Synopsis
Australia has always been an ethnically and culturally diverse society, but prevailing
conceptions of Australian national identity have in the past marginalised
and disadvantaged minorities. Powerful institutions such as our Constitution
and immigration and citizenship legislation, have both reflected an
understanding of, and worked to achieve, a society which is essentially
British in culture and ethnicity. This paper explains why the Constitution
and Australia's citizenship legislation offer no guidance
to Australians seeking to understand what it means to be an Australian
citizen, and what their rights and responsibilities as citizens are.
Cultural diversity was first recognised as a result of post-war mass
migration. It was not until 1973 that the Australian government abandoned
the assertion that Australiawas a homogeneous society, and began to
promote a new conception of Australian national identity as a multicultural
society. Subsequent multicultural policies were designed to achieve
social harmony by ensuring equality and removing discrimination. This
paper concludes by suggesting measures essential for achieving social
harmony and inclusion in the twenty-first century. |
Australia has never known cultural and ethnic homogeneity, although many powerful institutions
have worked to project an image of Australia as a white, Anglo-Celtic and Christian nation.
Throughout the twentieth century the Constitution, and much of the legislation which flowed from it, have attempted
to make this image the reality by determining who belonged and who should
be excluded from the community of the nation.
In 1788, the First Fleet arrived in a country where the population
comprised about 600 different social groups speaking about 200 distinct languages.
The new arrivals themselves were far from homogeneous. Over 4,000 of the
convicts sent to NSW were not Anglo-Celtic, 900 of them were non-whites and
about a thousand were Jews. The Gold Rushes of the 1850s attracted about
117,000 immigrants from Europe, China, the USA, Canada, New Zealand
and the South Pacific. Add to these the 62,000 Pacific Islanders brought to
Queensland between 1863 and 1904 and it becomes clear that Australia at Federation
was far from being a homogeneous society.
[1]
Federation was, to a considerable extent, designed to correct
this situation and to ensure that future Australians would be white and Anglo-Celtic.
The Commonwealth Parliament moved swiftly to prevent the further entry of
non-Europeans (even those who were fellow British subjects) by means of the
Immigration Restriction Act 1901 with its South African-inspired dictation
test. The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 successfully removed most of
the Pacific Islanders, and Aborigines were excluded from the Commonwealth's
responsibility by Section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution, until its amendment
following the 1967 Referendum.
All Australia's attempts to recruit immigrants before 1947
targeted British migrants only, as only they could reinforce our conception
of our identity as a nation of essentially British culture and ethnicity.
National Identity
National identity can most usefully thought
about as the 'imagined community' of the nation.
[2]
Australians have long attempted to imagine what it was to be an Australian
as opposed to a transplanted Briton. Most of the images of 'the typical Australian'
have been male, white and able bodied – for example the bushman image promoted
by the Bulletin from the late nineteenth century;
the ANZAC soldier as conceived by the First World War historian C.E.W. Bean
and subsequently preserved and promoted by the Australian War Memorial which
he founded. Posters depicting the Bondi lifesaver were later used to lure
tourists and immigrants to Australia. These images became rooted in Australian popular literature and were preserved and
promoted by powerful community organisations.
Australian national identity was conceived of in a way which
presumed a shared culture and common political interests. This marginalised
sections of society which did not fit into this imagined community. Some
groups – women, Aboriginal Australians, the aged and people with a disability
– were regarded as dependent members of society whose interests were seen
to be best represented by those on whom they depended. Non-European residents
were considered unworthy by reason of their race, to ever become citizens.
Citizenship
Citizenship defines who belongs, and who does not, in our society.
Until very recently, however, Australians have not thought much about what
it means. This is not surprising as the framers of our Constitution, the
foundation of our entire legal and governmental system, chose not to mention
citizenship of Australia. Citizenship is not a constitutional concept, so we get no guidance there.
