Pauline Hanson backs Kevin Andrews on migrants.
PAULINE Hanson has endorsed Kevin Andrews’ views on African migrants, saying the Immigration Minister was right to be concerned about crime and other issues.
Far Right behind Shreddergate bid.
A COALITION of right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists has been identified as the driving force behind moves to revive the so-called Shreddergate affair as the federal election approaches.
Speaks volumes.
Update [by MB on 11/2/08]: The article linked to in this post was the subject of a determination by the Press Council which can be accessed here:
THE Press Council has upheld a complaint that The Australian unfairly associated author and webmaster Scott Balson with organisations known to espouse racist, conspiracy and extreme right-wing views.
“PAULINE Hanson has endorsed Kevin Andrews’ views on African migrants”
Next thing you know, the Pope will announce that he’s a Catholic.
Don’t be disingenuous. This policy is not ethically neutral in the way a symphony is. People are not much like a series of musical phrases.
I wrote something on Shreddergate
here it is on my blog some time ago. Usually my blog is meek and mild but I got a very angry email (which I never get).
Here it is:
I politely stated that he could contribute to the comments feature in the blog. But he never did.
I’m confused by this. I thought dog whistling was meant to be only audible to some. This should be termed “I-hate-darkies-megaphoning”
That title for your post is perfect.
…and I found it remarkable to hear Gerard Henderson this morning state that Sudanese refugees were less deserving than, say, Iraqi refugees as they hadn’t made as much an effort to get here – illegally. Direct transcribed quote follows
“…the people who come as asylum seekers show a lot of initiative, a lot of courage, they get here, but there are problems taking a lot of young, African men out of refugee camps where they haven’t shown the initiative that a lot of asylum seekers have taken.”
link
The Legal Soapbox has this contribution which strikes me as thoughtful.
As Alan Ramsey said last week on the muckraking behind the so called Heiner affair, “Ugly, stupid people.”
And that goes for Andrews and Hansen as well.
Well, that kind of thing cuts both ways.
There is a subtle difference though Craig Mc the Australian ones are our Australian Parliamentary representatives, past representatives or hopefuls who are there to act according to law and for the betterment of Australia. They obviously are held to a far higher standard of accountability by Australians.
Steve, you don’t hold yourself to higher standards than politicians?
I hold politicians like Andrews responsible for his actions, bungles,and bumblings and refuse to vote for his party come the next election.
I can’t provide the link, but the former National Premier, Rob Borbidge, who had most to gain on a Heiner ‘scandal’ has publicly stated in the GG that Rudd was not involved in any shape or form.
Simply, Rudd was not a member of the Cabinet that made the decision.
BTW, Heiner doesn’t believe that he was ‘screwed’.
Talk about a long bow.
As for Hanson, expect a visit from SATP who assured us some time ago that Pauline was sick of politics. And maybe she is. But the $$$ are very attractive.
wpd the link is here.
Wow Seamus, that Gerard Henderson quote is astonishing. Asylum seekers show more initiative than people stuck in refugee camps? Talk about mind games. These people should be ashamed to call themselves Catholics.
Great goddlemighty is that prick on the ABC payroll? Who appointed him resident Expert on Everything? We’ve got 20 million people in Australia, does the MSM have to perpetuate this quaint myth that all wisdom resides in the heads of about eight of them?
Paul bleedin’ Kelly was writing the other day about intellectuals … he’s a friggin’ journalist for Chrissakes. Since when did journalists know an intellectual when they saw one? And now ‘Smiles’ Henderson is apparently the ABC’s analyst-at-large.
Akerman and the League of Rights, Sheehan and his magic water … I mean these guys are serious nutjobs and they still expect people to respect what they write.
They should privatise the ABC. Now. While the brand name’s still got some residual value from the days when the institution stood for something.
Thanks for digging that quote out Seamus.
I thought I may have heard it on the radio, but Hendo’s sentiment was so outrageous I thought I’d misheard it.
So Hendo actually said it.
