based not only on a perception of prior rights but on a spiritual bond with the land.
It does no justice therefore to Aborigines, and little to the rest of us, to wage campaigns calculated to have non-Aboriginal Australians believe that their homes everywhere are under threat from some open-ended land grab by Aborigines.
Australia’s pastoral and mining industries have made a magnificent contribution to Australia’s economic development and will continue to be important sectors in providing growth in our national output and living standards. And they can do this without politicians creating images in the public mind which pit the interests of those industries against the aspirations of the Aboriginal people. We don’t have to do this, for the Aborigines themselves do not. A former Executive Director of the National Farmers’ Federation, Rick Farley, who now works closely with Aboriginal leaders, made an important statement to that effect on the 7th May 1997: “The Aboriginal people….have said that they would concede the validation of all rights necessary to operate a modern pastoral property.” And that concession extends to the concept of diversified activities on pastoral properties beyond traditional concentration on cattle raising. Individual pastoralists have established precisely such a modus vivendi which allows Aborigines reasonable opportunities for traditional hunting and fishing and access to sites of spiritual significance.
Similarly, with the mining industry, it is inaccurate to draw a picture of incompatibility of interests between miners and Aborigines. In every major mining State, and the Northern Territory, there are agreements arising out of negotiations in good faith between mining companies and Aboriginal representatives which allow exploration and development of vast mineral sources. These are the realities which allowed Galarrwuy Yunupingu to make this profoundly important statement in June1997: “The Northern Territory experience gives us confidence that we can connect the symbols and the substance to deliver the practical outcomes.”
That eloquent statement of Galarrwuy goes, I believe, to the very heart of this issue. A confident Australia can reconcile the symbols and the substance in an effective act of reconciliation which recognises the fundamental importance of the land to our Aboriginal citizens.
My friends it can be done – and it must be done. Reconciliation is not simply an option but as I put it in my very last words as Prime Minister on the 20th December 1991:
“…if you’re really serious in this country as you come to the end of this century, the first century of our existence as a nation, and you want proudly to take Australia into the 21st Century there is no chance that you’re going to be able to do this unless you have a reconciliation. Personally I would like to see that embodied in a document. I think it is infinitely more preferable that we have the courage to do that. But it is also true that the document itself, in one sense, is not the important thing. The important thing is what’s in our minds and our hearts.”
But the challenge of capturing the minds and hearts of our people so that we, as a nation, may have confidence in ourselves at home and abroad has become more difficult. The generosity of spirit in the Australian character which underpinned so much of our post-war development was founded in a sense of the good fortune of this country – of its capacity to provide growth with security of employment within a stable society.
The rapidity of the technological revolution and the globalisation of economic activity have tended to unsettle that public sentiment. The sense of bewilderment felt by so many about this fast changing world in which they live was most eloquently expressed some years ago (1966) by the American sociologist and economist Kenneth Boulding: “I was born in the middle of human history. The world today is as different from the world into which I was born, as that world was from Julius Caesar’s.” The exponential trend of the revolution since then, particularly in the fields of computers, telecommunications and bio-technology has added to this sense of bewilderment in our community. Life is more complex, the opportunity for security through employment has diminished and the certitude of a stable social order weakened.
These developments have had two disturbing effects. First, there is a greater apprehension of and resistance to change; and, second, with a growing sense of their own insecurity among many Australians there is a dilution of their commitment to the more vulnerable in our society, indeed an attempt by some to portray these very people as the scapegoats for our malaise.
Now my friends, I believe two conclusions follow from this. First, all men and women of goodwill in this country have a profound obligation to set their faces and fight against these developments; second, that we have in our armoury powerful arguments of morality, history and economics to wage and to win that fight.
Let me make the moral argument first for it is fundamental. In the eyes of the Gods of the world’s great religions there is no prejudice of colour or race nor should there be in the eyes of men or women. No person on this earth is intrinsically of greater or lesser merit because of their colour, race or creed – and, I would add, gender (where I think the Gods have not always been as clear as they might have been!). And in moral terms a disinclination to allocate resources to assist the poor and underprivileged - a prejudice against poverty – is just as unacceptable as prejudice based upon race or colour.
The arguments of history and economies are equally clear and, I believe, compelling. We should assert the unquestionable benefits to humankind which have flowed from its genius through time in creating the opportunities for a better life. Do people really believe that we would be better off if we went back to the horse and plough, if goods were manufactured the way they were a hundred years ago, if the transportation of these goods across our wharves still involved stevedores lumping them on their backs, if long distance communication still depended on tapping out messages in morse code, if the armory of the medical profession was still asprin and castor oil? The simple truth is that we cannot impose a moratorium on the genius of the human mind and we should thank God - or whomever you wish - that we can’t.