Nor can we look for information on citizenship rights from
Australia's citizenship legislation. Until the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, Australians
were solely British subjects with 'duties and privileges' as subjects of the
Queen. The introduction of a distinct Australian citizenship was not the
result of any particular nationalistic pressure. It was imposed on an almost
entirely indifferent Australian population from above, as a consequence of
Canada's moves to create a separate Canadian citizenship. From 1949 until 1987, Australians
were both British subjects and Australian citizens, but the meaning of the
latter was unclear. This Act sets out who is entitled to Australian citizenship,
gives the legal definition of who is and is not a citizen, but it does not
deal directly with the consequences of citizenship, nor
the substantive nature of citizenship.
It is not surprising that most Australians regard citizenship
as a legal status bestowed on foreigners. This was an almost inevitable result
of the Government's giving to the Department of Immigration portfolio responsibility
for administering the Nationality and Citizenship Act. Officers in that Department,
like their fellow Australians, had no conception of what being an Australian
citizen as distinct from a British subject actually meant. For most of the
twentieth century the prevailing conception of citizenship was a culturally
normative one – it was conceptualised in relation to British culture and ethnicity,
not in terms of the rights and responsibilities of the citizens of an autonomous
state. The Department saw the attainment of Australian citizenship as the
final step in the process of assimilation of alien migrants, and closely monitored
citizenship statistics as the only measurable indicators of the success of
their settlement programs. None of its many citizenship promotion campaigns
targeted the British, who were the least likely group of migrant to apply
for Australian citizenship.
[3]
It is only fairly recently that thinking on citizenship in
Australia has been influenced by the seminal work of T. H. Marshall, although he first published
on the topic in 1950.
[4] He introduced a much broader concept of citizenship
than just legal status. He defined 'citizenship' as a status bestowed on
those who are full members of a community – expanding it to include social
rights as well as political and civil rights. For Marshall, social
citizenship covered basic living standards such as health care and education.
To discover these broader, more practical legal consequences
of the status of citizenship, and what they reflect about the meaning of citizenship
in Australia, it is not enough to look at the Australian Citizenship Act 1948
and the myriad pieces of legislation that discriminate on the basis of some
form of membership. It is also necessary to include the common law developments
that impact upon membership of the community. Kim Rubenstein recently undertook
the mammoth task of analysing all High Court judgments with bearing on the
rights and responsibilities of Australian citizens, only to find that these
issues are still unclear. She found that the High Court did not restrict
itself to discussing the rights and responsibilities of common law citizens,
but incorporated a notion of the state as responsible for enforcing the rule
of law and protecting human rights. This normative view of citizenship is
reflected in its use of the word 'citizen' to represent a person deserving
the protection of the state and equality of treatment, regardless of whether
he or she is a citizen, permanent resident or temporary resident.
[5]
The distinction between the legal and social consequences of
citizenship is clearly demonstrated by the different treatment of Indigenous
and migrant Australians. Prior to 1921, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders
who were denied citizenship under colony or State law,
had to apply to become naturalised British subjects in Australia
in the same way as aliens. Under the Commonwealth Nationality Act 1920, those born
after January 1921 were declared to be British subjects. Thus they automatically
became Australian Citizens in 1949. Citizenship, however, was a mere formality
for them as they did not have access to any of the rights and responsibilities
granted to other Australian citizens by Commonwealth legislation.
[6]
On the other hand, the Commonwealth wanted alien migrants to
become absorbed into Australian society and its economy. They were regarded
as proto-citizens and granted access to most of the social benefits available
to Australian citizens. Thus immigrants without formal citizenship were not
socially disadvantaged.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism reflects a new way of imagining the community
of the nation. It redefines our national identity to reflect the diversity
of those who make up our society. It developed in response to the diversity
of immigrants, not to the existing diversity of our population which was,
for most of the twentieth century, successfully ignored and repressed.
