ArticleI’m struggling with a question. Am I a “regular working Australian” or an “immigrant”?
With new population figures published last week and both sides of politics gearing up for a campaign fight on immigration, our multicultural project is stalling. And I’m pretty sure we’re going to need more than a love of dumplings and dosai to get it back on track.
A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman named Morgan Cox raised his concerns about housing costs on the ABC’s Q&A. By all accounts, Cox is a thoroughly decent and hard-working person. He has been correctly identified as an example of the type of voter who will decide the result of the approaching election campaign. My heart goes out to him.
However, one of his comments got me thinking. After sharing his struggles about being crowded out of the rental market by others, he said that “lots of them are immigrants”. He then called for a reduction in immigration to protect “every regular working Australian”.
Though I’ve been Australian for more than four decades, I’m an immigrant.
Am I part of the housing problem? And what about my kids? They’re mixed race (and mixed complexion), but they’ve been Australians their entire lives. I wonder – in a future home-inspection line of potential renters – would they be considered “regular working Australians” or “immigrants”?
Cox raised a very real problem that millions struggle with. And it would be nonsense to claim that the number of people in our country has no bearing on our housing needs. However, his comment reflects another problem: we’ve never had a grown-up public conversation about what an Australian looks like.
Herein lies the challenge. Many “regular working Australians” are immigrants, too. Our housing crisis – along with most public policy challenges – is multifaceted. Economics, infrastructure, supply, demand – and, yes, immigration – are all relevant. However, when the word “immigrant” is tied to appearance, we have a problem. That’s when we falsely link Australian-ness with Caucasian-ness.
Earlier this month, Australian teenager Gout Gout stunned the sprinting world – breaking the 20-second barrier for the 200 metres twice at the Queensland athletics championships. Sadly, the haters were almost as quick. An avalanche of social media trolling ensued, much of which questioned his nationality. I don’t remember similar scepticism about the nationality of superstar canoeist Jessica Fox, swimming legend Bronte Campbell and cricketing gun Marnus Labuschagne. Unlike Gout, none of them were born in Australia.
I think we all know why similar questions weren’t raised.
Some of the colour-coding of Australian-ness is fuelled by our aversion to crossing cultural divides. As a former vice chancellor of the University of Sydney, Dr Michael Spence, has said: “Sydney is, we are told, a city of villages. But it could equally be called a city of ghettos … a loosely sewn together patchwork of monocultural spaces.”
Spence’s words remind me of the “multiculturalism as a mosaic” idea. The problem with mosaics is that the pieces don’t interact. They are merely located next to each other – colourful, but separate. The best this can yield is a food-court multiculturalism, held together by nothing more than sweet and sour pork and butter chicken. True harmony calls for more than that. It calls for friendship, not tokenism.
The movie Remember the Titans (2000) chronicles the true story of an American high school football team’s journey to integrate black and white players on the squad. That integration proved uncomfortable and difficult, but possible, in the end, through personal connections. In a climactic moment, the team’s (white) captain, Gerry Bertier, declares to his (black) teammate Julius Campbell, “I was afraid of you, Julius. I only saw what I was afraid of, and now I know I was only hating my brother.”
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan – so influential in our ethical framework – tells of a man who is robbed, beaten and left for dead. After two men ignore him and go on their way, a Samaritan – a man of a different tribe – stops, cares for him and pays for his treatment.
Both Bertier and the Samaritan understand that the call to “love our neighbour” includes those beyond our tribes.
Crossing cultural barriers is rarely comfortable, but in the small things we can make a start. Organising play dates for our young children, inviting a neighbour over for a drink or a meal, striking up a conversation at the local bus stop or railway station. These are opportunities to slowly build meaningful connections with those who don’t look like us. This challenge is for all of us, including those of us who are thought of as minorities. Such connections inoculate against colour-coding and, over time, grow a common pool of shared references, conversation points and memories. They are the engine room of a deeper national harmony.
As we tackle the challenges that lie ahead – housing affordability, the cost of living, energy security and the rest – so that people like Morgan Cox get a fair go, let’s reach beyond our tribes. From First Australians to First Fleeters to immigrant Australians: we are neighbours. We are in this together. And “regular working Australians” come in many colours.
Max Jeganathan is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. He served as a political and social policy adviser in the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, and is undertaking a PhD in law on human dignity. This article was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald.