Australians have always believed that immigrants should assimilate. They would not be persecuted, and they could assimilate at their own rate, hopefully adding useful features of their own culture to the mix, but they had to become Australian. The first time we ever heard about "multiculturalism" was when it was announced by the Whitlam Labor Government of 1972-75. As someone who was there at the time, I can assure you this was never mentioned in their election campaign. Perhaps it was included in some small print of their manifesto, but they never mentioned it to the electorate. Nor was there any popular demand for it. It was just announced out of thin air.
A number of other radical changes were also introduced without prior consultation. Imperial honours were cancelled, even for those who had already been told they would receive them in the New Year. (Whitlam was elected in December.) They announced that a new, Australian honours system would be introduced (which for a time included a knighthood - everyone has forgotten that). They cancelled the full page ads for British migrants which used to appear in British magazines and newspapers. British citizens would no longer be allowed to arrive without a visa as they had been previously, and as New Zealanders still are. Again, none of these policies had been announced prior to the election, nor had there ever been any popular demand for them. They were based solely on a disdain for Australia's identity as a British nation. It was a feature of this wing of politics: anything which has been honoured and esteemed for time immemorial must be got rid of.
In addition, simply out of a bigoted antipathy for colonialism, they announced that the timetable for Papua New Guinea's independence would be changed from ten years to three. Not only that, but since the Australian - and Queensland - border comes to within a few miles of PNG, Whitlam announced that he would draw the border down the middle of Torres Strait, and give the northern islands, with their inhabitants, to PNG. This is mostly forgotten today, because he had to back down in the face of opposition from both the Islanders and the Queensland Government, and the fact that the Federal Government had no constitutional power to give away part of a state to another country.
But one thing they objected to was Indo-Chinese refugees. Whitlam called them "slant eyed Balts", on the assumption that, like the refugees from the Baltic states, they would be anti-Communist, and thus unsupportive of the party which had supported the Communist takeover of their countries. This is a raw sore with me, for I had many friends who were exchange students from Vietnam and Cambodia, and I remember how devastated they were at the loss of their countries. One of them confessed that he cried himself to sleep every night because of it. And always hanging over them was the threat that they might be sent back.
Eventually, however, they realised that continuing large scale Asian immigration was just the thing needed to further destroy the Australian identity. Nothing could demonstrate the attitude better than the speech by Bill Hayden, then Deputy Prime Minister:
Australia is changing. We're an anomaly as a European country in this part of the world. There's already a large and growing Asian population in Australia and it is inevitable in my view that Australia will become a Eurasian country over the next century or two. Australian Asians and Europeans will marry one another and a new race will emerge: I happen to think that's desirable.The trouble is, that is not what the average man and woman in the street wants. Which brings us to the events of 1984. One of our most respected historians, Geoffrey Blainey made a speech in which he pointed out that bringing in large numbers of immigrants at a time of high unemployment, and ensuring that 40 per cent of them came from Asia, with a bias against British immigrants, was not a very sensible way to achieve social cohesion. That set the cat among the pigeons! Public opinion polls have consistently shown majority support for this view, but it was too much for the left wing establishment, which went into what was to become its usual modus operandi of vilification. They labeled him a racist.
This, of course, is the slur they always use to silence critics, but its weakness should be obvious to anybody with the ability to think logically. When I was a boy, we knew exactly what it meant. We were brought up with tales of the evils of racial segregation in America. "Racialism", as we called it then, meant mistreating people because of their race - the key factor being mistreatment, not race. Now, although Australia might be the best country in the world, I think it's drawing a long bow to suggest not being allowed to settle here is a form of mistreatment. We have moved from the reasonable proposition that people should not be mistreated because of their race, to the questionable one that all distinctions between races are wrong, to the completely ludicrous idea that everyone somehow has a human right to an equal opportunity to enter Australia.
Ironically, one politician who spoke out against Asian immigration at the time was John Howard - but he betrayed us. When he became Leader of the Opposition, he was forced to renounce his earlier views. Too many of the invertebrates in his party were terrified of being called racists. Many of them even believe the propaganda. Besides, he wanted to curry favour with the new Asian immigrants, irrespective of what his base might have wanted.
