Make Australia fair dinkum again

Rising inequality, not immigration, lies at the heart of the nation's growing social and economic tensions, writes Professor Adil Khan.

I AM AN overseas-born Australian. I first came to Australia in the late 1970s as a postgraduate student and left in the early 1980s after finishing my studies.

I returned in the early 1990s and worked as a research director at one of Australia’s leading universities.

Then, in the late 1990s, I left Australia again and joined the United Nations (UN).

After retiring from the UN in 2009, I returned to Brisbane to live permanently.

Currently, I am living a retired life, except that I keep myself busy by engaging as an adjunct academic at the University of Queensland.

During my intermittent and now permanent stay in Australia, I have seen how Australia has evolved over the years — economically, socially and behaviourally.

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In the 1970s, Australia was a White, egalitarian society where people were simple and fair dinkum, pursued modest lifestyles, looked equal, and interacted as equals with mutual respect and affection.

In the early 1970s, there were not too many migrants. However, even in those days when there were not too many migrants. There was racism, though personally, I never experienced it.

Furthermore, I also felt that in those days the distinction between racism and impolite curiosity was blurred. For example, in the early 1970s, during my student days, many Aussies would be surprised at my fluency in English and ask, “How come you speak English so fluently?”

My answer was simple: “Because we both share the same history — both Australia and my country [Bangladesh] were British colonies where English used to be the official language of communication.” We all laughed.

In the early 1990s, that is, during my second sojourn, I found a different Australia. The government of the day had made a significant shift in economic policy — from state-led growth to neoliberalism, a market-based approach where a profiteering private sector was made the prime mover of the economy.

There was buzz everywhere; the economy was expanding, lifestyles were changing, needs were increasing and everyone was trying to get ahead of the other. This was a different Australia. In the past, in the 1970s, Aussies needed each other to get by and live. The embrace of neoliberalism has changed that; everyone was trying to get ahead of the other.

Australia had entered the era of laissez-faire — the era of self-seeking opportunism. Australia’s economy grew fast; people became richer, though not all.

As a result, when I returned to Australia in 2010 to live permanently, I found a vastly different society.

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Australia had moved from the collective to the self; there were more luxury cars on the road and in terms of people, you could see that there were rich and not so rich, and another marked change: more migrants.

These changes have been inevitable outcomes of an economic policy – neoliberalism – which, among other things, hooked Australia into the upward-moving cycle of consumption, production and growth. This not only changed the economy but the society, demographically, as well as behaviourally.

People became more self-seeking, consumerist and materialist, a behaviour which used to be frowned upon in Australia, once. Not anymore.

The embrace of neoliberalism, which trapped Australia in a cycle of consumption and cheap production, has been accompanied by the steady growth of Australia’s ageing population, warranting large-scale migrant inflows to fill the labour market, resulting in a marked rise in the migrant population within a very short period of time. This implied that migrants in Australia were a resource and not a liability.

Several factors, local and global, especially shifting geopolitics as well as geoeconomics, are challenging Australia’s economic leverage and its upward growth trajectory and the embrace of neoliberal economic policies that have made rich richer and bolstered conspicuous consumption, while millions struggle to make ends meet.

Measured by the poverty line income of $489 per week for a single person and $1,027 per week for a couple with two children, there are more than one in eight adults (13.4%) and one in six children (16.6%) living below the poverty line income, while the top 10% owns 44% of the wealth.

Unfortunately, while one-eyed economic policy without adequate provisions of redistribution of wealth has been the cause of Australia’s current economic and social difficulties, many, especially several self-seeking political opportunists such as Senator Pauline Hanson, are pointing fingers at the migrants and a particular type of migrants as the cause of the problem. This is not just wrong and malicious but counterproductive.

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Migrants make a substantial contribution to Australia's economy and workforce, particularly in healthcare, aged care, agriculture and other sectors facing labour shortages. Migrant workers account for a large share of Australia's care workforce and play an essential role in maintaining health, construction and agricultural services.

The migrant backlash that Australia and, for that matter, most White migrant-dependent societies are currently experiencing, is a result of several interconnected factors, and the principal among these is the Wall Street/U.S.-corporate initiated promotion and worldwide (with few exceptions) blanket adoption of neoliberal economic policies that are underpinned by the assumption that making the rich richer makes economies rich and all people rich didn’t work, certainly not in Australia.

On the contrary, the patronage growth strategy, without provisions for the redistribution of wealth, checks and balances, and, more importantly, without provisions to protect Australia’s core value – egalitarianism – has produced gross imbalances, economic as well as social, and, more worryingly, has fractured Australia’s egalitarian culture.

At the end of the day, societies evolve in response to how policies – economic, social and cultural – interact with each other and impact people, economically and behaviourally.

The sudden rise of Pauline Hanson needs to be understood in the context of the fallouts of the neoliberal economic policy.

Pauline Hanson mirrors frustration, but not the problem or solution. On the contrary, she sees Australia’s emerging crisis as a political opportunity and not a challenge. The ALP is more reactive than proactive. LNP is waiting for the crumbs to fall from Hanson’s plate.

The situation is dire. This is not the time to play politics. This is the time for Australia to forget its political differences, put heads together and find a comprehensive solution — short, medium and long-term.

The time is ripe to reclaim and make Australia fair dinkum again.

Professor Adil Khan is an adjunct professor at the School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland and a former senior policy manager of the United Nations. Adil is also a member of the Rohingya Support Group, Queensland.