Mr Andrews, Tamworth and Sudanese Refugees

I found the sudden outbreak of controversy on Sudanese refugees very puzzling. My first concern was that, as with Tamworth, the treatment of the issue was going to do us global harm. Then I thought, just what are we talking about, how did this happen? So I started digging down.

I will talk about this in a moment. First, a reminder note on Tamworth.

A little over twelve months ago, a decision by Tamworth City Council to reject participation in a refugee resettlement program created national and international controversy. Tamworth was presented as racist. This did us great damage as a country. When I dug down, I found a far more complicated issue than that presented by the media. Those that are interested will find my last comment here, the main entry point here.

Mr Andrews has a bad habit of putting both feet in his mouth and then stomping around. We saw this in his treatment of the Haneef case where he just made things worse by his defensive comments. Even so, given the international firestorm created by Tamworth, I found the newspaper reports strange.

I started by checking blog postings because they give a time sensitive response pattern in a way that is much easier to follow than the normal Google searches. The first blog post that I could find was on 2 October. By 5 October, this had grown to nine pages.

I then checked Mr Andrews' ministerial web site. You will find the Minister's releases and door stops etc here. The first reference is in an interview on 2 October with Neil Mitchell on 3AW Mornings. Reading between the lines from Legal Eagle's post as well as the content, it appears that Mr Andrews' was responding to a Melbourne media beat up.

Now I do not think that Mr Andrew's handled Mr Mitchell's aggressive questioning especially well. But if you look at the transcript, I cannot see anything especially racist in the response.

Now look at the interview by the ABC's Lindy Burns later in the day. She is trying very hard to make it all an issue, including the previous but apparently unannounced reduction in the African refugee quota in the current financial year to 30 per cent of the total. Again, I cannot see anything especially racist in the Minister's response.

Note, by the way, Mr Andrew's reference to the cost of the refugee resettlement program. There are some issues here that I will come back to in a moment.

3 October began with an interview with Jon Faine, ABC Melbourne. Mr Faine's opening question set the tone: Why punish the African refugee community because of the acts of a few in experiencing difficulties assimilating in Australia? Mr Andrews responded: Well we're not doing that and can I start with the facts?

Again read the transcript carefully. There is nothing racist here, no race card. Note, too, the reference again to the extra $200 million put in to support to support refugee, especially African, refugee resettlement.

With this issue running hot, Mr Andrew's felt obliged to call a doorstop interview that same day. You will find the transcript here. Look at the tone of the questions. Mr Andrews is trying to explain that there are particular problems linked to background and education. Again, I can see nothing racist here.

Then later on the same day in a a radio interview with Philip Clark, Mr Andrews again states the special problems faced by Sudanese refugees.

Under all this pressure, the next day (4 October) Mr Andrews felt obliged to put out a special press release dealing with the problem. This is, I think, the release that The Age headlined on 5 October as Minister's African dossier renews racial tensions. Again read the release carefully. The release refers to problems and some complaints from communities. I can see nothing racist in it.

Now I want to leave this press controversy and return to the Tamworth story. As I do so, remember the extra $200 million.

There were two key issues in the Tamworth case.

The first is the rules of the refugee resettlement required community support. When Tamworth Council conducted a survey, they found conflict. The second issue was the perceived inadequacy in the Immigration Department back up for the program, given the refugees special problems.

Having rejected participation in the program, the media storm forced the revocation of the decision. So what has happened in Tamworth since now out of the media spotlight?

On 6 February, the Northern Daily Leader reported Armidale seeks greater resources for refugees. The story went on:

Tamworth came under fire for rejecting the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s refugee resettlement program but self-proclaimed “refugee welcome zone” – Armidale – isn’t jumping head first into the program either.

Armidale and Tamworth are old rivals, a bit like Sydney and Melbourne. Unlike Tamworth, the more politically savvy Armidale had agreed in principle to accept refugees around the same time Tamworth was approached, but only if the required support was there. Further, Armidale had formed a committee including refugee support groups to consider the issue. The net effect was the same.

On 20 February 2007, the Northern Daily Leader reported that a group of Sudanese refugees had arrived in Tamworth to a warm welcome. However, these refugees had not come under the refugee program. Rather, all four had come to Tamworth under the family re-union program.

There is then a long gap until 4 May when the Mayor claimed that Council was not dragging the chain on refugee resettlement. According to the Mayor:

...the next move was up to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which he said "has some serious problems".

"There's been a change of minister, a change of policies. [Council] hasn't heard anything at all," Cr Treloar said yesterday.

"The Department of Immigration and Citizenship has our proposal on the resettlement program and we are waiting for a response. We are not looking at any proposal from the department; we are waiting for them to consider ours."

There has been nothing since.

Link all this to the $200 million in new funding that I referred to.

If I read all the tea leaves correctly, the core problem is nothing to do with all the current press stories. Rather, the problem is that even with the spend of an extra $200 million, we do not have the money to support the resettlement program.

Here Armidale people have argued that the Sudanese refugees require what is essentially a major training program to give them the skills they need to settle into Australia. This is not a criticism of the Sudanese. Rather, it is an assessment of a skills gap.

This is what Minister Andrews has been referring too and quite explicitly in some of his remarks. The real story is not a furphy about racism, but really the amount of money we are prepared to spend to help people.

My personal view is that we should be prepared to develop the new approaches and to spend the cash required to help people settle in. But that is just my view

Musings - UAI offers, Tamworth and refugees

I have noticed a real spike in traffic on this blog in the last few days. When I look at the details, this has come from two topics.

The first is people doing searches on topics relating to the NSW Higher School Certificate or the UAI. I think that this simply reflects the fact that first round offers for NSW and ACT universities will become available from 9 oclock tonight.

Based on news reports, there are 3,000 more places being offered this year, but 10,000 students who want to go to university will still miss out on Government funded places. That's a fair size number. So parents are worried. This includes us, since Helen has applied for a new course at a new university. She would have got in last year with her then UAI ranking. This year who knows.

Looking at the pattern of searches, parents obviously remain confused. One of the difficulties here appears to be that there is no single site that supplies all the information in simple terms that concerned parents need. Certainly I have found this. Given that youngest (Clare) is doing the HSC this year, maybe one thing that I should do later in the year is to put up some straight information material with supporting links written from a parent perspective.

On youngest, Clare is not well today, spending the entire day lying down on the coach.

Tamworth and refugees is the second traffic spike. Part of this has come from search engines, part from redirects from Ninglun's site, and especially from his Jim Belshaw on Tamworth story. I have watched this post climb up the most visited rankings on Neil's site, again reflecting interest.

The fact that Tamworth Council has changed directions has now been well reported. I will comment, but I am also forming the view that we are missing the real story.

I like to provide a different perspective. When I began reporting on Tamworth, I tried to draw out some of the issues from both a Tamworth and process perspective. Yes, I was critical, but I also tried to avoid stereotypes.

Out of all this has come my view that we are missing a most remarkable story.

The Australian Government has been saying for some time that Australia remains a world leader in accepting refugees. Often, this claim is made in the context of debates over things like our detention policy, so the facts tend to get submerged. Further, the way we organise our statistics makes it difficult to get accurate numbers.

So let's put numbers aside and look at what we (I) learned from the Tamworth case.

1. Recognising that the official statistics are biased because of the way we classify refugees, in the last financial year we appear to have accepted around 17,000 refugees for permanent settlement, over half from trouble spots in Africa including Sudan.

2. The African refugees are very different from those we have accepted in the past. They look different, have less education and in many cases have been severely traumatised. This was one of the points made by Tamworth City Council.

3. We have an official program for settling these refugees in specific communities. This may have weaknesses, another Tamworth point, but dozens of communities (especially it seems in Regional Australia) have agreed to participate. For those who do not know Regional Australia, because most migrants go the capital cities the ethnic mix in Regional Australia is much less varied. So these communities are accepting people who are very different from those already living there.

