Reto: financiamiento a sectores populares

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unemployment, housing:, the burden that the States had to carry in the educational and welfare field, the dangers of allowing; »uircranc concentrations in cities, the threat to standards of

1

living and about the British/non-British ratio. In 1952. the leader of the Opposition expressed strong concern that Australians should not be “disturbed“ in their housing or employment arrange­ ments because of immigrants arid even went so far as to suggest

that aliens should not be allowed to purchase property within the first five years. However this suggestion was forcibly rejected by the Minister/ Next year, a debate on unemployment focused entirely on the evils o.1 migrants competing wi vh aUsIi

lians. One remark stood out for going against this pattern. The m e sitb er fc r B a tin an, A . L . P » , s a id ; ''11 x s h a d e n o u g h lor ila t - "v e

born Australians or one who well knows the language to be unemp- loved. But it is infinitely worse for a foreign immigrant, who

3 knows very little English and has no friend to help h i m,11

Thinking about problems associated with ethnicity was the inevitable by-product of concern with minimizing difficulties for native born Australians. This provided ethnic groups with new opportunities for political presence. But these were quite

limited because thinking in this sphere was almost entirely done from an Australian perspective with the focus on Australians*

k

views and Australians' reactions. b. Definition of the danger areas:

During the 1950's there was widespread consensus on. what problems the presence of European immigrants might create for

the society and on the objectives and strategies of the settle­ ment programme. From the beginning the cooperation and agreement

io For example, in the estimates debate in November 195^ •> immigra­ tion and the related problems in housing and welfare were discussed exclusively with reference to possible competition of migrants with, the native born, Hansard, H. or R,, Vox. 215*. 7 Nov. 1951, pp. 1681-90. ...

2* Ibid., V o l . 216. 5 March 1952, pp. 895-4. 3. Ibid., Volc 221, 19 Febr. 1953, P~ 140.

4« The connection of the salesmanship outlook to the failure to see problems from the immigrants' perspective has been dis­ cussed by Jupp (1966, p. 159)♦

~ II. I -

of fill rar.jor social power structures and organizations was soli­ cited by setting: up mechanisms for consultation and by providing a regular t'orum for discussion xn the annual Citizenship Conv on - lions * In the IS155 Citizenship Convention the president of the A.C.T.U., Mr. A,E. Monk, introduced the discussion on a proposed Charter of Australian Citizenship in these terms;

I take the point that this Immigration Convention should deal with the conditions, privileges and res­ ponsibility associated with the assimilation of new Australiarifs into our Australian way of life ... if we are not careful /arid discuss matters beyond this/ we shall be called upon to deal with issues of general economic, socia1 or politica1 charncter and thai raay lead to controversy .., if social, political and eco­ nomic questions are to be discussed at these gatherings we shall destroy the unity that we have striven for over many years in relation to the assimilation of n env A u s t r a 1 i a ns.

This not only shows the importance attached to consensus but also reveals how much it was taken for granted that there is no danger of disagreement when it comes to questions about immigration. Jean Martin notes that:

In the early post-war years, official and non-official bodies , . shared to a surprising degree a common ideo­ logy of settlement, a set of beliefs and values on the way in which migrants could and should be incorporated into Australian society. (.1.972bf p«, l4)

Jean Martin’s account of what this ideology entailed shows that there was much that Australians agreed on at that time« Most fundamentally they agreed that the presence of the non-British in large numbers should not be allowed to affect the character of the society, either culturally or institutionally« From this flowed consensus on the objectives and strategies of the settle­ ment programme and, generally, on the treatment of immigrants.