The Sudanese refugees that Hendo traduces were the very people who did what Ratty said the “queue-jumpers” shoud have done when he was lying about the Seiv X.
Ye Olde Catch-22.
Hendo was one of the great apologists for Howard’s manipulation of the “queue-jumper” trope during the time of the Tampa.
Does Hendo have no shame?
This is like the Tampa in reverse. Seems the glory days and the Midas touch are over for this Government. Now everything they touch turns against them. Who would have expected one of the Howard Liberal’s prize cheersquad leaders to come up with a howler like that?
Phil:
Just as well I didn’t open my mouth and suggest we bring immediately a planeload of Zimbabwean refugee technicians with their families from the Republic of South Africa. Had I done so I might have been detained under Australia’s current PRO-Terrrorism laws, interrogated vigorously and then rendered. Hell, that was close. Whew!
“Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has cut the African migrant intake, saying there appears to be specific problems with them fitting in to Australian society.”
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.
–1984, George Orwell
Like others here, I am astonished that Gerard Henderson would say that.
What a grimy little hypocrite. He has built his “reputation” on quoting back to others he disagrees with, words from long ago, in order to cast doubt on their intellectual integrity. The Sydney Institute is nothing more than one giant filing cabinet of old newsclippings on all his enemies.
We should ensure that this Henderson quote is repeatedly thrown back into his miserable face from now on, whenever he opens his mouth on the subject of refugees.
Until now Henderson has probably been the only right wing commentator with a shred of credibility. It marvellous to see the bastard self destruct.
Somebody should put Paul Kelly onto this. Its a very good example of how to be a sub-standard public intellectual Good to see Robert Manne shoot him down in flames on Lateline last night.
A new thought.
Hanson appeared to come to her senses about Aborigines after she spent a hile in gaol with them.
Maybe she should spend a few more weeks in gaol with some African women.
That’s if there are any in the prison system Paul. I’ve always thought that the taxpayer should foot the bill for Pauline to take a non-European backpackers trip around the world. Pauline’s gap year.
Good idea, Phil. But you know what they say: Travel narrows the mind.
In the 70s my stepmother and father went on a round the world cruise. I asked them what it was like when they came back, and she said, I kid you not, “Everywhere we wewnt they kept on giving us wog food.” No hope for some people.
Paul Burns and Phil:
black-and-white. Actually, some of her views had support among quite a few Aborigines before she went to prison.
Not everything can be reduced to
Now there’s an idea. Just make sure she doesn’t go to Russia, meet up with Vladimir Zhironovsky and bring him back with her; one radical nationalist at a time is enough to handle.
It’s all you can bloody get in Australia these days. When was the last time you saw grilled lamb chops, mashed potato and pumpkin and peas on the menu? With Heinz mint sauce, natch.
Do you know you can’t even buy tinned quinces any more?
Paul Burns, I hear you.
My father-in-law came back from a world trip with his mind wonderfully closed. He was astonished to find the world was full of black people and…and…and…they walked down streets as though they owned them. Nearly killed him when his grandson married a Sri Lankan girl.
Do you know you can’t even buy tinned quinces any more?
Repackaged they are, mate. Into the Kenwood, minced and out at 360g/$7.20 a pop and called Quince Glaze. It’s a bloody disgrace and we all know it. Macca and Dick Smith are the only ones who would care.
I just wanna say that I miss you
Quince you’ve been gone
I just wanna say that I miss you
Quince you’ve been gone
A tune by the Quincy Jones’ mistress, I presume, antony.
“Osso Bucco and Venison Shanks with home-made Saffron Fettucine.”
And Antony, this dish is a sad reflection of our times, friend.
AntHony if you don’t mind, joe2. The h is for handsome.
It was Chowderfinger I think.
And yes too true, too true. But at least we’re no longer taking it out on the jus.
Jah Teh and Paul Burns:
It’s not the Australians alone who are to blame.
Was at a conference a few years back. The Indonesian speaker complained that Australians keep flying over his wonderful country to other parts of the world and don’t bother to visit Indonesia. He didn’t like it when I politely pointed out the practical difficulties that ORDINARY Australian tourists have in getting to see anything of Indonesia other than the beaches of Bali, nice as they might be. Experienced travellers can get to places like Surabaya and Manado with ease – but they are not usually mums-and-dads on their first or second holiday outside Australia.
How many people have you met who have “been to America” and on closer questioning find that all they saw was Anaheim/Disneyland and their hotel room in Los Angeles? Yeah, right. So after travelling all that way, they come back with some understanding of the Americans and their way of life …. like hell they do!
In some cases, tourism does INCREASE ignorance and prejudice …. Time for those in the Australian tourist industry to stop selling shoddy goods and to start giving their custoomers really wrthwhile experiences [never know, it might get them repeat business too].
Did I hear Ms Hanson correctly I thought she said something like “Do you want your daughters to catch AIDS from Sudanese refugees” ?
I would love the full quote if just to make sure I heard her correctly or not.
The beat up in the paper today was about catching TB from Africans as though it hasn’t been in the country before. Any refugee coming from the stinking camps could have it and a good percentage of Vietnamese coming here in the 1970s had it. Regugees are never in good health which is why they’d like to come to a country where they have a chance of surviving.
Saw Gerard Henderson on Insiders with his strange comments about asylum seekers vs refugees. I think his wife Ann has helped some Nigerian asylum seekers and he has got to know them. And really that is probably the key point: when you get to know these folk regardless of their status and origin I reckon most of them will be striving to improve their life. Some might need more help than others for a while but a relatively well off country like Australia can surely give them a fair go.
Anyway the other thing about Hendo we thought was that he looks ‘beaten’. He’s got that worn look rather like Abbott.
Phil tries it on again:
I have to disagree with the premise of this post. Facts, not friends, should be the basis for evaluating an action. The “company you keep” standard is a form of guilt by association which we know is wrong, after the Haneef fiasco.
In the reality-based community we judge policy be results, not rhetoric. By this standard Howard’s ministry is a miserable failure at being racist and xenophobic.
Andrews has actually selected quite a high ratio of Africans for inclusion under the humanitarian program. Even the normally hostile Age cant help but concede this point:
So Andrews was accepting up to 8,000 Sudanese refugees a year through the mid-noughties. And now this rotten enemy of humanity is lying down on the job, letting in about 4,000 sub-Saharan Africans per annum. What kind of racism is this that takes the majority of an alien intake program from people as black as coal?
It turns out that Andrews is not the only Howard minister guilty of being soft on African refugees. The driving force behind the influx of Africans waas none other than the evil Ruddock, who apparently took a shine to them on a visit to a refugee camp:
And that Howard is just as bad. He pretends to be the friend of racists and red-necks everywhere. Yet he continues to let darkies into the country in ever-increasing numbers. Wikipedia shows just how much Howard is letting the his racist friends down:
Dammit, these days near on 80% of immigrants are NESBs from dark-skinned countries. The country is being flooded with coloured people, with John “Hitler” Howard driving the push.
The results speak for themselves. Public confidence in the governments immigration and integration policies are at an alltime high, after the disgraceful mess left by the liberal-Left during the mid-seventies through mid-nineties period. A few years back the Age polled the rednecks and found a surprising result:
Howard’s so-called draconian policies have increased the NESB-fication of AUS. And his so-called dog whistle race cards politics have actually softened hostility to foreigners. What on earth is going on here? This does not fit the LP script. Mark, Phil, Kim, Nabakov, Fyodor will have to find some other stick to beat the Rodent with. The “racist” one that they have been flogging to death turns out to be the kind you buy in a joke shop
This fits the cross-wired “Nixon goes to China” theory of politics: if you want change in a certain direction it is best to let the enemy do the changes. Thus the ALP should manage liberalisation of the political economy, whilst the LN/P has managed liberalisation of the political culture.
