Is Australia racist?

[Craven Morehead]

Where did I label myself as ‘far left?’

Misrepresentation is the domain of the stupid...so, congratulations dumdum.

It seems that you need a crayon drawing.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I remember when you could say 'I agree/disagree with this person' without needing to attach a group identity to them.

Remember when the far right were confined to history books. Now they set government policy, head ministries and campaigners want to blow it off with a pathetic "just as bad as each other lol!" cover that doesn't even make sense.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

There's no breakout of rightwing populists in Australia because the government already accommodates them

It was revealed last week that Pauline Hanson will be deputy-chairing a“men’s rights” flavoured parliamentary inquiry into the family court system. The One Nation leader not only claimed credit for the development but launched into an unsubstantiated rant about false claims of domestic violence, that could have come from one of the darker corners of Reddit.

It’s an odd and unwelcome development at a time when we might instead be addressing the national crisis of violence against women. But it offers an example of why Australia, unlike other comparable democracies, has not been subject to a populist rightwing breakout.

The thing is, there just isn’t political space for a new far-right force to really flourish in Australia. Australia’s conservatives already offer enough of what the most reactionary social currents might want. Their policies tick all the right boxes – on race, gender and the environment – to an extent that leads mainstream Australian politicians, and their policies, to be praised by extremists around the world.

The Coalition hand victories directly to the far right whenever it is expedient to do so, as they did on the family court inquiry. In doing so, they normalise the far right’s agenda. Just as mandatory detention without hope of resettlement moved from the fringe to the centre, so too might the resentful distortions of family law which are currently the preserve of family court dads.

In doing all of this, unlike in Europe and even the US, Australian conservatives encounter too little resistance inside the parliament or out.

The inquiry – originally Hanson’s proposal – is just the latest example.

By giving her a platform to make false, sweeping, hateful claims about women undergoing difficult relationship breakdowns, the government is amply catering to the antifeminist segment of the electorate that resents the ebbing of unquestioned patriarchal authority in the home.

The win also helps to legitimise the other positions of Hanson, and her incompetent and morally bankrupt party.

The misogyny of men’s rights campaigners is bottomless and the inquiry won’t satisfy them completely. But there’s enough here so that those energies won’t require another outlet.

All over the policy landscape, there are things that the far right can take comfort in.

On immigration and refugee policy, the Australian government – indeed the bipartisan Australian political consensus – could be said to be to the right ofDonald Trump, who has promoted Australia’s policies on his Twitter account as something to aspire to.

The fact that, unlike Trump’s administration, the Coalition is generally regarded as a normal, mainstream conservative government, should be no comfort. It should be a reminder of how far things can go adrift under the guise of normalcy.

The government is constantly finding new ways to signal to racists that they have their interests at heart.

Peter Dutton recently described the children of a family facing deportation as“anchor babies” as he repeated his refusal to offer them asylum. But last year he floated the possibility of creating a special visa category for white South African farmers who have been the subject of “white genocide” myth-making in News Corp papers and bio-Nazi websites alike.

In his tenure as home affairs and immigration minister, Dutton has also chosen to weigh in on a moral panic about “African gangs” in Melbourne.

By very publicly demonising brown and black people, and reaching out a helping hand to South African whites, Dutton, with the tacit or explicit support of two prime ministers, has sent a very clear signal to those who want Australia white that they need look no further than the Coalition.

All the while Australia’s “points-based” immigration policies and its punitive refugee policies are the envy and aspiration of rightwing populists the world over.

While Jair Bolsonaro attracted international condemnation for actions and inaction which led to an inferno in the Amazon, the Coalition have made policies which will ensure the destruction of another great natural wonder, off the coast of Queensland.

They have relentlessly spruiked the Adani boondoggle, even as coal prices continue to slide. Matt Canavan called a company which ended its association with the mine “a bunch of bedwetters” and “weak as piss”.

Earlier in the year, Barnaby Joyce repeated Scott Morrison’s own gesture of bringing a lump of coal into the parliament to praise and fondle.

When Pacific Island nations pressed the prime minister on climate change at the Pacific Islands Forum, his response was “insulting and condescending”, and his deputy made remarks in which he said he was “annoyed” by the leaders of countries campaigning for their own continued survival, and that their populations could “pick our fruit”.

For a second-tier power, Australia’s government proved it could still be a first-class bully. But again, voters wanting intermittent displays of quasi-colonial chauvinism and obstinate extractive vandalism and dumb stunts to “own the Libs” are covered.

The difference between Australia and, say, the US or the UK, is that far-right surges there have been met with outrage and resistance both inside and outside the realm of formal national politics.

The Democratic party may be clumsy, and lacking in strategic unity in their response to Trump, but there can be no doubt that they are opposed to the president’s agenda, from immigration to foreign affairs to trade.

British politics and society, meanwhile, has been cleaved in two by the conflict over Brexit, and opponents of leaving the European Union have organised mass street demonstrations, and engaged in increasingly militant street actions.

By comparison, Australia, and especially the government’s official political opponents, currently seem quiescent and complacent.

Labor’s answer to its recent election loss appears to be a plan to track right. Even before the election Labor passed deeply flawed encryption laws; since then it has waved through Scott Morrison’s tax cuts. It has reiterated its support for the basic framework of laws around asylum seekers, which prevent them settling in Australia. Queensland’s Labor government has facilitated the Adani project, including stripping native title from the site.

In civil society, while many activists are doing important work in resisting aspects of the government’s hard-right agenda, there is not the sense of an urgent, broad political mobilisation we find in those countries where populists have taken the reins.

In Australia, there has been no galvanising crisis. All of this has happened – is happening – within the range of politics-as-normal. And much of it has been normalised, even promoted, by a news media which is dominated by a company that has worked hard to shift politics right in every democracy in which it has a presence.

Until Friday, Australia seems to have been sleepwalking.

Has it finally woken up?

• Jason Wilson is a Guardian Australia columnist

There's no breakout of rightwing populists in Australia because the government already accommodates them | Jason Wilson

Australian conservatives have helped normalise the far-right agenda, from immigration and environment to family law

www.theguardian.com

 

[Scotland]

Remember when the far right were confined to history books. Now they set government policy, head ministries and campaigners want to blow it off with a pathetic "just as bad as each other lol!" cover that doesn't even make sense.

I remember when people who said things like "far right" and "conservative" all the time knew what those terms meant.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I remember when people who said things like "far right" and "conservative" all the time knew what those terms meant.

Misdirection.

 

[Craven Morehead]

Misdirection.

Serious question.
Where would you place yourself in this left/right binary view you have?

 

[Kram]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/dan-murphys-application-rejected-darwin/11533764

Bomberboy, is this racist?

 

[Engimal v3]

There's no breakout of rightwing populists in Australia because the government already accommodates them

While I sort of agree with the gist of that article, isn't it pretty widely accepted that family courts are skewed against men? I'm pretty sure I've read statistics on the outcomes of men seeking custody vs women (and similar stats), and men always lose.

That's a genuine question, by the way. Without knowing the ins and outs of the inquiry, I think investigating the family courts could be worthwhile and seems to 'stick out' from the other issues the author listed.

 

[ioppolo]

Make of it what you will, but the NT has the highest proportion of cops to population on Australia. By A LOT. More than double the next highest.

 

[Procrastinator35]

Make of it what you will, but the NT has the highest proportion of cops to population on Australia. By A LOT. More than double the next highest.

Must be all them crocodiles.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Australia isn't racist. They hate all races equally. Except whites.

 

[jaaack]

Racism is like the "God of the gaps" argument that atheists use. So the atheist argument goes: "You God-people are claiming that any gaps in the scientific understanding of the world are explained by God. As science advances and fills in those gaps, you find other gaps, smaller and further back, and claim that they can only be explained by God".

You can disagree with that if you want, I don't care, I just wanted to use the analogy rather than derail this thread with religion talk.

Several decades ago, you could make the argument that certain races were at a disadvantage, and performed comparatively poorly on most/all social metrics (wealth, income, education, employment, crime, etc), because they were discriminated against, segregated, denied the right to vote, etc. Now, the more that these "gaps" in equality are filled in, and the more those social metrics remain the same, the more we find the phantom "racism" retreating into more obscure, more arcane, less measurable "gaps". Racism has gone from actual, tangible brutality to, eg, imperfect racial representation in TV shows, or inscrutable "white privilege" ideological gibbering.

