Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen;
I agree with the opposition that Australia has made progress. Yes, since the last couple of decades, we have stopped institutionalised killings and stealing kids.
However racism still exists and it exists in every nation – so to argue that Australia is 100% racism free is baloney.
The fact that today we are even discussing whether a long established multicultural society like Australia is racist shows how much the political leadership of this country has dropped the ball on the fight against racism.
In 2009 the Age claimed Victorian crime statistics showed that Indian-born citizens were twice as likely to be victims of street crimes.
But the main impact of racial street crimes was felt by the 50,000 Indian-born students, and not by the more affluent established Indian-born migrant community. Which is also why 'established Indians' could say that they 'felt safe'. How nice for them
The shocking reality was that Indian students were over 400% more at risk than the general Victorian population. According to Police just in one suburb of Maribyrnong 46% of all victims of armed robberies were Indian students.
Few believe the Premier when he tells us Victoria is the safest sate in Australia. And with assault levels 400% greater than ordinary Victorians how can Indian students and their parents have any faith in Victorian claims about racism or crime?
I am proud that I spent every waking hour of my life making sure that the world heard the stories of these victims of violence and racism and; that I fought for the emotional and medical support that they needed.
By standing up for these voiceless victims I have been labelled' by some powerful people as public enemy number one. It is a pity, the public figures did not turn their anger towards the criminals; who terrorised and victimised innocent students from Asia.
The Police response in such cases shocked the world. Police was busy trying to prove how these cases were not racist while suggesting, that Indians should not speak in their native tongue and to look as poor as they can.
The police in Melbourne got tangled in war of words with victims and failed to demonstrate the scientific and clinical precision in crime-solving that is expected of a professional police force.
The incidents of street crime and the indifference of our institutions were communicated directly to their relatives via sms messages and youtube videos. It is no surprise' that thousands of angry young people protested around Australia and worried Asian parents stopped sending their children to Australia.
Furiously denying these attacks while all of Asia watched the video evidence was pure stupidity.
At the time, community leaders like myself were also racially attacked for speaking out, on websites and personally attacked by government officials but shooting the messenger solves nothing. This was just another symptom of obvious racism.
It is very damaging for Australia's Asian-dependent economy that across Asia Australia is now seen as returning to it racist ways this perception in Asia is largely due to our Government's erratic treatment of Asian visa holders and potential migrants and its denials about the recent surge in racial attacks on internationals students from India.
This is not a nicety of political correctness that requires us to make amends in Asia for out treatment of their students – it is a question of economics.
Asia is now both our main banker and our link to economic growth – the fortress mentality of Europe has proven to be a path to stagnation and debt.
We have escaped the shackles of European and Anglo economic stagnation because of three Asian factors:
1) We have in place a huge public spending program underwritten by Chinese capital and
2) We have a massive current and future export trade assured by being locked into supplying the four big Asian trading partners - that is China, India, South Korea and Japan.
3) We have secured a cheap and highly educated source of migrants to repair is fast ageing society
It should be noted that we have used the massive cash cow of international education and discounted labour guest workers schemes like 457 visas to do this.
It is understandable that given this stark economic reality that our current political and media elite want to deal in such absolutes as: is Australia racist or is now free of racism?
The reason that Australia is being called racist today in Asia is largely because of our mono-cultural establishments - the police, the judiciary, the media and the political elite. These lily-white institutions have resisted Asian faces and Asian accents for 40 years even while we opened our doors to Asian migrants.
But letting in Asians and treating them as equals are two distinct things. Asians can be award winning heart surgeons but they cannot be political leaders or police?
We will need to find the courage we found forty years ago to end the white Australia policy in immigration; and reform our institutions to reflect the new reality where both Indian and Chinese born outnumber traditional migrant communities like the Italians and Greeks.
Our media and politicians do not thank Asia for saving Australia from the recession rather they blame Asians for everything from dodgy sushi to rising house prices.
The only thing Asians have not been blamed for are the bushfires but I am sure some channel is working on that story as we speak.
The ever tactful Chinese have called Australia 'an ungrateful kangaroo'. That is their way of expressing their deeply hurt feelings about the rise of racism in our politics, media and even in international business.
Instead of sledging and demeaning Asia's best and brightest who have called Australia home or who seek to make a future here – we should welcome Asia and lock Australia into a bright future. After all as our national anthem says 'we have boundless plains to share'.
We must ask ourselves as to why do our aged and elderly have to wait over a year for hip replacement surgery when we have easy access to millions of Asian professionals?
For the sake of our children we must have the moral courage to confront our racist past and current racist attitudes.
We have to work harder and smarter to alter the Asian viewpoint that still thinks that England stole a continent from a black people – put a fence around it – and for two hundred years had a sign saying 'whites only'.
Saying we are no longer a 'whites only' colony and actually reengineering the key institutions to be multi-racial, is not easy. We are still waiting to see an Aboriginal as an Australian head of state. Let us have someone as inspirational as Cathy Freeman - to be our First President.
She, to many, represents the hopes for the Indigenous of this country.
Let us demonstrate the courage to see Asians, Indigenous, Muslims and Africans in Parliament.
Australia is uniquely placed to tackle this issue; as unlike most of our politicians; ordinary Australians are honest. In a 2003 study by UNSW over 83% respondents recognised that there was a problem with racism in Australia.
Denying the new racism in Australia is pointless. In fact denial of these nasty pockets of hate in our criminal youth and in our police, media and political elites betrays the majority of ordinary Australian citizens who have embraced our Asian future and embraced 'fairness for all' as a way of life.
In January 2010 Former Defence Force Chief General Cosgrove said and I quote "the number of incidents against Indians seemed too many to be coincidences,'' ''If you didn't suspect a racial strand you'd be mad,''
Today I repeat the call he made to all Australians "to deal more openly and directly with race issues than many political figures have been willing to do."
Let's be strong and stop Australia's retreat back to the 1800's. Let us all Advance Australia Fair.
Thank you for listening.
For details and video visit http://www.iq2oz.com/events/event-details/2010-series-melbourne/02-june.php
Copyright Gautam Gupta
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