From 1947 to 1952, Australia accepted large numbers of refugees from many parts of
Europe, then added to this diversity through a series of migration
agreements with a range of other countries. At first aliens were expected
to assimilate – to conform to our British culture. By 1962, the Department
of Immigration accepted that this was an unrealistic expectation and dropped
the term 'assimilation' in favour of 'integration'.
The Australian government was determined that these newcomers
settle permanently in Australia and become
Australian citizens. It recognised their differences and special needs much
more clearly and quickly than those of native-born Australians. For example
the telephone interpreter service introduced in 1973 to help non-English speaking
migrants access services to which they were entitled, was not extended to
non-English speaking Aborigines until the 1990s.
Although, until 1972, the government always officially referred
to Australia as a 'homogeneous society', by the 1960s this conception was becoming increasingly
inappropriate with the gradual erosion of the 'White Australia' policy during
the 1960s. In 1964 the government began admitting 'mixed race' immigrants,
from 1966 it offered permanent residence to skilled non-Europeans, and following
a migration agreement with Turkey in 1967, it admitted large numbers of non-Christian
migrants for the first time.
When the Whitlam government redefined Australia as a 'multicultural' society' in 1973, it borrowed the term from
Canada but interpreted it in a very different way. In Canada multiculturalism
was intended to preserve and promote the separate cultures and rights of its
distinct cultural groups. In Australia the term served to acknowledge the irreversible cultural pluralism brought to
Australia by thirty years of migration, and to ensure equality. In December 1973 the Minister
for Immigration, A.J. Grassby, described Australian society as one 'in which
equal opportunity is accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of
acceptance and tolerance'.
[7] The multicultural policies developed under the
Fraser and subsequent governments, aimed to ensure the equal participation
of migrants in society, while acknowledging their right to preserve their
cultural differences. In 1989, the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia
provided the first authoritative statement of the rights and responsibilities
of Australians in a multicultural society.
Belonging and exclusion in the twenty-first century.
What sort of country do we want to be in the twenty-first century?
Firstly, one which acknowledges
and celebrates the fact that it has a culturally and ethnically diverse population
[B1].
Secondly, one in which government policies are designed to
preserve and maintain social harmony – policies that are designed to achieve
equality and social justice, and to avoid the creation of disadvantaged and
marginalised minorities. It is of considerable concern to many Australians
that current policies granting only temporary residence to those found to
be genuine refugees are creating quite the opposite effect. Refugee families
granted only temporary protection are denied the opportunity to reconstruct
their shattered lives in our community, are denied all but minimal social
services, are living under the constant threat of deportation, and are forever
denied the possibility of citizenship.
Thirdly, Australians should understand their citizenship rights
and obligations. A bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution would be
the most appropriate framework for this. However, the existing rights of
non-citizens living in our community should not be negated by such a bill.
Fourthly, Australia in the twenty-first century should be a country which respects human rights as defined
by international law. International law provides a framework in which we
can assess legislation that discriminates on the basis of citizenship. The
various international conventions to which we are a signatory, permit discrimination
between nationals and non-nationals in relation to democratic rights, such
as the right to vote, to stand for Parliament or to be employed in various
government positions. They do not permit discrimination in relation to fundamental
human rights.
[8]
The treatment of asylum seekers in Australian detention centres is clearly
contrary to a number of these conventions.
Current trends suggest that none of these goals will be attained
easily.
Bibliography.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London,1991.
Ann-Mari Jordens, Redefining Immigration, Citizenship and National Identity, Hale and Iremonger,
Sydney 1995.
Ann-Mari Jordens, Alien to Citizen. Settling Migrants in
Australia 1947-75, Allen and Unwin with Australian Archives ,
Sydney 1997.
James Jupp (ed), The Australian People.
An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their
Origins, Cambridge
University
Press, 2001.
T. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, and Other
Essays ,Cambridgez University Press, 1950.
Kim Rubenstein, Australian Citizenship Law in Context, Lawbook
Co., Sydney 2002.