This isn't to say that there aren't vestiges of racism in Australia, institutional and otherwise. But we're never going to get to a point where people admit that there is no racism, not least because even without racism, it is very likely that many traits, aptitudes and abilities will still be distributed differently among different racial populations, and they will never perform equally on the aforementioned social metrics.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Make of it what you will, but the NT has the highest proportion of cops to population on Australia. By A LOT. More than double the next highest.

They also have 10 times more homeless per population over any other state,

 

[Procrastinator35]

They also have 10 times more homeless per population over any other state.

Less chance of freezing to death up in the tropics.

Southern California also has a massive homeless population....But people flock there from all over the States for the same reason....To stay warm.

 

[Craven Morehead]

Less chance of freezing to death up in the tropics.

Southern California also has a massive homeless population....But people flock there from all over the States for the same reason....To stay warm.

You've obviously never spent any time in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek...pretty much anywhere south of Katherine in winter.

 

[Procrastinator35]

You've obviously never spent any time in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek...pretty much anywhere south of Katherine in winter.

Hence my 'Tropics' reference....Alice Springs sits just beneath the line of Capricorn at it's height in summer, while Tennant Creek sits a mere 5 degrees within it.

 

[Steinfreo]

It used be massively racist. I think it's a little better now. Foreign people from all over the world coming here in droves has helped.

My uncle was adopted from Indonesia and grew up in suburban Perth in the 70/80s has some insane horror stories from his youth.

 

[Craven Morehead]

Hence my 'Tropics' reference....Alice Springs sits just beneath the line of Capricorn at it's height in summer, while Tennant Creek sits a mere 5 degrees within it.

Yeah, but a very, very large percentage of homeless live in the areas I mentioned.
Plenty freeze to death in the Todd River overnight.

 

[edgie]

In fairness, aussies used to be racist to white people too. Angus and Malcolm Young and Bon Scott were often victims being Scottish.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Steinfreo]

In fairness, aussies used to be racist to white people too. Angus and Malcolm Young and Bon Scott were often victims being Scottish.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The new movie the nightingale goes into this. It creates an analogy between the experience of an Irish convict women and indigenous man in tasmania at the birth of our country.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Less chance of freezing to death up in the tropics.

Southern California also has a massive homeless population....But people flock there from all over the States for the same reason....To stay warm.

I dont think people migrate from the frosty streets of melbourne and perth to alice springs quietly.

 

[Procrastinator35]

I dont think people migrate from the frosty streets of melbourne and perth to alice springs quietly.

We're not quite as derelict in our treatment of the poor as the U.S as yet.....But we're fast getting there, in following all of their prescriptions....The link between Morrison's govt, Ruprect & Trump, is hard to ignore on this point.

It was CM who mentioned the Alice, not me.

 

[Scotland]

If you live in a remote community are you counted as homeless?

 

[PT Bar None]

When I lived in the NT you couldn't buy metho off the shelf at Woolies like you could down here. You had to ask for it at the smokes counter. And it was coloured bright purple.

NT has an alcohol problem. Real easy to slide into when you live up there too.

 

[Procrastinator35]

If you live in a remote community are you counted as homeless?

Probably a difficult thing to keep a tab on....I mean, does a shack made out of old corrugated roofing iron count as a home?....I wouldn't be confusing 'remote community' for an old fashioned Nomadic existence....which is not to say that some of the young blokes still don't go 'Walkabouts'....Plenty of those remote communities are also being forced into more populated & urban areas, due to economic rationalisation, which exacerbates the homeless issue....It's not easy to adapt to 4 walls & a suburban street, strange neighbours, road & fences; Where you've had an entire horizon open before you, prior to that.

I reckon most deaths resulting from exposure in the outback, would be more due to drug & alcohol related issues.

The indigenous community is one that's still reeling from shock & devastation at the loss of it's traditional culture....There are no easy answers.