The ideology of settlement embodied a formula for the in­ corporation of immigrants. In order to form a picture of the opportunities for political presence it is useful to consider not only the formula itself but also what its adoption reveals about the society’s approach. Ignorance of the dynamics of

adjustment and acculturation played a large part in the principle

1• Transcript of proceedings (typescript), Dept, of Immigration, C a n b or r a , p . 5 9 <•

3 ;>2 -

that ethnic organisation is to be discouraged and in the various devices for handling immigrants as individuals* Many attitudes and considerations came into play here. But there was also a genuine belief that once immigrants were cajoled and manipulated out of their habit of sticking together they would be set on the road to trouble-free assimilation.^ This, as well as the other misconceptions which generated confidence that all it took was a little personal warmth and friendliness and some effort to inform the newcomers about the Australian way of life, might not have survived so long if it were not for the fact that discussion on the problems of migration was conducted exclusively amongst Australians. It is very doubtful for example that, had anyone been listening to what migrants had to say, it would have been possible for a Convention to pass such a resolution as that ’’organizations should be requested to ask their members and citizens to “adeptM one migrant family”/* The idea that the migrant perspective was superfluous was clearly expressed by L* jiaylen (who in 19^5 bad bec-n chairman of the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council). In the course of a debate or. naturalization in 1999 he said:

I do not think that you do much good by using a migrant to tell you what is wrong with the Australians. It is probably better to employ some sort of general under­ standing with the underlying idea to get these people naturalized. 7’

The corollary was that communication with the immigrant was a one-way process: the society had to communicate its standards to the newcomers and educate them into Australian norms. This

I* Evident from the reaction to the paper which Price delivered to the Convention in 1956 was that his very cautious sugges­ tion that the ethnic group can facilitate the assimilation of individuals introduced an entirely new perspective in the thinking of most present. For report on the discussion of the paper see Pigest, Report of Proceedings of Australian Citizenship Convention, 1956. p. 28. The element of ignor­ ance is also clear in the many statements which take for granted that the extent to which ethnic groups would remain physically clustered was a matter for the society to decide and implement (e .g . Calwell in Hansard, H. of R. , Yol. 216, 5 March 1952, p. 89**).

2. Digest, 1953, p. 33.

12y

was evident even when migrants were thought about in the context of political competition for electoral support, in other words when one night expect thinking to have been oriented towards understanding what migrants w a n t . For example the report cm New Australians submitted to the 1957 A.L.P* conference recognizes that migrants could become an important source of support* The conclusion is not that the labour movement should ask. itself: “What do we really offer these people?” , but rather that a major effort should be made to reach the New Australians with a con­ certed series of literature and public addresses ”to impress upon them the struggles of the Trade Union movement from its infancy to the present day" and to show them that "the Labor Party provides the best means by which they can become good

, 1 citizens in this c ountry 1 *

Going back to the ideology of settlement, it must be empha­ sized that the dislike of ethnic clusters did not just stem from the belief that if it were not for ethnic communities individual migrants would have found it easier to assimilate« There was also the fear that ethnic organization affirms a distinctive corporate existence for immigrants in. the society - a state of affairs which was inherently incompatible with the blueprint for a homogeneous nation. A most particular danger associated with this was that ethnicity would become a basis for political

2 organization.

Altogether it seems that during the 1950's the presence of immigrants was approached mainly as a problem of social control. Such ideas and attitudes meant that opportunities for political pr e s e n c e w e r e f a i r 1 y 1 i m .11 e d *

1«. A.L.P., 22nd Commonwealth Conference, Report of Proceedings, p, 29«

2« Cf. Martin (1971 and 1972b)* The link between the fear of immigrant political power and the dispersal device is evident in such statements as: "The only sure way of preventing such an occurrence (the political power of migrants) is to disperse immigrants in small groups throughout the whole of Australia", Senator Tate, Hansard, Senate, V o l . 213, 21 June 1951, p* 214. Most revealing here was the reaction to an attempt to set up a migrant union in the late 1950's, In a press statement on the New Citizens Council the Minister for Immigration expressed the prevalent fear as fellows: "Nothing could be more calcula­ ted to arouse antagonisms and resentment than for migrants to attempt to use their growing numbers to act together as a

- 124

C o n s e n s u s itse l f was a m a j o r obstacle.. It meant trat xt

>,>;as very dif f i c u l t for an immi.grant group to find s p o k e s m e n from w i t h i n Aus t r a l i a n power s t r u c t u r e s when it came to a n y t h i n g that

ran c o u n t e r to the general trend * S u c h spokesmen were p a r t i c u ­

larly n e c e s s a r y ' a t that time, since the society h ad not m a d e

p l a c e for m i g r a n t s in its m e c h a n i s m s for c o m m u n i c a t i o n about the

p r o b l e m s of s e t t l e m e n t . F or example, given c o n sensus on a s s i m i ­

lation , it w a s almost i n c o n c e i v a b l e that the needs w h i c h s t e m

from the desi r e to p r e s e r v e ethnic identity w o u l d be i n cluded xn

w h a t the s o c i e t y heeds w h e n a l l o c a t i n g resources.