4. When the Tamworth imbroglio broke, many of these communities who had accepted Sudanese refugees came to the defence of their people. I am not saying that things are perfect, simply that things seem to be working.

So why don't we promote the things that are working? This, or so it seems to me, is the real story.

Here I must admit to a prejudice that those who read my blogs can infer.

I know country Australia pretty well. I know that country people including those in the regional centres have prejudices. However, country people with their sense of community have something that I fear has been lost by many metro Australians. They can distinguish between their general prejudices and their responses to individuals.

A country person may be prejudiced against a specific group and may express those views in both private and public conversation in a way no longer acceptable in the more politically correct metro centres. But a country person also has the capacity to decide that a particular individual, family or group is okay because of their contribution to the community. This capacity, once and maybe still a mainstream Australian capacity, is the reason why Australia was able to accept so many migrants after the second world war.

Tamworth & Refugees - broader lessons

The refusal by Tamworth City Council to accept five Sudanese refugee families under a Commonwealth Government program has received world wide coverage.

I dealt with this issue in an initial way in a post on my New England, Australia blog. Since then, I have had a chance to dig further.

Chronology

On 11 December 2006 under the heading "Report recommends refugee go-ahead", The Northern Daily Leader provided details on the proposal.

In April 2006, the Department of Immigration approached Tamworth Regional Council with a proposal to establish a humanitarian refugee resettlement centre in Tamworth. Similar programs had already been successful in Coffs Harbour, Inverell and Armidale.

One of the key criteria for the proposal to progress was that "the community [of Tamworth] is aware and is welcoming of the resettled refugees".

Following an extended consultation process, representatives from a broad spectrum of community-based groups discussed the proposal in November. DIMA, Anglicare, Hunter New England Health, Community Settlement Services Scheme, TAFE, Centrelink, Department of Community Services, police, Tamworth Real Estate Agents Association and the North West Slopes Division of General Practice were all supportive of the proposal for five families to arrive next year.

Council staff then prepared a report recommending that Council seek agreement from the NSW Government for Tamworth become a humanitarian refugee resettlement centre, accepting a maximum of five families in the first year.

This report was considered by Council at its meeting on the evening of 11 December, with the Northern Daily Leader reporting on the meeting next day.

Council rejected the proposal by a 6 to 3 majority, with those voting against all saying that public opinion demonstrated Tamworth was not ready to host a refugee resettlement centre handling five families in its first year. There were also a number of specific criticisms of both the consultation process and the report.

While the staff report to Council had concluded that the community was broadly supportive, the majority of submissions from the public during the consultation process had been negative, while those attending the public gallery during the discussion were split for and against.

Five speakers in total made a case on the issue from the public gallery during the meeting.

Those in favour of the recommendation spoke of the success of current refugees living in the city, of a quiet but willing network of volunteers and support people, and of Christian and religious values. Those in opposition spoke of a lack of services, and demanded council acknowledge an earlier voluntary survey which returned a 393 to 99 response against the resettlement plans.

Prior to the meeting, Council general manager Glenn Inglis had described his staff's report and the recommendations as fair and balanced. Mr Inglis said the voluntary survey was not a "fair representation" of community views, adding "Unfortunately, in Australia, we only ever seem to hear the opposers the loudest."

Reactions from the public gallery to Council's decision to reject the report covered applause from those opposed, disgust from those supporting.

There was instant community reaction to the decision.

On 13 November the Northern Daily Leader carried a story on responses, two pages of letters in support of the proposed centre, while talk back radio callers were strongly in favour of the proposed centre as well.. In addition, the paper carried a second story on the same day in which it set out the views of each councillor on the reasons why they voted the way they did.

It was this second story that I think really set the cat among the pigeons, ensuring subsequent national publicity. All the opposing councillors referred to public opposition to the proposal, with several commenting that they would have supported it had they felt that a majority was in favour. Councillors also referred to problems with the Department's resourcing of the program when dealing, in Mayor Treloar's words, with severely traumatised individuals.

Fair enough perhaps, but the unfortunate and insensitive use of words guaranteed future trouble.

Councilor Treloar:

• "I absolutely believe the right decision was made and that this is the honest response the community was seeking. This is the natural reaction to such a plan, after current events. Ask the community in Cronulla, 12 months on if they want more refugees."
• "Maybe we will be labelled racist, but only for the two days the media harp on about it. Quite frankly its tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping. It should be noted that all the people I've spoken to today have said thank you for the decision we made."

Councilor Tongue, someone who would have voted in favour if he thought that the proposal had majority support:

• "The decision by council is much bigger than just branding us or the community racist and won't change the status of this town or our friendliness to all visitors. I personally don't want to see the events that are occurring in Sydney happen here, such as the racial slurs, and particularly those against Australian women. "

On 14 December the Leader reported on a possible rescission motion, noting also that the churches were organising a petition. However, Mayor Treloar was digging in, arguing that any rescission motion would likely fail as the voting positions did not appear to have changed. He also argued that the opponents of the project were a silent majority: "What you are seeing is a reaction from a vocal group of people with strong beliefs that others, who are less vocal about it, don't share."

On Friday 15 December, the Leader reported that "if Tamworth Regional Council was unsure of public opinion regarding the rejection of the refugee resettlement proposal on Tuesday it got some answers loud and clear," with city hall deluged with phone calls and emails, the paper with letters, with the letters running 3 to one against the Council decision.

That same day, the Leader carried a story reporting on condemnation of the decision by local community and political leaders, together with a further report on attitudes among the councilors.

On Friday as well, the story finally broke nationally creating something of a media frenzy over the weekend. On Sunday 17 December the Leader reported that Councilor Treloar was maintaining his position in the face of calls for his resignation. And that is where things stand for the moment.

Issues

Tamworth's problems seem to have begun with the community consultation process. That process, while clearly flawed, appears to have revealed concerns among at least some in the Tamworth community.

I do not have access to the submissions received , but based on the media reports the community concerns appear to be a mirror image of media reporting especially on Cronulla. Here the media presented the riots not as a rare incident reflecting specific local issues, but through a prism set by race and religion. The Tamworth community - or at least those concerned enough to respond - said we do not want a Cronulla in Tamworth.

This view is just plain silly in that five families hardly constitutes a mass invasion. However, my point is that the mind set that people used to interpret the proposal was created by previous media reporting.

The matter then came to Council for decision. Again I do not have full details of Council discussions, but it is clear that from the media reports that there was at least a lack of sensitivity about the media implications of the decision.

I think that this was due at least in part to the big fish, small pool syndrome. Tamworth itself is a small pool by national standards, but the Council itself is a very big fish in that small pool and has the behavioural characteristics of one including a certain lack of sensitivity to external non-Tamworth issues. Mind you, this is not unique to Tamworth Council. Just look at the way our state or Federal Governments sometime behave.

The Leader coverage makes it absolutely clear that the Tamworth community, while divided, was already moving to address the issue in the days following the Council decision as the previously silent supporters mobilised. The coverage also makes it clear that other nearby centres already had resettlement programs in operation.

In these circumstances, the lagged reaction of the national media and the subsequent feeding frenzy was unfortunate. Again, and as with Cronulla, the decision was presented through a racial prism ignoring other issues. Now Council set itself up here through its own lack of sensitivity. But I could not help noticing the irony of the media reporting on an outcome that they they themselves had helped to create through previous reporting.

As happened in the Cronulla case, the nature of local Australian reporting ensured that the issue quickly went international. Again as happened with Cronulla, this ensured maximum damage to Australia as the media prism used by our media in reporting was then reinterpreted to fit various overseas media prisms.

So we began with a mix of local Tamworth views, some which undoubtedly had racial overtones. After all, Tamworth is no different from any other Australian community. We then had a Council decision typed by the Australian media as racist, leading to the unfair attachment of the racist tag to the whole Tamworth community. In turn, this provided further evidence internationally that Australians are racist. In all, a mess.

I feel strongly about this one because it has happened in my own backyard. The controversy is unfair to Tamworth while also nullifying all the refugee work done elsewhere in New England.

