1995 Global Cultural Diversity Conference Proceedings, Sydney
Public Policy and Diversity - Migration Patterns and Policy
Selection and Rejection - Twenty Years of Australian Immigration
Continued from part one
Criticism of Immigration
In the past two decades unemployment has settled at a level well above that of the thirty post-war years in which European and British migration was at its height. The emphasis in migration has shifted from Europe to Asia and large and identifiable Asian communities have been established in the major cities. Links with Britain have attenuated and been replaced by the official aspiration of "becoming part of Asia" and the social reality of becoming Americanised. Social and ideological change has been rapid and, no doubt, very disturbing to conservative Australians.
The conservative political parties have been out of national and state office more frequently in the past twenty years than in the preceding three decades. Such phenomena as the youth culture, feminism, gay politics, Aboriginal self-assertion and multiculturalism have occupied the centre of media debate. While few of these changes are directly traceable to immigration, it is not surprising that a critical tone has entered discussion of the migrant program, having been largely absent between 1950 and 1980. Critics of the program frequently complain that "there is no debate" (Betts 1988). There has, in fact, been a continual and often vigorous debate for many years and a greatly expanded body of analysis on which to base discussion. The real grievance of the critics is that they do not win the debate and that governments of all persuasions seem unimpressed by many of their arguments.
The major strands in the debate are: that the shifting origins of immigrants threatens the basic ethnic, social and political character of Australia; that multiculturalism involves a denial of Australia's history and inheritance; that the program is out of hand and driven by an ethnic lobby; that the economic contribution of migrants is not as great as if more rational choices were made; that Australia's fragile ecology cannot cope with more people; and that short-term pressures rather than long-term planning dominate decisions on the intake (Wooden et al. 1994).
It is no longer argued that Australia must "populate or perish" but rather that population pressures from outside are to be resisted in Australia's interests (Birrell and Birrell 1987; Day and Rowland 1988). There is a lesser and usually opposite strand of argument holding that Australia's humanitarian obligations should be more resolutely implemented. Some of those espousing other critical arguments share this view by claiming that immigration should be confined to, or largely determined by, humanitarian considerations.
These critiques have become influential over the past decade, especially with the rise to political influence of the "environmental" or "green" movement. An unpleasant, but very marginal, racist element attacks current policy but very few other critics share this perspective. Racist political influence is much less in Australia than in other comparable developed societies. Mainstream critics often complain that they have been branded as "racist" but this is a debating ploy.
The main division is between those who believe that immigration is beneficial to society and the economy and those who do not. On that basis it does not necessarily matter what the ethnic background of migrants might be. However, it cannot be ignored that there is an undercurrent of concern expressed in public opinion polls, talk-back radio and everyday gossip, which equates immigration with "Asianisation". This is hardly surprising, given the century of White Australia and the basic attitudes found in other English-speaking societies.
Much public and media debate on immigration has been at an elementary level and focussed on "Asian migration". This reflects the reluctance of many to accept universality and the still ingrained attitude that "Asians" are fundamentally different from "Europeans". Yet the majority of the Asian-born population of Australia is well educated, skilled and (to a greater extent than in the homelands) English-speaking and Christian. The major exceptions to this generalisation are the product of uprooted migration or come from areas which are not always regarded as "Asian" such as Lebanon or Turkey.
Family reunion is gradually introducing immigrants who are less skilled and educated than those accepted as independent immigrants and less assimilated to "Western" ways and attitudes (Birrell 1990). Yet this can be exaggerated. Concessional family reunion is already limited and expensive, due to changes introduced from 1989. Preferential family reunion brings in those most likely to be similar to the original nominators. If these nominators were chosen as humanitarian immigrants then their relatives may well suffer the same disadvantages. But in contrast to the United States, where the skill level of legal immigrants has dropped over the past fifteen years, levels of skill and education for the Australian intake remain high (Freeman and Jupp 1992).
There is little future in arguing against Australian involvement with Asia, including the acceptance of settlers, tourists and students. Excluded from the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area, Australia has no choice but to strengthen its economic and political links with the Asia-Pacific. This cannot be done if overt racism or covert discrimination affects immigration policy. There is, however, another argument against continued immigration which is likely to remain influential and to inhibit any rise in numbers beyond the present low level.
Australia is a dry continent which has already, with a relatively tiny population, done extensive damage to the natural environment. It is also among the least densely populated countries in the world and its cities are also among the least congested. Government has consistently refused, quite rightly, to set population targets (NPC 1991). Even the recent parliamentary enquiry chaired by Barry Jones MP would not do so despite assiduous courting by the green, environmentalist and zero population growth lobbyists. The enquiry, like others, did make a case for a longer perspective than an annual target. On present indications the population of Australia will reach 25 million within thirty years and it will be one of the few fully developed societies still experiencing population growth. But whether that is a problem or an opportunity has yet to be resolved.
Opponents of immigration who fear the "multicultural society" have recently enjoyed some encouragement from the United States where conservatives equate multiculturalism and the setting of ethnic quotas in employment and education. But apart from some Aboriginal exceptions, Australia does not set such quotas and few expect it to.
Nor is the ethnic situation in any way comparable to that in the United States, Canada or even New Zealand. In all three, minorities larger than 10 per cent have distinctly separatist demands. In contrast to the situation elsewhere, it could be argued that the resolute pursuit of multiculturalism by governments of all persuasions has blunted what little ethnic conflict might have arisen. The jeremiahs of critics such as Professors Blainey or Helen Hughes, bemoan the creation of "warring tribes" or the disappearance of a "common language". It is hard to believe that such analysis is based on any concrete observation of social reality. In multicultural Australia there are certainly disadvantaged ethnic communities, individual alienation, some ethnic crime and some ethnic political disputes. But Australia remains among the most harmonious societies on earth by any standards of social cohesion.
Conclusions
There can be no compromise with the principle of universality as it has been developed over the past twenty years. There is no evidence that "Asians" are less adaptable than "Europeans". They may, in many cases, be more adaptable in the sense of being better educated and more proficient in English than many who arrived (and adapted well) from Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. In any case, it is impossible to have fruitful trade, tourism and foreign relations with neighbouring states while discriminating against their citizens on a racial or ethnic basis. It is already hard enough to persuade some states of the region that "Australia is part of Asia". Those who call for ethnic quotas or for a reduction of the "Asian" intake, are simply not working in Australia's best interests.
There is much more scope for amending the conditions under which immigrants are selected and this has been the approach of government in reducing and expanding numbers over the past twenty years. Numbers rose under the Liberals between 1976 and 1982 and some of the major Asian ethnic communities, such as the Vietnamese, were established in that period. Initially numbers fell under Labor but began to rise again in the late 1980s to the point where discussion in the 1988 FitzGerald committee centred on the program being "out of control" (FitzGerald 1988). Despite that committee recommending an intake of 150,000 per year, numbers fell in response to economic conditions to reach a low point in 1993-4. Humanitarian numbers also fell steadily from the peak of the early 1980s, but the sources and variety of that intake became more marked, introducing new and small groups from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East (Jupp et al. 1991).
Growing criticism of the migration program and continued scepticism about the multicultural society which was its consequence, has led to a range of expedients designed to limit entry and to direct it more effectively towards those most capable of being integrated into the current economy. The business migration program, discontinued because of errors and weaknesses, has now been revived. The prospect that large movements of capital and expertise out of Hong Kong would be lost to Canada was a sufficient incentive for this change.
If Australia is to be economically integrated into East Asia, then access to the commercial networks of the overseas Chinese is vital. Hence the emphasis on "productive diversity" in the current reformulation of the multicultural agenda. Large scale, fee-paying student admissions also continue to fascinate vice-chancellors eager for funds. The previous debacle, in which students were at first swindled and then refused visas, has hopefully provided many lessons for the current programs. Inevitably some students will wish to remain in Australia, especially those from such politically unpredictable areas as China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The attraction of East Asian capital and expertise is a major factor in sustaining the level of Chinese immigration into the future. Other sources are apparently less welcome and are more likely to face restrictions. A fundamental clash between two opposed principles can be detected in policy debates within the Department of Immigration and in the plethora of policy changes witnessed over the past five years. The principle of refugee asylum, based on the United Nations convention, clashes with the principle of maintaining tight border control and overseas selection. The current attempts to redefine asylum rights to exclude victims of China's "one child policy" is but one example which has attracted adverse comment from those engaged in refugee work. The Port Hedland detention centre is a monument to the ambivalent attitudes which allowed 20,000 resident Chinese students to remain after Tiananmen Square but treats several hundred "boat people" as "queue jumpers".
Other restrictions are in the economic rationalist tradition which shaped the FitzGerald report of 1988 and is associated especially with one of the committee's members, Professor Helen Hughes. This tradition does not necessarily lead to restricted numbers, as many quite rational economists believe that immigration boosts the economy and creates more jobs than it demands. Hughes recently argued that Australia scarcely had an effective migration program and that lack of English was a major factor in migrant unemployment (Australian 23 February 1995). While she went on to make some sweeping and unjustified attacks on multiculturalism, her argument reflected a strong school of thought among immigration policy makers and the Opposition political parties.
