Dear Sir,
I am submitting this response following your recent advertisement in the Daily
Telegraph requesting assistance in the development of a new National Anti-Racism
Strategy for Australia for release in July 2012.
Due to racism now experienced in the suburb where I live (Sefton) and surrounding
suburbs, I reluctantly will be selling my first family home of thirty five years. I will be
looking elsewhere to live where my family and I will be accepted by other Australians.
This family home has many special memories to me. My children grew up and are
still growing up in this home, friends were made in this home and I also painstakingly
built this home from scratch.
By way of background, I am of Scottish decent. My family have lived in Australia for
six generations now. My ancestor came to Australia as a convict being transported
on 1 July 1834. My ancestor was one of the first pioneers who helped establish this
great Australian country to what it is today. My ancestors endured unimaginable
hardship around this time, fought in the Boer and World Wars so all Australians can
enjoy what this lucky country now provides for us all.
I have lived in the Bankstown Municipality all my life, nearly 58 years now, except for
a one year period where I rented a unit in Lakemba while saving to purchase my first
home.
During my childhood and adult years I have witnessed many great changes to the
Bankstown Municipality. Not just to infrastructure and building development but also
the migration of large numbers of foreign immigrants that now live and work in this
City. Bankstown Municipality now has one of the highest levels of foreign immigrants
of any city of Sydney.
During my childhood many immigrants came from Africa whom I accepted
wholeheartedly. In fact my closest school friend came from Africa and I did not
object at all to his skin colour. We not only helped each other during our school
studies but also spent many wonderful weekends socialising together as well as
playing competitive sports.
I also had a number of Italian friends as well when decisions were made by the
Federal Government at the time to allow immigrants from both Greece and Italy. I
had close Italian friends when they became neighbours during my teenage years as
well as having Italian friends while undertaking tertiary studies at the University of
NSW.
During my adult years I have made good friends with many Asian immigrants,
especially those from Malaysia and Vietnam in both my work life and socially. They
are a wonderful race to spend time with and get to know.
As you can see I enjoyed being around people of many different nationalities as I
learnt so much on their way of life they experienced in their own countries. I also
loved sharing the Australian life with them to assist in their own assimilation as
Australians.
However for the last couple of years there have been a large number of Middle
Eastern immigrants settling into the suburb where I live. The changes caused by this
race to my suburb have resulted in myself, a 6 th generation Australian, and my family
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not being accepted as a fellow Australian to them. Some recent examples that have
happened are as follows:1. The signage in the shops in my local shopping centre at Chester Hill are now
all changing to Arabic. I am too old to start learning a new language so I can
continue to shop locally. Even major businesses are coming onboard. The
NAB bank is a good example where large signage now appears in their
windows written in Arabic. I have no idea what they are advertising. When
visiting the NAB bank recently in Chester Hill a customer of Vietnamese
background complained to the teller about the NAB bank giving preference to
Arabic speaking people in their advertising. He asked why no advertising was
in Vietnamese. I found this question reasonable as there are a significant
number of Vietnamese background people living in my suburb. In fact the
close neighbours on both sides of my house are of Vietnamese origin, as are
the neighbours on either side of them. The teller said that NAB head office
gives preference to Arabic advertising for my suburb.
2. My daughter-in-law had need of medical assistance and visited a medical
centre in Auburn. As she did not wear a burqua they were not interested in
seeing her.
3. The Banksia Road Primary School in Greenacre is now teaching Arabic to
Middle Eastern primary students during school hours each week. Those
children that are not of Middle Eastern decent have to go to another classroom
to do craft until these classes are completed. It is only then that they can
resume their normal lessons. Other nationalities such as those of Chinese
and Vietnamese decent use after-school time for learning their own mother
language so they can concentrate on learning English during school time. It
appears that English is now becoming a secondary language to Arabic in
“primary” school development.
4. My next door neighbour of 30 years sold their house and moved out. One of
the reasons they told me that they moved was “they felt that did not fit in
anymore.” I feel exactly the same way and I am currently looking for a house
in a suburb where they speak and write English and the female members of
my family will be accepted for not wearing a burqua.
I firmly believe that no matter what a person’s culture is, for integration to occur a
common language needs to be spoken and written. This language forms the basis of
integration. France is a good example where this occurs as they are very protective
of their French language.
Having a common language also allows us to compete effectively on the world
economic stage. While ever multiple languages exist more effort is spent on trying to
educate children resulting in literacy standards falling overall.
Back in 1907, the then Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton expressed his ideas on
Immigration. He said:
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good
faith becomes an Australian and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated
on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate
against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin but this is
predicated upon a person’s becoming in every facet an Australian and nothing
but an Australian.. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says
he is Australian but something else also, isn’t an Australian at all. We have
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room for but one flag, the Australian flag.. We have room for but one language
here and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole
loyalty and that is a loyalty to the Australian people.”
Back then, Sir Edmund Barton got it so right by defining exactly what is required to
be an Australian and for integration to occur. Today these core competencies do not
exist. While ever there are no core competencies of being an Australian so true
integration occurs then racism will always be present.
I trust these ideas will assist you in promoting a clear understanding in the Australian
community of what racism is and how it can be prevented and reduced.
In the meantime I will continue to seek a suburb to move to where as a 6th generation
Australian I will be accepted for speaking only English, for my family not wearing a
burqua and for choosing to be Anglican. I hope to reluctantly have a new family
home before the year is out.
Yours faithfully,
Garry Hogan B.E. (Hons) UNSW FIEAust CPEng
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