Tamworth and Refugees - follow up note

Photo: Tony Windsor (Independent, New England)

A brief follow up to my previous stories on the Tamworth Refugee imbroglio.

I have listed previous posts at the end of this post.Tamworth Regional Council is to reconsider this matter tomorrow. I will report on the outcome, although the news media will probably beat me in this case given the interest.

In the meantime, I see from the Northern Daily Leader (14 January) that Federal Member Tony Windsor has provided the Council with the sensible advice that if, as has been suggested several times, Council is concerned about weaknesses in the Refugee Resettlement Program then they should discuss this with the Immigration Department. I must say that this took me by surprise in that I had assumed that this would have been done as a matter of course.

Tony Windsor also made the interesting point that there was nothing to stop a community group taking up the program, that Council could not stop this and indeed had only become involved in the matter in the first place as a facilitator.

If this is true, it makes the whole thing even stranger.

A little later

I see the planned Council meeting has, as expected, become a major national news item although transcripts of the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 7.30 report stories are not yet available.It looks as though, as I had feared, the political dynamics involved have entrenched positions.

One interesting side issue in all this that I had forgotten is that Tamworth Regional Council is just that, a regional council formed out of the amalgamation of a number of local government areas. I do not know the break-up of Council numbers, on population terms Tamworth City will dominate, but at least one of the Councilors involved from the no side is not from Tamworth at all.

Previous Posts

• 17 December 06, Tamworth, the Council and James Treloar (New England Australia blog)
• 18 December 06, Tamworth & Refugees - Broader Issues
• 21 December 06, Tamworth and Refugees - update as at 21 December

Mingoola, Dutton and immigration

My main post today, From Africa's Great Lakes to Mingoola's Field of Dreams, is a follow up post to a rather inspirational story from the ABC Australian Story program on the resettlement of refugees from Central Africa in the small Northern New England settlement of Mingoola.

The program came out on the Monday. The following Thursday, Andrew Bolt in combination with Immigration Minister Dutton took the immigration debate in another direction.

Thursday afternoon, the Melbourne Herald Sun carried a promo for  Mr Bolt's TV program that night. Under the heading " On my shows tonight - refugee crime and the great media meltdown", the paper stated:

On The Bolt Report on Sky at 7pm - The amazing Sudanese crime rate. Our refugee program puts us in danger yet again. My guests: Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, Rowan Dean, Graham Richardson and Bruce Hawker. And a round of the greatest media meltdowns of the week.

In the interview that night, Minister Dutton began by talking about Sudanese refugees, but then segued into refugees more generally. The transcript does not seem to be up on his website, so I quote the Channel Nine report:

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says Islamic youth radicalisation and Middle Eastern crime gangs are the price Australia has paid for "flawed" policies by Malcolm Fraser in the 1970s. 

Mr Dutton was speaking after the federal government announced an inquiry into the settlement of migrants and links between young people and ethnic crime groups.

He said many Australians citizens who had joined foreign terrorist organisations were the children or grandchildren admitted to this country by the former Liberal prime minister. 

"The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we’re seeing that today, " he told Sky News. 

"We need to be honest in having that discussion. There was a mistake made. "

Earlier he was asked whether young Sudanese men were behind a crime wave in Melbourne. Mr Dutton said it was an "open question" what proportion of the Sudanese community was involved.

Back in October 2007, Mr Andrews, Tamworth and Sudanese Refugees, I found myself in the unusual position of defending then Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews over his remarks on Sudanese refugees against attacks that he had been racist. As in this case, the trigger for Mr Andrew's remarks had been the Melbourne shock-jocks. Sadly, the official links have all vanished, but enough remains to show the argument. In both this and the previous Tamworth case (the Tamworth stories are linked in the later post) a key concern was the way the main stream media misreported, attaching the racism tag in a way that (among other things) misreported while damaging Australia's international reputation. In both cases, an underlying theme was Australia's failure to provide sufficient resources to support refugee resettlement programs.

The world has changed. Xenophobia, dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries,.has always existed in Australia, as in most countries. I have argued and would still argue that Australia has been better at managing it that most countries. However, Mr Dutton and others appear to be playing to xenophobia, using it to score immediate political point.

The Australian Prime Minister argues that strong border policies are important (among other reasons) because they provide the base for Australian acceptance of migration. I think that there is some truth in that. I sometimes wonder, and this would not be a popular view, whether or not the White Australia policy was in fact a necessary precondition for the emergence of modern pluralist Australia. However, by playing too fear, Minister Dutton is undercutting the very consensus on which modern Australia has been based, one that the PM seems to accept.

Both left and right argue, if sometimes for different reasons, that Australia should stop accepting migrants. They may phrase it in different ways, but the effect is much the same, the progressive emergence of a new anti-migration consensus.

By all means, let's have a conversation as Minister Dutton suggests, but let's make it a real conversation, a dialogue. I happen to support immigration, although I don't think cramming people into a small number of metros is particularly sensible. For those opposed to immigration, do you want to stop all immigration or just reduce it? If opposed to all immigration, would you allow some measure of family reunion? If you would allow some measure of immigration, how much and on what basis?

The refugee intake is a small part of the total migration program. Would you stop all refugees or allow some in? If so, what level and what criteria would you use to accept refugees? There are more options here than people realise. For example, at present the refugee intake is centrally controlled and delivered. What would happen if it became community and family based within broad criteria? Refugees would be accepted, but on the basis that somebody - group or community - took responsibility for their support. The role of the state would then diminish from control to supporting individual, group or community endeavour.

On existing programs, it is nine years since I wrote that post on Mr Andrews and the Sudanese refugees. Clearly, some problems still exist. What are they? What can we learn? What might we do about it?

In all this, I think that we have to be prepared to call people out, to make them explain. Minister Dutton should not be allowed to simply assert that Mr Fraser made mistakes and that we are paying a price now and that this somehow justifies current actions. There is probably little point in defending Mr Fraser and his policies. Better that Mr Dutton should be required to explain his position. What does he mean by mistake? How serious is the problem? What would he have done instead? How many children or grandchildren? Are the proportions different from other groups? What has been the cost to the community?

One may disagree with his answers, but if forced to respond then his thinking will be exposed to the clear light of public scrutiny. In a conversation, it is necessary to let the other side answer, to use questions to clarify their views. We may not like the clarification, but we will know and can then respond.

Meantime, it is still nice to have a Mingoola to inspire.

Mingoola Follow Up

A brief note on follow up reaction to the Mingoola story.

On Wednesday 30 November 2016, Matt Bedford (Armidale Express) reported on a visit to Armidale by Emmanuel Musoni for discussions with local refugee advocates about the possible placement of some of the 200 refugee families now seeking country placements as a consequence of Mingoola.

The following day in an opinion piece in the Express (Australian Story episode on Mingoola refugees strikes a chord), Donna Ward reported that Deputy PM and member for New England Barnaby Joyce had been inundated with calls from all over Australia seeking to replicate the model in other small, rural towns. "Seeing what the refugees have brought to the Mingoola community," Donna wrote, "the arrival of African families is something we (Northern Tablelands) would welcome with open arms."

Just under a week later on Tuesday 6 December, Tawar Razaghi reported on AbC New England North West that more regional refugee resettlements were likely, backed by Deputy Prime Minister. She reported:

The National Farmers' Federation (NFF) plans to roll out a similar program in the next 12 months, with Armidale, in northern New South Wales, flagged as an ideal town to host it. 

The voluntary program is being developed by the NFF along with the Migration Council. 

The Federation's Sarah McKinnon said the Northern Tablelands city had been identified for a number of reasons. 

"Areas where there's a lot of rural and regional opportunity and there's good infrastructures and services there," Ms McKinnon said. 

"In many of these towns there are already established refugee populations. 

"They're the kind of towns that we're looking to begin the pilot because we want to give it the best chance of success." 