Yes, thats right. AUS political culture is massively more liberal and open under Howard than it was under the reign of the ostensible friends of freedom. There is much less likelihood of ethnic ghettos forming so long as NESBs are selected on their value to the economic system rather than the ethnic lobby. Consequently nativist reactions are far less likely, at least so far as the Feds are concerned.
This is a terrible disappointment to xenophobes everywhere who dislike foreigners because of who they are, not what they do. Howard should resign from his position as AUS’s de facto delegate to the KKK coven. He is giving racism a bad name among racists!
Good point, I agree.
I don’t think this is obvious at all. It’s possible that his dog-whistling has just become less effective as the numbers have – as you point out – increased and more people have seen first hand that foreigners, even ones with dark skin, aren’t as scary as they’d feared. It’s also possible that the long debate sparked by the dog-whistling has had the effect of convincing people with reason and facts. it also could simply be time: it’s really hard to maintain a fear of something that never happens for a long period of time.
It’s true that immigration numbers have not matched the rhetoric. But that doesn’t make the rhetoric any more justifiable.
Interesting you cite an Age attitudinal poll as evidence of social facts, Jack…
Anna Winter on 7 October 2007 at 9:12 pm
Yes that is all possibly true. But possibility is the weakest logical modality. I prefer to deal in probability. Try to udge policies by results and theories by predictions. Lousy from a script writing point of view but its the smart way to bet.
And the odds seem to me to favour the “tough love” interpretation of Howard’s cultural policy. This seems to fit the historical narrative over the past generation and be consistent with certain of AUS’s underlying national character traits.
If the your theory were true then we would not see convergence b/w the ethnic-based ALP and the LN/P on cultural policy. But we do.
Nor would we see the gradual atrophy of the liberal-Left minor parties (GREENs, DEMs) vote. But we have.
Moreover it is clear that AUS citizens still have a healthy phobia towards certain types of xenos. As evinced by the popularity of the “Border Security” show.
It was not hard “to maintain a fear of something that” did “happens for a long period of time”, namely the ethnic crime wave that washed over these shores during the eighties and nineties. By the late eighties the truth about cultural politics was unprintable. The Fitzgerald report had to be censored since public opinion at the time had swung to the radical Right. The Hanson reaction was not a freak event, it was bound to happen.
This fear has abated because draconian anti-crime, pro-obligation and pro-integration policies by state and federal authorities have put a lid on unruly elements within the minorities. This is the kind of good red meat that authoritarian conservatives thrive on.
Anna Winter says:
Nasty rhetorical means may be justified by nice political ends. A certain amount of NCO-style argy-bargy can turn raw recruits into good soldiers. Same deal applies to immigrant cum citizens.
Political correctness should not inhibit vigorous and authoritative forms of integration, esp given the unscientific basis for that ideology. I note that most parties to this dispute have not even bothered to play the “celebrate diversity” card in this debate. This is just too dog-eared to take a trick.
I agree that “Political correctness should not inhibit vigorous and authoritative forms of integration”, but I’m not sure where claims about a particular group being more likely to commit crimes when evidence says they aren’t fits with that.
As for “I prefer to deal in probability. Try to (j)udge policies by results and theories by predictions” – your theory isn’t “probable”. It isn’t “probable” that whipping up fear and bigotry in small groups of the population had the effect of making us happier about immigration. You may think it is, but I think my theories are much more likely.
Err, he wasn’t the immigration minister then.
Possibly the least coherent epistemological dispatch from the Strocchiverse methodology planet I’ve seen recently. Couldn’t even begin to try to make sense of it.
Heh!
Or, alternatively, it’s entertaining tv for the demographic it’s aimed at.
Jack Strocchi:
Bit strong …. but yeah.