One logical conclusion would be to require a knowledge of English as a prerequisite for admission. This is incompatible with the principle of refugee asylum and would doubtless be waived in those cases. But it is further incompatible with the principle of preferential family reunion, of which non-English speakers take the greatest advantage. At present, a knowledge of English gives beneficial points to skilled applicants such that it would be very difficult for someone without such knowledge to be accepted unless in a very restricted and sought after occupation.
The clash between "rational" and "expedient" limitations on migrant intake is often presented as one between the national interest and sectional (and specifically ethnic) pressures. There is no doubt that immigration policy-making is partly the product of political processes, as it should be in a democracy. In practice a number of restrictions, including up-front charges as guarantees against welfare dependency, have been introduced in the past five years.
All migrants, other than the tiny number of "convention refugees" already pay their own fares either directly or through loans. While the Coalition Fight Back proposed restrictions on welfare eligibility which were not implemented, most non-refugee migrants are not effectively eligible for many Commonwealth and State provisions for at least one year after arrival. As it is in that year that the highest incidence of unemployment occurs, this presents important disincentives to coming at all.
Rather than a scenario of rational planning being distorted by pressures from the "ethnic lobby", it makes more sense to see policy development as involving clashes between different principles and concessions to conflicting interests, all of them legitimate within a pluralist political democracy (Jupp and Kabala 1993). Clashing principles include the commitment to humanitarian intake and family reunion on the one hand and to economic productivity on the other. In practice many family and humanitarian immigrants are skilled above the national average already, but few have English as a mother tongue. An insistence on the utility of English (with which most immigrants agree in word and deed) could be incompatible with universality. It would not necessarily be "racist" as it could benefit immigrants from India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong or the Philippines.
Clashing interests include those of the forty per cent of Australians who are first or second generation immigrants and those who are less likely to be sympathetic to immigration from the "old" Australians. The building industry has consistently supported immigration while some state and local authorities have seen it as producing burdens on their budgets. Professional economists are seriously divided as to whether immigrants add to or benefit the balance of payments (Baker and Miller 1988). Most significantly at present, the entire environmental movement has difficulty in reconciling population pressures, economic progress and sustainable development.
The level and composition of the migrant intake must remain under the effective control of the Australian government. The social and political consequences of ineffective control can be seen in the United States and Germany, and previously in Britain and France. This is not to say that the numbers seeking entry to those societies are likely to be replicated in Australia. In many ways Australia is at the "end of a branch line" when it comes to international population movements. Yet it is reasonably close to China, Indonesia and other major population centres.
Few would deny the need to control our borders in the interests of rational entry procedures and consequent social harmony. Immigration has always been seen as a form of social engineering in Australia, with assisted passages used for 150 years to shape the character of the population, aided for ninety years by the now discredited White Australia Policy. As currently modified, the notion that immigration policy is an essential element in building an Australian nation, is in a long tradition. Stripped of its racist and imperialist attributes, a selective program which takes into account both Australia's needs (as perceived by government) and the interests of the migrants themselves, is positive, desirable and beneficial.
References
Adelman, H., Borowski, A., Burstein, M. and Foster, L. (eds) (1994) Immigration and Refugee Policy: Australia and Canada Compared, Melbourne, Oxford University Press.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (1990) The Economic Status of Migrants in Australia, Canberra, AGPS.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (Queensland) (1994) The Social Characteristics of Immigrants in Australia, Canberra, AGPS.
Baker, L. and Miller, P.W. (eds) (1988) The Economics of Immigration, Canberra, AGPS.
Betts, K. (1988) Ideology and Immigration: Australia 1976 to 1987, Melbourne University Press.
Birrell, R. (1990) The Chains that Bind, Canberra, AGPS.
Birrell, R. and Birrell, T. (1987) An Issue of People, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire.
Day, L.H. and Rowland, D.T. (1988) How Many More Australians?, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire.
FitzGerald, S. (chair) (1988) Immigration: a Commitment to Australia, Canberra, AGPS.
Freeman, G. and Jupp, J. (eds) (1992) Nations of Immigrants, Melbourne, Oxford University Press.
Jupp, J. (1991) Immigration, Sydney University Press.
Jupp, J. and Kabala, M. (eds) (1993) The Politics of Australian Immigration, Canberra, AGPS.
Jupp, J., Mc Robbie, A. and York, B. (1991) Settlement Needs of Small Newly Arrived Ethnic Groups, Canberra, AGPS.
Lack, J. and Templeton, J. (eds) (1995) Bold Experiment, Melbourne, Oxford University Press.
National Population Council (1991) Population Issues and Australia's Future, Canberra, AGPS.
Wooden, M., Holton, R., Hugo, G. and Sloan, J. (1994) Australian Immigration: a survey of the issues, Canberra, AGPS.
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