Secondly, c o n c e r n w i t h s e i ling the p o l i c y to the n a t i v e born, as well as refusal to a c k n o w l e d g e eth n i c i t y as an end u r i n g d i f ­

f e r e n t i a t i n g c h a r a c t e r i s t i c m e a n t that ethnic m i n o r i t i e s c ould not hope to be thought of as distinct units in the normal course* of p o l itical d e c i s i o n s about e q u a l i t y of opportunity, except for

i n s t a n c e s of overt d i s c r i m ina t i o » -

Thirdly, as long as the s o c i e t y w a s not p r e p a r e d to define

d i f f i c u l t i e s and d e c i d e on s o l u t i o n s w i t h some r e f e r e n c e to

m i g r a n t viewpoints, a wi d e r ange of n eeds w e r e bound to be p r e ­ judged as n o n - p r o b l e m s in r e l a t i o n to ethnicity*

Finally, d i s l i k e of d e a l i n g w i t h immigrants on a c o r p o r a t e b a s i s w as largely i n c o m p a t i b l e w i t h m a k i n g it a pol i t i c a l habit to take d i s t i n c t i v e ethnic needs into consideration«.

W i t h all this, the s i t u a t i o n in the 1 9 4 0 ‘s w a s r a d i c a l l y

di f f e r e n t from earlier years* For the first time the society

a c c e p t e d r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for what happ e n e d to imm i g r a n t s a f t e r

arrival and a r t i c u l a t e d a p o l i c y r e g a r d i n g settlement» With this

it a c k n o w l e d g e d the p r i n c i p l e that needs and p r o b l e m s w h i c h flow

fr o m e t h n i c i t y are r e l e v a n t to dec i s i o n s about resources* At the

time, the p r i n c i p l e m a y ha v e b e e n a p p l i e d in a narrow and u n i n ­

formed way. But the p r e s e n c e of immigrants as a sector of the

p o pulation to be t a k e n into account in the p r o c e s s of d e c i s i o n ­ m a k i n g was establ i s h e d in principle.

pre s s u r e group to a c h i e v e sec t i o n a l a i m s ’', A.R. Downer,

14 June 1940* F or trade union reaction, see report of the

s e c r e t a r y of the L a b o u r Council of N.S.W. on New C i t i z e n s

C o unci 1, The An s t r al ian Tor leer , 8 J u 1 y 1959, p . 9; a 1 s o

two-page arti c l e "Beware of the N e w Citizen Council", ibid.,

- 1.25 ~

One area v/here immigrants could make corssi derahle headway was overt discrimination• Whether it was in the name of assimi­

lation or in the name of justice, the society took a genuine interest in implementing equal, treatment ♦ In the in id «3. 9 5 0

3

3

rants. Or again.* in 1955 the Citizenship Convention passed a. resolution to abolish the discretionary special benefit for alien widows and make them eligible for ordinary w i d o w s • pensions, ,!in view ox the present commendable trend to remove, where possible, distinctions between old and new Australians, and because of the democre.t i e princi.ples invo

1

Certainly the obstacles put in the way of migrant groups feeding their needs into the system were substantial and were largely a matter of deliberate policy. But they were also the outcome of a set of attitudes and preconceptions which could be, and eventually were, revised as the number of aliens grew, as the real problems arising from cultural distance became more evident, and as the effectiveness of the s o c i e t y ’s methods was ies t c d by res uIts.

i i , Subsequent dev o1opmcnts

From, the late 1 9 5 0 ’s onwards one can detect the beginning of changes. People began to recognize the need to refer to the m i g r a n t s ’ perspective, there was some acceptance of ethnic social organization and the burden of migration began to be assessed for the way it weighed on the immigrants. These developments were closely related and will be discussed together, Much later, po s ­ sibly from after the m i d “i

960

0

It is difficult to date these c h a n g e s « Indeed many have