Everyone:
Worked out Pauline’s itinerary for her first trip. First, PNG to say hello to our next-door neighbours. Then, Manila to meet Filipinos at home. Tokyo to meet Japan’s very interesting politicians – with a side trip to the Yasukune Shrine. Next, Khabarovsk or Irkutsk to meet Siberiaks face-to-face. Then Tashkent to meet the Other Moslems and on to Bahrain or Dubai to meet few wealthy Arabs who just don’t fit the stereotype. On to Nairobi to see the effects of urbanization and on to Johannesburg to see how a multiracial society works. Next, Rio De Janiero for obvious reasons and then to La Paz where she she might even get to meet an indio president. On to Mexico City to learn something about the problems and the potentials of that great country. Next to Honolulu; okay, she’s a haole but locals won’t mind a bit. Then home …. to put all that knowledge to good use. Might be a bit daring to send her to China or India on her first trip; later would be fine.
What do you reckon?
No probs Jack, it’s a standard Tim Blair technique, thought I’d try it on for size. Straight out of the RWDB playbook. It’s easy.
Anna Winter on 7 October 2007 at 10:35 pm
I have no great knowledge of Sudanese crime rates. In any case, standard social metrics are usually measured in too coarse a grain to be useful. My general theory of the pathology of cultural association under conditions of modernity is that politites that attempt to hastily combine pre-modern multiculturalism with post-modern subculturalism generally end in tears.
I humbly submit that the anecdotal evidence fits my general pre-conception. The Age reports:
It is likely that Sudanese people in traditional circumstances, are as nice as the next people. But put their youth into the temptation-full zone of a fashionable subcultures and they are bound to go astray.
This little episode is a revealing microcosm of the global Clash of Civilizations. It shows that much culture shock is simply a rehash of the age-old national clash between rural and civil life, writ large under conditions of multicultural globalisation.
The “Clash of Civilizations” cuts accross national boundaries and standard social categories such as class, race, religion etc. It should be called a Clash within modern Civilization, occurring when the pre-modern and post-modern react badly together.
FOr years I have been pointing out that ideological partisans have mis-framed the Civilizational Clash. Right-wing Death Beasts who try to pin the blame on “darkies” or “rag-heads” are barking up the wrong tree. Left-wing Moon Bats who try to pin it on the IDF, Pentagon or Mr Howard’s cultural insensitivity are likewise looking for hate in all the wrong places.
I simply used classical social theory when constructing my model. It turns out that the modernists, such as Weber and Marx, apparently know more about our culture than a post-modernist like Foucault or a pre-modernist like Lewis. Count me unsurprised.
Anna Winter says:
The aim of right-wing Culture Warriors is not just to “wedge” the working class majority or “bash” elements within the under-class minorities. Although that may be a socially useful outcome.
Howard’s policy aim is to bring unruly elements within the minorities to heel. They should be put in their place if they play up, just like anyone else. Red-neck and conservative concerns about law and order are valid and deserve to be addressed. If a bit of culturally insensitive political incorrectness puts the wind up trouble makers then so much the better. Saves on policing costs.
But the more interesting picture is Howard’s political strategy. His long term aim is too delegitimate, disable and destroy the intellectual-industrial complexes that oppose the LN/P and its core backers.
Howard’s Culture War targets are not black people or Muslim people. His “enemy to the death” are the institutionalised “organs” of liberal uni-educated white people. Minorities are just bait. (Just as his real target in the Class War are not workers. It is the unions and “industrial relations club”.)
The “Culture War” is a status-conflict being played out between uni-educated global-minded inner-urban elite on the one hand and their lessers amongst the tafe-educated, national-minded suburban populus on the other. The key ideological index of social-status in this instance is “attitude towards diversity”. The elite are uncritically welcoming whereas the populus are wary.
Howard “plays the race card” to lure the personnel of liberal-Left institutional structures such as universities, bleeding hearts in Fairfax and ABC, the civil-rights violinists amongst the legal fraternity out into the open where they can air their views. SO they can shoot themselves in the foot with ostentatious displays of moral vanity in full public view.
The trap is set as soon as David Marr, Julian Burnside or Philip Adams shuffles to the front and centre and open their well-spoken mouths. And they obligingly snap it shut by putting their well-heeled feet in it every time.