Other towns considered by the NFF to successfully implement the pilot model are Wagga Wagga in New South Wales and Toowoomba in Queensland.

Saturday Morning Musings - New Zealand, Australia & multiculturalism

This illustration is from DeusExMacintosh's post Australia Sux (New Zealand, Seven). New Zealand PM John Key on the left, Australian PM Gillard on the right. As it happened, Ms Gillard did become the first foreign leader to address the New Zealand Parliament, but I had to laugh.

The relationship between Australia and New Zealand is a complicated one that is probably unique in global terms, something I explored back in November 2008 in Sunday Essay - the strange case of Australia and New Zealand.

In some ways, the two countries see themselves as one, yet remain very distinct.

In her speech to the NZ Parliament, the Australian PM re-emphasised the importance of the relationship. That's important, because the bigger Australia (the population ratio between the two countries is roughly equivalent to that between Canada and the US) sometimes ignores its smaller sibling, adding venom to the NZ desire to beat Australia on the sporting field.

On-going moves to build closer economic integration between the two countries, something that featured  on the Australian PM's trip, have a long history. A New Zealand Australia Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed on 31 August 1965 and came into force on 1 January 1966. In 1983 this was replaced the by the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (ANZCERTA), more commonly known as Closer Economic Relations (CER).

One of the differences between the two countries lies in NZ's greater Pacific orientation, something that I explored back in August 2007 in Pacific Perspective - Pasifika and New Zealand's Future. This links to the current Australian discussions on multiculturalism, discussions that I reviewed in Multiculturalism, migration & Australian life. If you look at those discussions, you will see a total absence of references to New Zealand or indeed to the broader Pacific. That's a mistake, an example of Australian myopia.

There is free movement of residents between Australia and New Zealand. Despite the population scale differences between the two countries, this means that changes in the composition of the New Zealand population do affect the composition of the Australian population.

At the last Australian census, 389,465 Australian residents were born in New Zealand. The number of Australian residents with one or more parents born in New Zealand is far higher. In December 2009, an article in the New Zealand Herald reported estimates that 126,000 of the 765,000 people in the world with Maori ancestry, one in six, now lived in Australia. This proportion is increasing.

Like Australia, the composition of the New Zealand population is changing. If we take the forecasts that I reported in Pasifika and New Zealand's Future, forecasts for 2016 suggest that Pakeha children will be just 38 per cent of 0- to 14-year-olds in Auckland. Pacific and Asian groups will each have 23 per cent - with Maori at 16 per cent.  As I said at the time, that's a change that makes Sydney look like a pussy cat.

If we track further forward, we can expect to see a very significant rise in Australia's Pacific Islander population coming direct and via New Zealand. This reflects existing trends, but is likely to be accentuated by political developments within the Pacific including broader moves for closer economic relations. 

Some of my posts are, in fact, arguments with myself as I try to clarify issues.   This was true of Multiculturalism, migration & Australian life as it was with my earlier reporting on the On-line Opinion advertising controversy; see especially ANZ, IBM & freedom of speech. I accept that this can make for pretty turgid stuff, but it does help my thinking. This is aided by my commenters and especially KVD.

Standing back from my own emotional responses to the use of the word multiculturalism, I have two key problems with the debate. The first is that I don't actually know what it all means. The second is the apparent disconnect between the generalised principles and what is happening or might happen on the ground.

Australia is a very varied country with a great variety of experiences, including migrant experiences. Our discussions seem to polarise around, to centre on, a small number of not especially representative examples -boat people, troubles with particular groups in particular places. In doing so, we risk confusing the general and the particular. We also ignore other things; the New Zealand case is an example.

In discussions on the Australian Government's new multicultural policy, I came to realise that that I was locking myself into discussion within a particular frame, a set way of thinking. I also realised that I actually had no idea what I was talking about. Let me explain.

Start with a very basic question: what is the policy problem that the Australian Government is trying to address? It seems to be a concern that Australia needs to be prepared to accept a wide variety of peoples, that our willingness to do so has declined, that we therefore need to re-affirm our commitment to a multicultural Australia.

Now look at the migration statistics. They show that we are admitting very large numbers of migrants from a multiplicity of countries. The actual number of arrivals is far higher than appears at first sight because the usually quoted figures are net figures, new arrivals less a large and increasing number of Australian residents leaving on a long term basis.

Is there any evidence that the new arrivals as a whole aren't fitting in however we define that? I am not aware of any. There are all sorts of frictions, I have written of some of them, but I think that the general statement remains true. So if things are okay in a general sense, what's the problem?

If you now look at the detail of what ministers have said and at the responses including comments on all forms of media, you find that the focus is on particular groups (those of the Muslim faith, those from certain countries). These groups are only a small proportion of our overall migrant intake or indeed of people living in this country. However, they and reactions to them have gained an importance far beyond their relative size.

Take Lebanese Muslim spokesman Keysar Trad as an example. Mr Trad represents a slice of an insignificant slice of the Australian population measured by numbers. Yet, for a period, he featured day after day in the Australian media. This is not a criticism of Mr Trad; I am talking about responses to him. He became important because he was perceived to be important, because many Australians and the Government had become concerned about certain issues in the context of the War on Terror, because the media reflected and fed the discussion. The issues discussed had very little to do with migration as such.

At the end of 2006, a national controversy broke out over the treatment by Sudanese refugees by Tamworth Regional Council, a controversy that went global. I was in South West Rocks on holidays at the time. Knowing Tamworth and some of the people, I did some digging. For those who are interested, Tamworth and Refugees - follow up note will provide an entry point to the posts I wrote.

Initial media reporting, the reporting that was picked up globally, presented this issue as a matter of simple racism, of blind community opposition to a new migrant group. The reality was totally different.

You had a local group concerned about refugees who wanted to bring a Sudanese group to Tamworth. So we already have part of the Tamworth community proactively working for what we could call a multicultural Australia.

The Tamworth Regional Council, a body that needed to support the program if it were to gain official approval, had reservations. This included questions about the capacity of the refugees to fit in. Importantly, it also included reservations about the capacity of the Immigration Department to actually provide support that the refugees needed. Council needed comfort on the question of Departmental support. Those supporting the Sudanese refugee intake reacted angrily.

From this point, the whole thing blew up into a media storm. Council and all the various local protagonists had to work through the issues under the un-relenting glare of national and international media coverage. In all this, those who wanted to see migration restricted attempted but failed to take advantage of the situation. Later, when the glare had gone away, it became clear that an over-stretched Immigration Department was indeed struggling to provide the required support. 

The first point about the Tamworth case is that it shows just how sensitive and divisive migration issues can become.

Accepting that it became a cause célèbre because of the initial stance adopted by the national media, it still showed some of the sensitivities within the Australian community. To the degree that the Government has formed a view that those sensitivities are now of sufficient level to warrant action, then a general reaffirmation of principles may be required even though it remains clear that there is not a problem so far as the mass of the migrant intake is concerned.

The second point about the Tamworth case is that it demonstrates the need to consider the relationship, the nexus, between general statements and particular cases. If migrants as a whole do not seem to be experiencing particular problems, this is not the case for Sudanese refugees where problems of war trauma and limited education are significant. 

Earlier I said in the context of the discussion on the new multicultural policy, I realised that I actually had no idea what I was talking about. The point is that I was talking at a general level. It was only after I dropped to look at detail that I realised just how difficult generalised statements were. In fact, we have a generalised policy statement that actually appears to be trying to address very specific concerns. Further, if the Tamworth case is any guide, we may well not have in place the very specific targeted measures required to make the policy really effective.

I would argue that we need a lot more thought not on the generalities of multicultural or multiculturalism, but on the specific underpinnings required to make it work now and in the future.

Yet more on Tamworth and Refugees

Photo: Tamworth aerial view. This photo is taken from the Total Travel site. Do Please visit.

I suppose that it was too much to hope that the Australian metro media would leave Tamworth alone for a moment to give them (the locals) time to work the issues through. After all, it is a major story.

