So I went to this discussion at Melbourne Uni yesterday, and it was very interesting. It was really quite informative to listen to all the panellists' views on multicultural politics in Australia. In fact, the panellists were so interesting that the two people I thought would piss me off the most - the two Liberals - were in fact two of the most interesting speakers. Due to running over time, the audience questions period was cut a little short, leaving me with a welter of questions I would have liked to ask, but couldn't. More after the jump.
I found Dr Berhan Ahmed's comments on the views of the two main political parties being too closely allied fascinating and could more than sympathise with his defection from Labor to the Greens.
ALP MP Maria Vamvakinou I found quite sympathetic, until she made mention of asylum seekers not going through 'proper channels' and using the 'back door', which I found to be a startlingly ignorant comment. Surely someone in her position would know that for a lot of people there are no 'proper channels'?
The conversation ranged from ethnic diversity, through cultural barriers, post 9-11 Islamophobia, religious barriers in general, Pauline Hanson and much more.
An audience comment right towards the end I found particularly sage. She said something along the lines of, while an issue might have a majority support in a community, if there are 15% swinging voters in another electorate to win over, a party will dump their majority support to win that swinging vote. It rings very true, and I wish it didn't.
Big props to organiser Jen for all his hard work too.
I guess questions I wanted to ask were - should Australia adopt a secular stance in government and law, but champion complete freedom of and from religion, to avoid not only Islamophobia, but the claim that Australia is a Christian country, both of which are alienating and divisive? And - has the fallout from the Howard years, as regards his tolerance of Hanson, and the growing vilification of immigrants, including the Cronulla Riots, caused a more racist Australia?
Still fascinating stuff all round.
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