But we must take the next logical step in the argument. If we are to assert – as is the case – that the community has become and will continue to become richer overall through the processes of change then we should recognise that there are disadvantaged groups who, in the absence of positive action by society, will not derive benefit from that growing wealth – indeed they will be actually disadvantaged and will become increasingly alienated.
This disadvantage may arise from the implementation of a new technology or a change in government policy – for example a reduction in tariffs. If such changes are justified on the basis that the nation as a whole will be better off then it is both legitimate and desirable that the nation as a whole should make adequate provision for those who are adversely affected by the change – such provisions should include appropriate education, training, retraining and relocation allowances. There has been a lack of symmetry between our technological and scientific genius on the one hand and our relative leadenness as social engineers. We must redress this imbalance and he as bold in making social adjustments as we have been in technical innovation. If the moral imperative is not sufficient motivation to do what ought to be done in these areas, intelligent self-interest should be.
In our attempts to establish this climate of confidence we should draw on our history to make today’s Australians realise that their forebears created this most favoured of nations by their willingness, in both war and peace, to confront challenges and to embrace change. That embrace sometimes took longer than it should have but we are unrecognisably better for it having happened. Can you imagine, for instance what a puny force we would be for our own good and in the region if we had not adopted that massive post-war immigration program – and, in time, not had the good sense to make it racially non-discriminatory.
Australia at the end of the war was a country of just seven million people. In addition to those five and a half million immigrants we have absorbed more than half a million refugees and arrivals under other humanitarian programs – a total approaching the whole of that immediate post-war population. Today over four out of ten Australians are immigrants or the children of immigrants and half of them come from non-English speaking backgrounds. A new and richer character is emerging from the extent of intermarriage between different ethnic groups within the Australian community. About half of all immigrants – and three-quarters of their children - marry outside their own ethnic group. We should recognise diversity for what it is – a great source of new talents and ideas, a catalyst for social dynamism, a true source of wealth in both the economic and cultural sense of that term.
And it is precisely this fact which has enabled Australia to play a constructive role in our region far beyond our numbers. It is not just that we have reached the status of a middle economic power but we are recognised as a nation that has, peaceably, become as multi-racial as any on earth.
The essence of this contribution has been in not over-estimating our power to influence events but being prepared, on the basis of our economic resources and performance and the fundamental principles of fairness and equity to which we adhere, to be at the forefront in addressing issues affecting the welfare and stability of the region.
From this sensible platform Australia has achieved much over recent years of which we can be justifiably proud. Without being exhaustive let me mention three of those achievements. First, we took the lead in forming the Cairns Group of nations which came to be recognised as an extremely effective force between the American and European blocs in negotiating a successful outcome to the Uruguay Round under what was then GATT (now the World Trade Organisation).
Second, Australia was the driving force in establishing APEC – Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation - in 1989. In a functional non-spectacular way, APEC has done a considerable amount at the practical level through working groups of officials to facilitate economic and commercial intercourse between members on issues ranging from telecommunications, transportation, marine resources conservation, industrial science and technology through to the mundane but important questions of standardised customs procedures and documentation. At the broader level APEC has committed itself to moving towards free trade by the year 2020. And, very importantly, APEC provides the only institution that enables the political leaders of member nations to meet annually to discuss regional issues.
Third, it was the initiative of Australia through the United Nations that produced the election processes in Cambodia beginning the untangling of the bloody and tragic deadlock in that country. While that process has been working itself out in ways that leave much to be desired it is absolutely certain the Cambodian people and their immediate neighbours are enjoying the opportunity for greater stability than would have been the case without the imagination and commitment that went into this Australian concept.
The continuing impact of the technological revolution and globalisation will mean that our economic welfare and the nature of our society will be increasingly affected by what happens beyond our borders. This makes it all the more important we so conduct our own affairs intelligently and decently that we will be heard with respect abroad.
And so, my friends, I trust you can see why I feel a basic confidence about Australia’s identity in the twenty-first century and why we can, as a nation, have confidence in ourselves at home and abroad. An intelligent assessment of our history, this nation of migrants, provides a valid basis for that optimism.
The great potential within our grasp will not be achieved without diligence nor without vigilance. Diligence in applying effective economic and responsible social policies; and vigilance in rigorously opposing those forces within Australia and from abroad who would sow the seeds of racial hatred within our community.
In accepting with honour and gratitude the B’nai B’rith Medal for Humanitarianism on the 31st October 1989 I paid tribute to the memory of the remarkable Raoul Wallenberg and quoted the words of one person saved by him: “Raoul Wallenberg symbolises the ideal that one person can make a difference.”
My friends, if we have the commitment, and the passion, we, all, can make a difference. In making that commitment we are helped immeasurably by the example of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission. If we, as Australians who love this country, can embrace and work for the principles it espouses then we will help create in the twenty-first century a confident Australia true to its own best traditions, a safe cohesive sanctuary for its citizens enhanced by a continuing flow of immigrants, and a credible, respected force for good in our region and beyond.