White Australia policy

Why the Voice could be a bulwark against Trumpism gaining a stronger foothold in Australia

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
ACT, Hatred, Heart, Turnbull, Optimism, Democracy, White Australia policy, Oval, Liberal Party, Culture, Politics, Aborigine, Fear, Trump, Conservative Political Action Conference, Shock, Hope, Indigenous peoples, Human, Electoral college, Black, Advance Australia, Violent crime, Human voice, Advance Australia (lobby group), Oval Office, 2021 United States Electoral College vote count, Police, Algorithm, Republican, First Nations, United Kingdom, City, Donald Trump, Ecosystem, Brexit, Liberal, Labour, News, Conference, Social media, CPAC, Indigenous Australians, Whaling, Hunting, Mobile phone, Cable television, Trumpism

As former Labor minister Barry Jones has wisely noted, the Voice referendum feels like 2016 all over again.

Key Points: 
  • As former Labor minister Barry Jones has wisely noted, the Voice referendum feels like 2016 all over again.
  • The only consolation was that Trump did not win a majority of votes in the United States.
  • Maybe the Voice will prevail, as Senator Pat Dodson says:
    I believe Australians are better than this.

A campaign defined by fear-mongering

    • Anthony Albanese has said there is “nothing scary, nothing to be fearful of here”.
    • Liberal Party politicians have been warned that those who support the Voice will lose their pre-selection for seats in parliament.
    • Former ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell has said
      This has been politicised to the point that people aren’t comfortable to campaign for what they believe in because of the politics.
    • This has been politicised to the point that people aren’t comfortable to campaign for what they believe in because of the politics.

How Trump’s messages seep into Australia

    • If he returns to power, Australia will undoubtedly see a steady flood of these messages via his social media posts and pronouncements from the Oval Office.
    • “Law and order” will be a recurrent theme in the 2024 presidential election, should Trump be the Republican candidate again.
    • Trump supporters in Australia, including some who hold or aspire to public office, will pick up those messages and propagate them here.
    • Read more:
      'Alt-right white extremism' or conservative mobilising: what are CPAC's aims in Australia?

Why the Voice could insulate Australia from Trumpism

    • The existence of the Voice will mean that Trumpism is unlikely to derail what the body is intended to achieve.
    • The victorious opponents of the Voice, with their echoes of Trumpism, will be poised to keep advancing their agenda.
    • As George Megalogenis recently concluded, “A ‘no’ vote would revive both the colonial ghost of dispossession and the federation ghost of the White Australia policy.” That would be a victory for Trumpism in Australia, even before Trump’s fate is decided next year by voters in America.

From Chinatowns to ethnoburbs and beyond, where Chinese people settle reflects changing wealth levels and political climates

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Hatred, Poverty, Housing, McMansion, Violence, Awareness, COVID-19, Asian Americans, Gold, Restaurant, Learning, White Australia policy, City, Racism, Chinese Exclusion Act, Policy, Geopolitics, Group, Legislation, Hunting, Drug, Film industry, Jewellery, Silicon

Ethnoburbs defy the traditional assumption that Chinese immigrants arrive poor and have to settle in urban Chinatowns before earning enough money to move to the suburbs.

Key Points: 
  • Ethnoburbs defy the traditional assumption that Chinese immigrants arrive poor and have to settle in urban Chinatowns before earning enough money to move to the suburbs.
  • Instead, educated and wealthy Chinese immigrants arriving in the past few decades have settled in upper- to upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
  • Shifting Chinese immigrant settlement patterns reflect the changing profile of Chinese immigrants and the effects of globalization and geopolitics.

Changing Chinatowns

    • Chinatowns – inner-city, compact Chinese residential and commercial quarters – represent the prototypical ethnic enclave, a geographic area with high concentrations of a particular ethnic group.
    • A number of Chinatowns were displaced in the name of urban development or because of violence.
    • Since the repeal of those policies, the fate of Chinatowns in different locations has varied dramatically.
    • Some intentionally developed Chinatowns, like the one Las Vegas opened in 1995, are commercial plazas with mostly restaurants and shops.

Emergence of ethnoburbs

    • Another type of immigrant community has been emerging since the 1960s as a result of changing immigration policies: ethnoburbs.
    • Then, during the second half of the century, the center moved steadily eastward as large numbers of new Chinese immigrants directly settled in the suburban San Gabriel Valley, signifying the emergence of an ethnoburb.
    • For example, ethnoburbs in Silicon Valley emerged with high-tech industries attracting skilled and affluent Asian Americans who are highly politically involved.

Ethnoburbs are different from Chinatowns

    • Residents in ethnoburbs are more racially and socioeconomically diverse, suggesting greater potential for racial tensions and class conflicts than traditional ethnic enclaves.
    • Many ethnoburbs have supplanted Chinatowns as the commercial and cultural centers of contemporary Chinese diasporas.
    • Obviously, not all Chinese people live in Chinatowns or ethnoburbs.