In case I haven't made my own position clear in the stories I have written, I thought that the original Council decision to reject the resettlement proposal was dumb, the way Council handled the matter dumber still.

At the same time, one of my key points has been that this is a complicated issue from a local perspective, one that the locals themselves have to work through.

The difficulty with the story now carried in today's Sydney Morning Herald (here) is that it is highly likely to inflame local divisions, making sensible consideration of the issue still more difficult. People dig in if placed under too much pressure.

Community development has been one of my long standing interests. Why do some communities develop, others fail?

In a post back in July - A Town like Alice - development and creativity at community level - I compared Armidale and Tamworth. One of my points was that Tamworth had a long record in business creation and that this helped explain its relative success compared to Armidale.

As a community, Tamworth has been a considerable success. I am seriously concerned that this current controversy will damage the city, affecting every person who lives there, including the thousands in the city who oppose the original council decision.

So let's cut Tamworth some slack, letting them work the issue through.

Country Music and Australian Popular Culture - a note

One of the things that I find interesting is the resilience of Australian popular culture.

I was again reminded of this by two stories that I have put on the New England Australia blog, the first on the returns to Tamworth from this year's country music festival ($A113 million), the second on Slim Dusty and the attempt to establish a Slim Dusty Centre in Kempsey.

From the seventies there was a growing divergence between what I suppose we can call "official" cultural activities as presented by our cultural elites and key elements of our past. We were meant to put aside these past childish things as no longer relevant to our modern multicultural Australia with its international outlook, its diverse ethnicity, its ballet, orchestras etc.

The problem in all this is that the "official" cultural activities ceased to reflect Australia back to us. Here I suggested that one of the reasons for the decline in interest in Alex Buzo's plays, a writer who loved the Australian idiom and specialised in presenting us to ourselves, was that he had somehow become unfashionable among the elites. I also said:

At the first level, pluralism and multiculturalism may be important aspirations, even attributes of our culture, but they are not core descriptors of the culture. The abolition of the idea of an Australian culture, of the idea of a distinct Australia, effectively invalidated our past, creating a cultural void.

Just so I do not get caught in semantic traps in saying all this, I am very comfortable with the idea of Australia as a nation of ethnic and cultural diversity. Just as I am proud of my English, Scottish and New Zealand heritage while also being Australian, so I expect other Australians to be proud of their ancestry.

My own daughters add the Irish Catholic tradition to the mix from their mother. Should they marry a Lebanese, a Chinese, an Indian, an Aborigine or whatever, then I would expect their children, my grand children, to be proud of this added stream.

I also take pride in what I see as the growth in those things covered by "official" culture. I, too, can take pride in the increase in standards in those European cultural pecking order things such as opera, ballet or classical music.

Where I part company with at least some of our cultural elites is that I am very comfortable with being Australian and see no need to cringe or apologise for our past. In fact, I am proud of it.

I do see the need to redress past wrongs, but that's a different issue.

In a funny way, this - Australia today - is one of the the most morally sensitive societies in history measured by the way public discussion is so dominated by questions of morality. It is also a risk averse and censorious society, one that seems to think that the solution to problems is to make a new law or regulation.

In some ways this is not new. Australia has always been a remarkably law abiding country, one inclined to follow the lead of Government. We practice a democracy of manners, yet in a personal sense will go along with quite undemocratic approaches if a Government says that they are necessary. As an example, the use of migration rules to exclude perceived undesirables has a long history, and I am not just talking about White Australia and the dictation test.

Yet in all this. the Australian popular culture has always provided a balance against the dictates of the power elites. Central to this is the concept of a fair go.

Take David Hicks as an example.

I am sure that the bulk of Australians initially accepted the Government's position on Hicks, as did Mr Beazley and the Opposition. Then as time passed and it became clear that Hicks was not getting a fair go, public opinion swung. This took time. But after a certain point the momentum became such that even the hard liners in the Federal Government were forced to shift position.

Hicks is not an isolated example.

Take Tamworth and refugees. I have no doubt that initial public opinion in Tamworth was against the refugee resettlement program. In that sense, the first council decision reflected Tamworth opinion as expressed through the consultation process. When council changed its mind, that also reflected changing public opinion.

Some might argue that Tamworth changed its position because of external pressure. There is some truth in this, although my fear was that external views would cause locals to dig in. But when you look at the process that Tamworth went through, it really was growing local opposition to the decision that forced the change.

From the beginning, and immediately after the initial council decision, locals and local groups organised. Yes, the local paper, The Northern Daily Leader, played a role through editorial and news coverage. However, this was only effective because of popular on-ground action. Further, change was aided because most of those opposed to the program focused their opposition in terms of weaknesses in the program itself, not the race card.

There is no doubt that the whole imbroglio did us damage internationally because of the way it was picked up by the metro media. But it is also something that I think that we can take considerable pride in because of the way a community worked the issues through in the face of massive media scrutiny.

Musings on turning five

This blog turned five on 19 March. Since then I have written 1,743 posts here, something over a million words given that many of my posts are long, far too long at times for easy reading.

I didn't celebrate the birthday at the time because I had other things on my mind. Really, it escaped me. However, a current event - the release of the Australian Government's new trade policy - caused me to check past posts going back into this blog's early years. This post is a simple reflection on one set of themes that appeared to me to be important back in 2006, themes that are relevant today.

  In September 2006, Blogosphere Woes reported on a tour I had taken of the blogosphere. I can still remember this, for it left me very depressed. Just following links through, I ended up in a series of blog streams linked to the war on terror, to Islam and to Islam vs Christianity. I quote from the time:

I found blogs that satirised anti-semitism but in such a heavy handed way that at least some of their readers would have taken them seriously, blogs that were in fact anti-semitic but were really more satirical than the satirical. I found blogs that presented a Muslim view, blogs that presented a Christian view, in both cases in terms of opposing absolutes. I found right wing blogs and left wing blogs, individual and group, that made me blink at the distortions presented.

I read news reports about Australia that represented significant distortions. Not conscious distortions, or at least I don't think so, but distortions because the facts were forced into a different world view frame.

With one exception, I ended the whole process wishing that I had never started, blogged out.

The exception? Australia really is culturally different from most other countries, quite remarkably different. We don't see it unless forced to by the type of journey I have just taken. I will try to capture this in a post once I have recovered.

On 24 November, an article by Chan Akya, Hazards of Oz, in the Asian Times on-line caused a degree of outrage in this country. Mr Akaya (or should that be Mr Chan?) was scathing. Australia faced a changing strategic environment; the Australian economy was unbalanced; while the country's still racist attitudes meant that Australia faced regional hostility and would not be able to attract the migrants it needed. One quote to give a taste.

As if the strategic position explained above were not challenging enough, Australians have worked assiduously to cultivate an image of being the region's bully. Their behavior toward various neighbors is poor even by the low standards observable across Asia, while the country's politicians have managed to put many a nose out of joint across the region. Famously, Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad pooh-poohed Australia's role in the late 1990s, in essence dismissing the country as a listening post of the United States.

The reasons for countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia to exercise hostility against Australians are of course related to Australia's long-standing animosity toward Muslim immigrants. Racial riots in Sydney aimed at Australians of "Middle Eastern appearance" as recently as 2005 were but a culmination of years of hostility shown by the country's politicians to immigrants from Muslim countries, including the infamous case of the boat people from Afghanistan beginning in 2001.

Mr Akaya concluded that the best solution for Australians was to sell their land to Asians and move back to Europe!

All this led me to begin a series of posts linked to the idea of the Australian Way. If, as I argued, Australia really was culturally different from most other countries, quite remarkably different, what did this actually mean? Why did it mean that Australia's future would be different from that portrayed by Mr Akaya?

Although the tag Australian Way gives a taste, I was never as structured with those posts as I should have been. I wandered, so that many posts on the topic won't be picked up by the tag. Essentially, my arguments centred on Australia as a migrant country, on Australian tolerance at an individual as opposed to a group level, at the strength of and elements in Australian popular culture that encouraged integration over time.