Which brings us to the 1996 election. Parties traditionally put their raw recruits into unwinnable seats. Oxley was a safe Labor stronghold, so the Liberal Party ran a new, completely untried candidate in that seat: Pauline Hanson. But when she made a speech opposing Asian immigration, the fat hit the fire. The rest of the party scurried for cover. They were terrified of being called racists. They disendorsed her. After all, she couldn't possibly win the seat. They thought it better to throw a raw recruit to the wolves than be seen to support her views.
The trouble was, the Keating Labor Government was so unpopular by this stage that she did win. If they had let her stay in the Liberal Party, they could have shut her up, but now she was an independent, and free to speak her own mind. Pretty soon, people were encouraging her to form a party of her own. This, of course, brought out the usual hatemongers. As one journalist quipped: One Nation was the only party with an initiation ceremony: anybody who wanted to attend one of its speeches had to run the gauntlet of screaming, abusive mobs.
The irony is, the Coalition could have easily taken the wind out of Pauline Hanson's sails by simply adopting her three major, sensible policies.
- Abolishing ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Commission. This the Howard Government eventually did, but they did nothing to cut back on the "Aboriginal industry": the setup whereby billions of taxpayer dollars end up in the hands of white administrators and urban white people with some distant Aboriginal ancestry, while the real Aborigines remain in poverty and social dysfunction in remote communities.
- Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism, which has always been unpopular with the general population. Again, the Howard Government did nothing. Not only has the lip service been kept, but hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars are still being donated to ethnic communities for the express purpose of helping them maintain their foreign identity and not assimilate. And the irony is, the Coalition is acting against its best interests in doing so, for the communities assisted in this way tend to vote Labor. In Australia, as in Britain, Europe, and North America, the political left operates on the principle of divide and rule. Rather than supporting social cohesion and the factors which unite us, they seek to divide us into tribes, and curry favour with minorities. They also work to increase their power by bringing in more minorities and bribing them with welfare, as well as destroying the national identity of the natives. Which brings us to the third sensible, and popular policy:
- Ending, or greatly restricting Asian immigration. Tell me, do you agree with Bill Hayden's aim to turn Australia into a Eurasian country? Would you like to ask your local MP, whether Labor or Liberal, if that is still the plan? The 2016 census revealed that more than a million immigrants arrived since 2011. China and India provided 35.4% of them, with additions from other Asian countries, while the UK provided only 8.3% and New Zealand 7.4%. Sydney and Melbourne have received most of them. Is this what you wanted? Did anyone consult you?
Now let us turn to the recent Queensland elections. During its long periods in office, Labor had introduced numerous acts of social engineering, to which the Liberal National Party (LNP) objected while in opposition - the legalisation of surrogacy pregnancy, the attack on free speech in "anti-vilification" laws, the intrusiveness of anti-discrimination laws, to mention just a few. Suddenly, the Campbell Newman Government gained an overwhelming majority in a single house Parliament. They were well positioned to roll back the tide of political correctness, and in so doing, send a message to other jurisdictions that it was possible. What did they do? Nothing!
No, it was worse than nothing. The last act of the Bligh Labor Government was to introduce civil unions for both homosexual and heterosexual couples. The LNP promised they would look into repealing it. Of course, Bob Katter was harshly criticized for running an ad revealing Campbell Newman's dirty little secret: that he was a supporter of same sex "marriage". On coming to power, the first act of his Government was to break the promise; they kept the law, but simply removed the ceremony. With that act of treachery, they forfeited any respect they once had.
Hopefully, Pauline Hanson has learned a bit about leadership during her time in the wilderness, but I am under no illusions about her party being a loose cannon. However, I am reminded of what a voter said about Bob Katter: "I know he's crazy, but he's extreme enough to drag all the others a little closer to the way the country should be heading." Exactly! In order to prevent leakage of votes to the Greens, the ALP has gone so far left, it has become Green-lite. Meanwhile, the Coalition is being told that they need to champion the "centre" (with the centre always moving leftwards) because their base has nowhere else to go. It's about time they were disabused.