Geopolitics and integration

    • Recent decades have seen increasing anti-Asian hate amid rising geopolitical tensions with the People’s Republic of China, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
    • The long-term effects of these trends on Chinese diasporas are unclear.
    • We hope that ethnoburbs will not become, like historical Chinatowns, the only refuge for Chinese immigrants to live.
    • Learning from history’s mistakes is key to building a fair and just society for all, the Chinese diaspora included.

How we're using the Vietnamese ethnic savings scheme 'Hụi' to buy back our cultural heritage

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Poverty, Small business, Partnership, He (letter), Housing, Violence, Crime, Exhibition, Private law, Fall of Saigon, Culture, War, Myth, Holiday, Australian, Viaduto do Chá, Sydney Opera House, Museum, Lifting, White Australia policy, First Nations, Policy, System, Aunt, Sydney Opera House Trust, Tourism, Drug, Entertainment, Health insurance, Auction, Footscray

This clandestine loan-savings scheme was a way for low-income Vietnamese refugees to buy their first family car, start a small business or make a home deposit.

Key Points: 
  • This clandestine loan-savings scheme was a way for low-income Vietnamese refugees to buy their first family car, start a small business or make a home deposit.
  • They survive today in rural areas and overseas diaspora communities who have struggled to secure bank loans and legal credit.
  • It is interesting that multiple cultures across the Moana-Pacific use the term “Hui” to describe a collective gathering or negotiation.

Vietnamese diaspora

    • With this mass intake, fragmented resettlement programs and unreliable social and legal services compounded the realities of post-traumatic stress and poverty.
    • The outer suburbs where our families could afford to live – Cabramatta, Footscray, Richmond, and Inala – quickly gained a reputation for gang violence, becoming infamous as the drug-riddled Vietnamese ghettos of the eastern seaboard.

Collective sharing

    • Class affiliations meant people could reconnect through well-established social networks to form tightly regulated Hụi clubs wherever we resettled.
    • Monthly payments could range anywhere between $200 and $5,000, depending on the risk tolerance and income bracket of each club.
    • These collective savings schemes were risky, with no legal recourse if members decided to Dựt Hụi, or “do a runner”.
    • Intrinsically collective and self-determined, Hụi encourages unexpected forms of cultural agency and mobilisation beyond institutional permission or containment.

Playing the Đông Sơn Drum

    • The Đông Sơn Drum is an ancient ceremonial instrument woven into the mythology and identity of Vietnamese people.
    • These drums are held in colonial museums and ethnographic collections the world over.
    • We had the quick cash to purchase a Đông Sơn drum when it came up at a local estate auction.

10 questions about the Voice to Parliament - answered by the experts

Retrieved on: 
Sunday, June 18, 2023
Referendum, Conversation, Education, Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Culture, Heart, Policy, Suggestion, Aborigine, The Conversation, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Rights, High court, Human, Research, Government, ATSIC, Parliament, Indigenous peoples, UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Treaty, MP, Outline, Uluru, Association, Risk, Kimberley Land Council, UN, White Australia policy, First Nations, Confusion, Commonwealth, Health, International law, Constitution, Legislation, Whaling, Cassette tape, Publishing, Nursing, Phonograph record, Mining, Mobile phone, Human voice

This type of information can manipulate people’s understanding of the issues, distort their vote and the result.

Key Points: 
  • This type of information can manipulate people’s understanding of the issues, distort their vote and the result.
  • Those looking for answers that avoid misinformation and disinformation often – with good reason – turn to experts.
  • Read more:
    We now know exactly what question the Voice referendum will ask Australians.

1. Do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people support the Voice?

    • While there is not a single view among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, there is significant – indeed extraordinary – levels of support among them for the Voice.
    • First, Indigenous support is demonstrated by the deliberative processes that sits behind the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
    • This involved more than 1,200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the country (the claim that non-Indigenous people attended the dialogues is false).

2. Will the Voice insert race into the Constitution?

    • That section was originally included so as to give effect to the White Australia Policy, and Aboriginal people were excluded from it.
    • Its existence and breadth underscores the need for a mechanism – the Voice – to listen to the very people to whom those laws would apply.

3. How will the Voice make a practical difference?

    • The Voice will give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak to government and the parliament about what’s needed for practical improvements to people’s lives.
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have answers to many pressing issues confronting their communities, but all too often are not heard.

4. How can the Voice represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views?

    • Claims that the Voice will be a “Canberra Voice”, unrepresentative of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and their views, misrepresents the proposal.
    • These principles indicate how the government intends the Voice to represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and their views.
    • These commitments will ensure the Voice is representative of the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views.

5. Is the Voice in breach of international human rights standards?

    • In fact, the Voice is supported under international human rights law as it recognises Indigenous peoples’ rights to political representation and is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
    • In human rights and international law, equality and anti-discrimination means more than just treating people exactly the same.

6. Don’t Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people already have lots of ‘voices’ to government and parliament?

