Learning respect is best value of them all to have
BY CHARLES MOTT
IF you take an interest in “Australian values”, well your mind must be in a whirl with all the advice you’re getting from values merchants around the country.
Lately, maybe because some of us are feeling insecure in light of the war on terrorism and all those Muslim women in burqas running around in high streets across the country, a lot of people are putting up their hands to tell us how to be a good Australian and a good migrant.
It is a favourite text of our PM, who never misses a chance to massage our sense of wellbeing by extolling the merits of Australianness.
He stresses things such as the worth of the individual, the rule of law, equality of men and women and a spirit of egalitarianism (the famous “fair go” and “way of life&rdquo
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PM-in-waiting Peter Costello has identified a threatening niche of migrants who apparently don’t share Australian values, and he wonders whether such people should be denied citizenship.
Tim Robb, a parliamentary secretary, has come up with a solution to this problem: he wants to test new citizens to ensure that they can speak some English and know about, yes you guessed it, Oz values and customs.
Ex-business tycoon Hugh Morgan doesn’t like the idea of people having two citizenships — apparently there are about four million of us in this category — because this indicates divided loyalties and presages “bipolarity disorder”.
Indi’s own Sophie Panopoulos is also on the wagon; she wants us all to speak out about the erosion of basic values and suggests that religious figures who don’t like these should not be allowed to stay in the country.
Even old politicians are on the job — Peter Coleman waxed lyrical about the Bible, Shakespeare, law, women, federation, the constitution and Anzac Day — phew, how can anyone just aiming to get along in life get on top of all this?
Let me say that some of the high-blown rhetoric is pretty unexceptionable stuff, but values don’t stop at the borders of the country; many of the values espoused on Australia’s behalf aren’t much different from those approved by Brazilians, Britons, Bulgarians and Belgians.
And anyway, there is also a down side to the matter of national values that bears mention in this discussion.
What particular national values are on display in the treatment of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez, in the inhumane despatch of seekers of refuge in this country to camps in Pacific islands, in supine connivance at the incarceration of an Australian citizen in Guantanamo Bay, in the abuse of Aboriginal women and children living beyond hope, in the corruption evident in the conduct of the AWB, and in the riotous, “me too please sir” greed on show every year as Peter Costello doles out the surplus from our taxes?
Whatever they are, they don’t show much of the fair go and helping the underdog that we like to proclaim so proudly.
Now as far as my family is concerned, we have been plodding along in this country for more than 150 years and we know pretty well what we think of it — a good place to live in, but can do better, perhaps a good deal better.
The second-to-last thing we want is anyone telling us what “values” we should attach to being Australian
When such people begin to speak on such matters, we are put in mind of the words of Dr Samuel Johnson, across the centuries: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”.
The best values we can have are surely a good education and a good upbringing, in which we learn to respect each other and to care for those who suffer disadvantage.