One area that I did agree with Mr Akaya lay in Australia's insensitivity to the external world, to insularity in general as well as in particular groups such as politicians and the mainstream media.

  In December 2006, trouble broke out in Tamworth over the issue of Sudanese refugees. Initial Australian reporting presented the issue in simple terms, another example of Australian racism at local level. This reporting went round the world, making Tamworth and refugees a global story and reinforcing the views held by Mr Akaya and others like him. Of course, it wasn't a simple as that as I tried to report at the time.

Tamworth and Refugees - follow up note provides an entry point to the posts I wrote. Incidentally, in light of later events note the role played by Tony Windsor. By the time that the mainstream media corrected its stances and started reporting the nuances, the damage had been done. Nobody outside Australia was really listening.

In another response to Mr Akaya, in November 2006- GDP - Australia in its Region - I looked at GDP, population figures and Australia's trade policy. Before going on, the post includes an earlier  photo of youngest, Clare, whom I wrote about recently in The many faces of Clare. The caption on the GDP post reads:

Photo: Clare Belshaw and friends, Clare's birthday, four friends, six ethnic ancestries, one country.

This post links to  several themes.

One was the need for Australia to look to its region. A second was the likelihood that Australia's relative position even including New Zealand must inexorably decline in economic and demographic terms even though we would remain a regional power for the immediate future.

Since then we have had a mining boom, the GFC and then a further mining boom. This may seem to disprove Mr Akaya's gloomy prognostications. Yet the reality is, at least as I see it, that the basic numbers remain the same. Australia's relative position must decline.

The GDP post suggested that Australia's trade policy recognised the economic realities facing the country.

As a relatively small country, our best interests were served by a free global trading system. We must therefore support moves towards global freer trade within the WTO. At the same time, and recognising the impediments to global free trade, policy looked towards free trade agreements that would integrate us into not just China, but all our key trading partners. ASEAN as our most immediate neighbour was especially important.

The Australian Government's most recent trade policy statement is intended to differentiate the Gillard Government from its Howard predecessor. I quote from the Minister's press release:

In an important economic reform, the Gillard Government has overhauled Australia's trade policy, re-connecting with the Hawke-Keating philosophy of free and open trade.

If you ignore this and look at the detail of the policy statement, it is actually a direct continuation of the previous Government's trade approach with its emphasis on freer trade and then the negotiation of specific free trade agreements as a fall back position. There are some differences in nuance and focus, but the core is the same. It could hardly be otherwise.

Looking back to that post in 2006, there were several conclusions from it that affected my writing. Here I find it a little difficult to properly disentangle views then and what came later. Accepting this, my key conclusions were:

1. The relationship with Indonesia along with the success of that country were absolutely critical to our long term future for both geopolitical and economic reasons. If Indonesia failed, we were in great trouble. If, as we all hoped, Indonesia succeeded, then we were in trouble in a different direction because we would then have to adjust to a growing power to our immediate north. Given the population imbalance between Australia and Indonesia, we would just have to accept a large and growing Indonesian presence in Australia measured by people and economic penetration. This would require adjustments on the Australian side.  
2. A second central strategic challenge lay in balancing the rising economic and strategic power of India and China. We needed to build links with both, but we also needed a countervailing force. This was where Indonesia and ASEAN came in. The combination of ANZ/ASEAN could be powerful in its own right, a balance.
3. Whether Australia liked it or not, our immigrant intake was going to be driven by our economic and political interests. Among other things, this meant a potentially very large rise in the Muslim population of this country. The challenge here was how to adjust. How do we preserve the Australian Way?

In all this, I have also been concerned about balance in the Australian economy.

Mr Akaya's view was that Australia's weaknesses in manufacturing and services meant that Australia could not compete in a changing Asia. Like it or not, there is some truth in that view.

Once wool and other primary products dominated Australian exports. Today, mineral products and especially coal and iron ore are equally dominant. On my rough calculations, Australia's export base is less diversified than it was twenty years ago.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, service exports were seen as the new game. I stand to be corrected, but outside education services that are now in trouble, I do not know of a single services sector that has established a really significant net export position.

I have tried to write on some of this, but I doubt that I have had any impact even at the margin,

Now none of this may matter. It may be that the current mining boom will carry us through to a golden future, I just doubt it because I have been through previous resources booms.

I will stop here. I leave it to you to form your own views.               

Refugees and a contempt for the ordinary person

This is a very simple post with a deeply heartfelt plea.

This photo shows Shri Lankan refugees on the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking moored 10 nautical miles off the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pinang. They were rescued when their ship sent out a distress call. This Age story will give you more details as at the current position.

Neil Whitfield has carried two stories on the re-ignited debate in Australia on asylum seekers (here and here). Neil, I and many other thinking Australians are deeply upset with the way Australia's major leaders are handling this issue.

I do not think that either Mr Rudd or Mr Howard before him know how deeply upset we are.

There are, as Neil noted, some 16 million refugees globally excluding internally displaced persons. There is no way Australia could manage this current number. Hard choices have to be made.

My charge against Messrs Howard, Rudd and Turnbull is simply this. They are treating the Australian people as dumbies, incapable of forming a sensible view. They play to our emotions, not our thoughts. My further charge is they (and especially Mr Howard and his ministers) created an inhumanity in Australian thinking.

We cannot win on refugees, we all know that. All Australia can do is to help a little. So what we must do? Simple enough, I think.

The Government should release a green paper for consultation setting out problems and principles for discussion. Then a white paper setting out a proposed approach. This can lead to a formal policy statement.

With proper consultation, this would provide a base that I could at least understand and explain.

There is a current argument that Australians are just too dumb to understand serious policy thinking. This is crap.

I am, I think, reasonably bright in an intellectual sense. In most cases, the only difference that I have found between an intellectually bright and a dumber person lies in speed of learning new things. Certainly I have found no difference in what I would call moral grounding, the capacity to understand and value moral judgements.

The job of politicians who represent us all is to explain. Our leaders do not do this. They go for the short media grab, the immediate response. In doing so, they fail us all.      

Postscript

Instead of doing a new post, I decided to extend this post by bringing up and responding to a comment from Kangaroo Valley David (KVD). David is a regular commentator. The material that follows is not intended as a rebuttal, rather an attempt to extend the debate. I have inserted responses in David's material.

David wrote:

"Your post irritates just as much as I suspect you wished it to."

I was angry and disappointed when I wrote this post. Instead of trying to maintain my normal balance I was indeed deliberately writing for reaction. 

David continues:

"While I hold no high hopes for Mr Rudd’s response to this situation (and like many, was quite ashamed and embarrassed by the Howard era cold-heartedness) I think it is unfair to hang Rudd out to dry on the basis of media sound bites.

Maybe this is one time when the messenger (and I mean the media) really should be shot? Rudd operates (very successfully) in the given media environment. I just think you are selling both his and the Howard governments short if you believe that the only things achieved are those reported in the obligatory sound bites that pass for news these days.

I think it is the media which is treating (and thus profiting by) “treating the people as dumbies”, not Rudd, Howard, Turnbull etc."

David raises a number of different issues here.

To begin with the media. We can look at this at several levels. The sound bite problem has been dealt with extensively in commentary. There is no doubt that this, the need to get short excerpts, has distorted reporting. However, the problems go beyond this. The media has come to stand between us and understanding.

In the case of the treatment of the Sudanese refugees in Tamworth, the initial simplistic reporting of the matter in terms of black-white relations and racism went round the world. Deadline pressed reporters imposed their own views on the evidence. It took hours of research on my part to start untangling the issues. I did so in what were some of the highest trafficked posts that I have achieved. Yet the damage had been done. Tamworth, and by implication Australia, was racist.

Last night on the 7.30 Report Kerry O'Brien interviewed Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on the Oceanic Viking affair. The transcript does not properly bring out the tone of the interview. I wanted to listen to the Minister. I thought that he was explaining things in a calm and rational way. Mr O'Brien's bleeding heart stood in the way of my understanding.

