Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Multicultural Australia
In 1974, the government also introduced a Bill to combat racial discrimination
and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, to which Australia had been a signatory since 1966 but had not
ratified.TheBillwaspassedbybothhousesoftheCommonwealthparliamenton
4 June 1975 and became the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). The legislation
made it unlawful to discriminate against a person because of their nationality, race,
colour or ethnicity. The passing of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 formally
ended the White Australia policy. However, that policy had such a significant
impact on the public imagination and sense of national community and identity
that its effects lingered for decades afterwards.
The Whitlam government attempted to fill the void left by the old nationalism,
and redefined the concept of Australia’s ‘national community’. 28 The new national
identity was to be more inclusive, embracing liberal humanist values, progressive
ideals and overall social reform. 29 The success of the Whitlam government at the
1974 election represented popular endorsement of the changes made by Gough
Whitlam. For example, Murray Goot found that ‘the polls of 1974 and 1975 were
the first of their kind to produce clear majorities in favour of the current rate
of immigration’. 30 However, problems with the Whitlam reforms began to emerge
when the Whitlam government was placed under pressure with the build-up of
refugees in camps in South-East Asia as a result of the war in Vietnam, which
displaced up to 800,000 people.
With increasing numbers of Asian migrants in the late 1970s, the government
was under international pressure to move ahead of the general population of
Australia in endorsing a new ethnically inclusive national identity. Migrant services
andprograms:thereportofthereviewofpost-arrivalprogramsandservicesto
migrants, known as the Galbally report, was introduced in 1978 as a key driver in
formulating government policies affecting migrants. At the heart of the report was
the need to provide encouragement and financial assistance for migrants so that
they could maintain their cultural identity. 31 The Galbally report recommended:
• improvements in the Adult Migrant Education Program, which was initiated in
1947 to teach survival English to refugees
• free telephone interpreter services for migrants from NESB and emergency
services
• the establishment of Migrant Resource Centres
• the introduction of a Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). 32
28 Curran 2002, 470.
29 Lopez 2000, 222.
30 Goot 1988, 8.
31 Galbally 1978.
32 Jupp 1992.
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