Obviously there are plenty more votes in the populus than amongst the elite, particularly in a tall-poppy lopping nation like Australia. The elite attitude just gets up the nose of the populus, who see it as a form of snobbishness available mainly to those who have more time than problems on their hands. So it is a no-brainer for a populist like Howard to rattle the Wets chain.
The secret of Rudd’s political success is his ability to be “mini-me” to Howard when he lays the Culture War trap. And “zip it” when he feels like opining otherwise.
Graham Bell: “On to Nairobi to see the effects of urbanization and on to Johannesburg to see how a multiracial society works. Next, Rio De Janiero for obvious reasons and then to La Paz where she she might even get to meet an indio president. On to Mexico City to learn something about the problems and the potentials of that great country. Next to Honolulu; okay, she’s a haole but locals won’t mind a bit. Then home …. to put all that knowledge to good use.”
I’m not at all convinced that “all that knowledge” gleaned from your delightful itinerary wouldn’t see her returning all the more strengthened in her original notions.
“okay, she’s a haole but locals won’t mind a bit.”
“on to Johannesburg to see how a multiracial society works.”
“On to Mexico City to learn something about the problems and the potentials of that great country.”
Um…. yeah.
Kim on 7 October 2007 at 10:57 pm
Thats not surprising. Making sense of the bleeding obvious is not one of Kim’s strong points.
To spell out the conclusion: Howard’s “tough love” towards the minorities combines “tough” politics towards troublemakers with “lovely” policy towards those who fit in and get on with the job. Nothing there not to like for non-hysterics.
I wont bother explainnig the intricacies of modal logic or the instrumentalist philosophy of science to Kim. Anyone who has been mired in feminist ideology for more than a decade is more in need of psychological, rather than logical, analysis.
I prefer to deal in hard facts. Scientific competence is judged by empirical results, not ethical rhetoric. The record shows that, in the analysis of AUS political culture, my epistemology is fertile with confirmed predictions. Kim’s epistemology, by comparison, is barren.
Excuse me if I rub it in with a review of the scoreboard over from the early noughties, just on the issue of Australian political culture:
I correctly predicted the LN/P would probably lose this election before polls or punters indicated. Kim and Mark did not.
I correctly predicted the concentration of votes amongst the major parties. Kim and Mark did not.
I correctly predicted the convergence of major party policy platforms on fiscal and cultural matters. Kim and Mark did not.
I correctly predicted the relative decline of the liberal-Left “diversficationist” political constituency. And the correspondent development of a communal-Right “integrationist” cultural policy agenda. Kim and Mark did not.
I correctly predicted that Howard would best Costello in the leadership struggle. Kim and Mark did not.
I have repeatedly challenged Mark and Kim to put up some science or shut up when they stoop to name calling rather than rational analysis. Stony silence on the former challenge, for about 900 years. Or comment mysteriously deleted in moderation.
So next time Kim or Mark haul out the “Strocchi-verse” chestnut for another flogging we should remember either they dont have the brains to come up with successfully predictive theories or the balls to publish same in good time.
A phrase for our times, Jack. I’m stealing it and running with it.
Kim on 7 October 2007 at 10:59 pm
This coming from a cultural theorist, the type who never tires of telling us that “the personal is the political”.
With a goal-post moving techniques like that Kim should run a her own personal blog and call it “Ms Representation”.
Well done Jack,out of 12 paragraphs in your burst,8 begin with ” I ”
Ummm not accusing you of having a big ego Jack, just sayin.
Shorter Jack: who cares about the stats, I’ll back my prejudices.
Actually, Jack, who cares?
His short term aim is to be re-elected, an aim that will probably miss its target. Big time. All his other bullshit will fade into history very quickly. Mark my words.
j-p-z:
Well, we could send her for a fortnight or a month in your fair city [ALL boroughs please]. She would certainly get see the full range of humanity but what would she be like when we got her back?
Our crime fighting citizens at work
Must make you proud Jack.