In talking about reporting I have deliberately chosen examples on one side. I could equally have chosen examples on the other.

Governments cannot control the sound-bite mentality, nor can they control the biases of reporters whose own views act as a filter between events and public understanding. They can control their responses.

Herein lies my specific charge against Mr Rudd. This Government did introduce long needed changes to the previous Government's policies. However, in his desire to appear tough, Mr Rudd played into his opponents hands. After all, it was Mr Rudd who gave the sound bites. You cannot blame the media for running lines that they have been given!

He could have gone other routes. Consider these line:

"Is the Honourable Member seriously suggesting that we should reintroduce policies that, according to the Commonwealth Ombudsmen, caused at least 300 cases of wrongful detention? Does he want to bring back a system that saw Australian citizens wrongly interned or deported?"

David continues: 

I would prefer to believe that all possible options have already been carefully, endlessly weighed, amended, discussed, and reconsidered by our Public Service, and that this is yet one more of those problems where any so called “solution” will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction for one or other (of the many) points of view which can be reached on this subject.

I wish that I could believe this. The difficulty that I have, and it is one that I have written about a fair bit, is that our public service has lost the capacity to provide independent advice.  

As a branch head in the Commonwealth Public Service I jealously guarded my direct lines to the Minister. Of course, I took Departmental views into account. Every minute I wrote to the Minister was seen in the Departmental blues circulated to senior staff. But it was my advice. I stood by it at a personal level. 

I resigned from the Commonwealth Public Service as this became harder. There was more interference. Suddenly I had to clear things. The policy issues I was working on had long pay-back periods in national terms of five to ten years. We were constantly flexible. Meet one barrier, go another route. Suddenly I had to report in quarterly terms. I said that I was to do x, why had I not done it?   

I tried to explain that x seemed important when I set the quarterly targets, but things had changed. We needed to do something different. This type of flexibility is impossible to justify when you are working in a rigid world.

Things have got worse since. Strategy piles on strategy, plan on plan, corporate reporting target on corporate reporting target. Minutes or memos have to be signed and counter-signed.

Say I wanted to do something new in the past. I would put up some thought pieces to the Minister. His staff would prepare a short overview and attach it to the minute. I knew the staff, knew their views, would have spoken to them. So no problem. Then I would put up a recommendation. Then implement.

Today I would have to first prepare a policy paper for consideration by the various decision making bodies in the organisation. If something really new, I might need a communications and risk management plan. All this would be reviewed for consistency with current policies and plans. Only then would it go to the Minister, and then after multiple vetting.

When Mr Rudd became PM he thought that there would be a repository of Public Service ideas that he could draw from to refine the new Government's thinking. Poor Mr Rudd. Not only were ideas not there, you try to think of new ideas when when your time is spent in a rigid system, but he couldn't get to those in the system who might have new ideas! New ideas generally come from those who want to change things, and there was no way for the Government to tap this.  

All this said, I am side-tracking. David is, of course, correct that any "solution" will leave at least some people dissatisfied. This is an issue that we cannot win on.        

David continues:

You now suggest a white, then green, paper be prepared. But this is just a ‘process’ – not a ‘solution’. H. Appleby would be delighted. The boat people less so.

My bet is that the cupboard is full of multicoloured position papers by this time and no miracle will occur if yet another review is undertaken.

David is, of course, right that I am focusing on process. I want the Government to set out its views so that I and others can comment in a sensible fashion. 

David finishes:

I have three simple hopes:
1 that a decision (any decision) is made shortly and then held firm.
2 that this decision is “less wrong” than all other possible decisions.
3 that you have had a nice day

David, as it turns out I had a very nice day! I agree with your first two points, although one of our problems is, I think, that discussion is too dominated by individual examples such as Oceanic Viking. By this I mean simply that we have become reactive.

Taking the Oceanic Viking as an example, it would seem to me on the available information that the Government has in fact done the right thing to this point so far as actions are concerned. If the people in question cannot be landed in Indonesia for a whole variety of reasons, then they will have to go to Christmas Island. This will be presented, wrongly, as a failure.

We cannot solve the refuge issue, we can only control our responses to it. Herein lies my problem. Right across the spectrum from the Government to the opposition to the media, the need to play to the domestic short term makes it very hard to deal with the issue in any sensible way.  

The Australian Index - one year ago today

Each day The Australian Index features a small group of bog posts from one year ago. I feel flattered that today they included one of my posts, Mr Andrews, Tamworth and Sudanese Refugees.

Re-reading the post brought that time back. I am so glad that things have moved on.

I was really caught in some of the dilemmas of the period.

At one level I was attacking the Government about their treatment of refugees - my concern about failures in due process remain. At a second level, I was concerned about the way media (including blog responses) led to Australia being typed as racist internationally - again, this is a continuing concern. In all this, I was trying to be fair and to un-package issues so that they became clear.

Looking again at the post, I think that it is best classified now as a historical piece, something that provides a record of the time.

Considering my own reactions on re-reading the piece, I suspect that the Howard Government will come to be typed by its reactions on terrorism and refugees. This may be unfair, Australia's relatively good position in the current global financial crisis is due in part to the Howard-Costello Government, but history tends to remember the failures and sometimes injustices.

Tamworth and Refugees - update at 21 December

An update on my earlier post on Tamworth and the refugee imbroglio.

On 20 December the Northern Daily Leader carried an update on the current views of Tamworth's nine regional councillors in regard to how they were likely to vote on the January 16 motion to rescind the controversial decision not to support the refugee relocation centre program.

For Rescission

Cr Diane Carter, Cr Robert Schofield, Cr Warren Woodley.

Against Rescission

Cr Phil Betts: "I haven't changed my mind. There is not enough information at this stage. I haven't seen any information one way or the other on (Federal Government) provision of
services."

Cr Kevin Tongue: "There is not enough evidence that the community is all for it to change my mind. My personal opinion is it shouldn't be dealt with so quickly."

Cr Shirley Close: "I feel very strongly that I basically made the right decision."

Undecided, not willing to reveal position

Cr Colin Murray: Undecided (voted in favour of the original decision)."I've seen some evidence for supporting it but there are still a lot of people out there against it."

Mayor Cr James Treloar: No comment on how he plans to vote (voted for original decision). "I think The Leader has a role in keeping the community informed but I don't think it should frame the debate."

Cr Cr Russell Webb: No comment on how he plans to vote (voted for original decision). "A decision will come from the January 16 meeting that will hopefully appease the situation."

Comment

So at this point we have three in favour of the original decision, three supporting rescission, three whose positions are unclear. Two of these three will need to vote for rescission for the motion to be carried.

As an external observer in all this, I wish that there was more information on the claimed inadequacies in the Commonwealth Government's refugee resettlement program since this is still being referred to as a problem.

I will report further closer to the 16 January vote date.

More on perceptions, selection and bias in the Australian media

In Personal reflections - indigenous Australia and the variety of Australian life I stated that I found the picture of Australia presented by the mainstream media very limited. I suggested that the reasons for this were complex, but came back to the need to fit stories that appealed to the greatest number in limited space.

In response, Secret Admirer wrote:

To borrow from your words, I too believe that "the picture of Australia presented by the mainstream media" is "limited" for "complex" reasons. I'd like you to explore that complexity more. The picture in areas is distorted, wildly so. It may have been ever thus, but there's a hell of a lot of rubbish, spin, hype and delusion to get through to make better sense of things when the picture is so distorted. What say you?

I thought that in this post I would take up Secret Admirer's challenge, pointing to some of the reasons why main stream media portrayal of Australia is so limited and partial. I am talking about Australia, but the same issue applies in other countries and for similar reasons.

I think that this is an important issue because the mainstream media is the main source of information about Australia for most Australians. I may be wrong, but my perception is that Australians' real knowledge of their own country has declined somewhat in recent years. I blame this in part upon a media that has become more standardised, more homogenised.