    • There is currently no representative body to provide, in a nationally coordinated way, the government and parliament with the views and experience of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who will be affected by their decisions.
    • To the extent there are other Indigenous organisations working with government and parliament, the Voice will complement, not detract, from their work.
    • And while there may be more Aboriginal parliamentarians than ever – and this should be celebrated – these individuals do not primarily represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

7. Will the Voice give rise to High Court litigation and clog up parliamentary work?

    • According to the prevailing weight of informed legal opinion, the establishment of the Voice does not pose any abnormal risk of excessive litigation.
    • Read more:
      What happens if the government goes against the advice of the Voice to Parliament?

8. How does the Voice affect sovereignty?

    • The Voice proposal interacts with sovereignty at three different levels.
    • First, the call for the Voice reform is based on the strong assertion in the Uluru Statement from the Heart of the continuing and unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
    • This is not what is happening under the Voice proposal.

9. Why do we need to put the Voice in the Constitution?

    • First Nations people, through the Uluru Statement from the Heart, indicated they wished for recognition in the form of the Voice.
    • The second part of the answer relates to the operation of the Voice.
    • If the Voice is in the Constitution, it can only be abolished by another referendum, rather than by a change of government policy.

10. Do Australians have enough detail to vote at the referendum?

    • There’s often a lot of confusion about this question, which is because there are two types of detail that people talk about.
    • This is the bit Australians are being asked to vote on, and the bit that is “permanent” (subject to a future referendum).
    • The second is the detail about what the legislation establishing the “nuts and bolts” of the Voice will look like.
    • Geoffrey Lindell has provided pro bono assistance to the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre on the Voice.

What BBC and Stan series Ten Pound Poms gets right – and wrong – about the British migrant experience in Australia

Retrieved on: 
Friday, May 12, 2023
SBS, World war, Ostracism, Travel, Violence, Life, BBC, Smog, Faye Marsay, Aborigine, Nissen, Ten, Work, Income, Series, White Australia policy, Ten Pound Poms, We've Come for You All, Policy, Family, Warren Brown, General store, Film industry, Nursing, Weaving, Tourism, Health insurance

As snow falls against a grey sky in Manchester, Terry Roberts (Warren Brown) works to repair buildings damaged during the second world war.

Key Points: 
  • As snow falls against a grey sky in Manchester, Terry Roberts (Warren Brown) works to repair buildings damaged during the second world war.
  • Set in 1956, Ten Pound Poms, a co-production between the BBC and Stan, tells the story of British migrants as they struggle to build new lives in a distant and unknown land.

Australia’s post-war migration program

    • The “Ten Pound Pom” scheme was launched in 1945 and continued into the early 1970s.
    • Australia’s post-war migration program was driven by the imperative to “populate or perish”.
    • Australia was still a British country and a proud member of the British Empire, with a preference for British migrants.

A new life?

    • But once they arrive in Australia, their dream of a new life is dealt a blow.
    • As assisted migrants, they are sent straight to a migrant hostel camp, where they will live while earning enough to pay their own way.
    • Most assisted migrants who arrived by ship ended up in these camps, where they could stay while they looked for work and resettled.
    • Instead they make only brief appearances, and even then, often as caricatures, such as the lazy and overly-emotional Italian, Maria (Sarah Furnari).

An imperial past

    • But Ten Pound Poms gives us an idealised portrayal of the migrants’ relationship with Ron and the other Aboriginal characters.
    • Series writer, English screenwriter and playwright Danny Brocklehurst, rightly points out these migrant stories are an important aspect of Australia’s past that have received little attention.
    • But equally important is that this remembering takes account of both Britain and Australia’s imperial past.

Unpapering the cracks: sugar, slavery and the Sydney Morning Herald

Retrieved on: 
Monday, April 17, 2023
Colonial Sugar Refining Company, The Sydney Morning Herald, BHP, University of New South Wales Press, Man, Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, Industry, Comment, White Australia policy, Crook, UNSW, Friends, Racism, Politics, Policy, Ted Baillieu, Australian Financial Review, Woman, Tropical climate, Age, Jenna Price, Scott Trust Limited, CSR, Government, Ship, Australian Human Rights Commission, The, Fairfax Media, Thug, The Guardian, Island, Mining, Asbestos, Mortality, Federation, Growth, Symes, Family, Sea Islands, Television, Textile, Department store, Shipbuilding, Whaling, Airline, Guardian, List of islands in the Pacific Ocean, New South

In 1841, John Fairfax (1804-1877) became the first of five generations of Fairfax family owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, which had been founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald.

Key Points: 
  • In 1841, John Fairfax (1804-1877) became the first of five generations of Fairfax family owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, which had been founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald.
  • CSR was founded in Sydney in 1855 by Edward Knox, but it descended from the Australasian Sugar Company, established in 1842.
  • Although the Sydney Morning Herald was normally a strong supporter of the White Australia Policy, the paper wanted it suspended in the case of the cane fields.
  • The Fairfaxes controlled the Sydney Morning Herald for 149 years, until 1990 when a misguided takeover action mounted by young Warwick Fairfax ended in financial disaster.
  • In 1935, the Sydney Morning Herald conceded that “blackbirding” – a practice it had implicitly supported in the 1890s and early 1900s – was actually a “type of slavery”.
  • Comment was sought from the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald for this article but no reply was provided at the time of writing.