In writing about perception, selection and bias in the media, I am not talking about political bias. This does exist, but is far from new. Rather, my  focus is on the changing nature of the media as media, and the way this affects what we hear, read and see.

The Importance of Time

To start with a point that may surprise you. There are only twenty four hours in a day. Not that the twenty four hours will be a surprise, just the fact that I make this my starting point in exploring perception, selection and bias in the media.

Prior to the advent of free to air TV, most Australians got their news from the print media, from radio and, to a lesser extent, from newsreels in the cinemas. There were also the various news magazines read by a smaller group.

In those pre TV days, it was not unusual for people to spend several hours a day reading papers and listening to radio news. TV changed this because it introduced a major time competitor. By the 1980s, our TV hours had reached a practical maximum, squeezing other activities including reading of all types.

Videos, computers, pay TV, multimedia and the internet were added to this mix during the 1980s and 1990s. Each was a new competitor for our time, placing pressure on the time shares held by existing media forms.

Audiences began to fragment - the concept of niche media markets became popular. Worse, the new media forms moved from attacking audience share to attacks on the advertising base and especially the classified advertisements that provided the rivers of gold supporting the newspaper press.

These competitive pressures are central to changing patterns of perception, selection and bias in the Australian media.

All media forms are now fighting to retain market share and to extract the maximum dollars they can from whatever share they have.   

The Media Business

These changes in viewing, listening and reading patterns as well as the emergence of new service delivery forms interacted with other changes to transform the structure of Australian media.

The Australian media has never been static. However, the changes over the last forty years have been quite profound.

If we take NSW in 1968 as a snapshot in time, Sydney had three commercial TV channels plus the ABC. Sydney had two morning newspapers, two afternoon papers plus the Sunday papers. Sydneysiders listened to ABC radio (I think that there was only one band) plus the commercial AM channels. Cross-media ownership rules restricted the number of media outlets that any one owner could have.

Outside Sydney, and with the exception of Newcastle where the local daily was owned by the Sydney Morning Herald, each town had its own local newspaper. Some proprietors owned more than one paper, but the papers were all country and generally locally owned.

The Financial Review and the still relatively new Australian provided national as compared to state or locally based news to city and country alike.

Country radio was provided by ABC though local and regional stations that also carried statewide and national feeds, as well as a single commercial radio stations. These were networked in a variety of ways, carried some network feed, but were generally locally or regionally owned. TV was provided by ABC transmitters and a number of relatively small locally owned papers.

I suggested that issues associated with perception, selection and bias in the media were not new. The various media outlets including the Sydney papers were very parochial and took lines determined by their owners and editors. However, of itself this provided some variety.

This structure was largely torn down over the next twenty years.

This is not a history piece, although as history the story is a fascinating if sometimes depressing one. Empire building and competitive games meant that the big were replaced by the very big, the small by the big. Our media ownership is now concentrated in a way that would have seemed inconceivable in 1968.

The Impact of Competitive Pressure

Media outlets have always been selective in what they cover in terms of their perception of the importance of the story to their audience. Those living in country NSW who have experienced both the Sydney bias of Granny Herald and the difficulties involved in getting any form of coverage for non-Sydney developments can attest to this.

This notwithstanding, the Herald and others including the country press took their professional reporting roles very seriously. This has become far more difficult to do for two reasons.

The first reason is the increased size and complexity of modern life. This means that there are more potential stories in general, as well as stories that require greater depth in knowledge, more resources, more time, to properly cover.

The second reason is that the resources available to cover stories have actually shrunk in real terms in the face of the need to reduce costs and to achieve stated profit targets.

There is something of a chicken and egg problem here. To my mind, reductions in reporting that began before the latest round in competitive pressures hit the sector actually weakened the media's ability to respond to growing competitive pressure. Now the media can only respond to the latest changes by further cost cutting.

The thirty second grab and the rise of infotainment

We actually have a subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald. At the moment, I generally read this on the train on my way to work. The first thing I do is quickly check all the various magazine section just in case there is anything relevant and then throw them out.

We live in a world of infortainment. We also live in a world where opinion has come to substitute for news.

At press level, the various papers have responded to the growing fragmentation of the market place by introducing a variety of magazines and supplements intended to attract niche attention and the advertising revenue that goes with it.

More and more of the papers, more and more of the writing and journalistic resources, are tied up with what is really infotainment. Rural Press in particular has made this a real art form.  

The position is worse with TV where news coverage, especially on the commercial channels but even on ABC and SBS, has deteriorated. I may come in for criticism here, so let me try to explain.

Each day I follow the just breaking news streams on ABC and the Herald, also checking the Australian from time to time. I also listen to Radio National and News Radio, as well as Sydney 702. We watch SBS news, often shifting to ABC news at 7pm in the middle of the SBS program. If stories break like the terrorist attack on Mumbai, we may shift to CNN or BBC World Service.

I do all this for professional reasons, but it also makes me very conscious of the weaknesses in reporting.

The central problem with TV news is its reliance on the visual. This limits main stories to those where visual footage is available.

This affects international stories, there is a dreadful sameness to much of the coverage across channels, but is devastating for regional Australia stories. The problem here is that non-metro stories generally lack the visual material to warrant inclusion on the main TV channels.

Sometimes this is a good thing.

The night riot some years ago in the main street of Armidale by Aboriginal youths who essentially bailed up patrons in Beardy Street hotels for hours until police reinforcements could be brought in was, potentially, a major story.

This was not a small affray. The area of Beardy Street in question covers just two blocks. There were hundreds of people involved. Yet not one mention of the matter made the metro media. Had it been Redfern, there would have been huge coverage.

I say that this was a good thing because the absence of media coverage allowed things to be worked through without the media glare. Yet the same thing holds with many other stories. What is news depends totally on the immediate availability of new resources.

The loss of a few hundred jobs at Geelong in the car industry, a factory closure in Sydney, gets national coverage because the media is close. The equivalent elsewhere does not.

Some years ago, the closure of an umbrella factory in Sydney received major media coverage. I was struck at the time because the Northern Tablelands had lost 1,200 meat working jobs over over the previous twelve months. One was news, the other necessary structural adjustment.

The general problem is made worse by the rise of the thirty second grab, the packaging of a tiny piece of footage designed to meet the programming needs of TV news. We all know this. Yet we simply accept it. 

Reporter perception and bias

Nothing that I have said to this point links to standard complaints that reporting is biased because reporters (I put commentators in a different class) have a left wing bias. I am arguing that we have a systemic problem.

However, it is true in my view that there is a bias among reporters and that this influences the selection and presentation of stories. I just think the bias is a little different from the usual simplified presentations.

I have to be very careful what I say here. I like journalists. I do not accept many of the criticisms that have been made of journalism as a profession, although I do have a problem with our current tendency to classify journalism as in some ways part of "communications".

Obviously journalists have to communicate. However, their core role has nothing to do with communications, everything to do with reporting.

My big complaint about many current journalists is that they do not know Australia nor its history very well. They simply present stories within currently accepted nostrums.

Let me try to illustrate with the story of Tamworth and its Sudanese refugees.

This story, the apparent rejection by Tamworth City Council of plans to settle Sudanese refugees in Tamworth, broke like a fire storm. All the metro media interpreted it within a racist frame. From there, the story went round the world doing Australia damage.

By contrast, I tried to dig down to see what the issues were. I found a far more complex story, one in which there were racist overtones among some local residents but, and far more importantly, one that also showed that Tamworth was struggling with weaknesses in the very resettlement program itself.

This was, to my mind, a classic case in which reporting actually posed a threat to results because of the bias in reporting.

Conclusion

In this post I have argued that problems of perception, selection and bias in the Australian media have increased. I have also argued that this is due to systemic change in the media itself.

Returning to my own personal biases, I feel that this has led to diminished reporting on Australia as a whole. I see this as a problem because Australians' perceptions of their country are formed in part by what they read.