White Australia (3 Viewers)

[Cyrus the Great]

Silence slum-dog

haha lol

 

[Cyrus the Great]

stfu iron you jewcuntface

 

[Cyrus the Great]

btw im paki descent not Indian. There is a fucking difference. Fuck man, is it that hard for fucking ppl to understand that

 

[loquasagacious]

I have a few problems with this.

Firstly you are making a moral judgement of the white australian policy and although this may be with good reasons its not fair to judge actions of the past on todays values. You have to consider weather it was moral considering the values of the day. Yes we consider white australia racist but to an extent that is because we have been taught to believe this. We really should aviod making a moral assessment of a historical event.

As for deportment verses emancipation , both would of had benefits. Off the top of my head i believe the kanakas had not been in australia anywhere as near as long as the negroes had been in the united states. Perhaps in hindsight they should have been offered the opportunity to remain in australia, although im not convinced they wanted to as a general rule.

You are falling into the trap of relativism. A trap which the school syllabus via teachers like yourself almost force feeds students. Moral and cultural relativism is the road to ruin. By saying that white australia policy was "a good policy for the time" you are opening the door to every twisted relativistic argument you can name, including for example: "slavery was a good policy for the time because we needed cheap labour and the niggers were basically sub-human", "the final solution was an excellent policy because der juden were the cancer that caused every societal ill", etc etc.

Part of us progressing as society is the ability to look back and say we were wrong. Relativism fundamentally undermines that and will invariably lead to bad policy and repeating the mistakes of the past.

The point of emancipation versus deportation is that they were not given the choice. There is no point in speculating that they probably wouldn't have stayed because we will never know and it does not mitigate the fact that they were forcibly deported. Refer to the harm principle.

 

[Iron]

Lol I agree with the sentiment Locky, but the WAP was specifically anti-slavery, enacted out of a commendable fear that the dark Kanakas story could become the norm, spreading its evil for the sake of quick profits and eventually tearing this nation apart in a US-style civil war...

 

[loquasagacious]

Lol I agree with the sentiment Locky, but the WAP was specifically anti-slavery, enacted out of a commendable fear that the dark Kanakas story could become the norm, spreading its evil for the sake of quick profits and eventually tearing this nation apart in a US-style civil war...

I'm all for the abolition of slavery - but the WAP was also a racist immigration program, and while all slavery abolition is good emancipation is far better than deportation.

 

[Iron]

I'm all for the abolition of slavery - but the WAP was also a racist immigration program, and while all slavery abolition is good emancipation is far better than deportation.

The implications of it certainly made it racist after some time. However in 1901, I dont think that you can really pin that on the founding fathers. It was just a fact that overseas labour, from SE Asia or the Pacific, would be unskilled, uneducated labour probably eager to work crazy hours, 7 days a week etc and thereby lower the living standards of all mainstream Australians except a fortunate few at the top. It happened to be racist because you couldnt really separate the valid economic issues of education, or even loyalty to the new Australian nation/British empire, from race and region (as you can today).

I mean, obviously there was an unfounded view that white people were the best people, but I think you can just as easily read the policy as a genuine attempt to build and maintain a cohesive community where egalitarianism was the prevailing ethos. Without this firm foundation for the nation, unrestricted regional migration would have sunk the Cth before it really began.

 

[M3riJaan]

White Australia was a good policy for the time and place. It simply became outdated by the decline of the Empire and the reality of globalization. But while it existed, it allowed this nation to flourish thru generous worker's rights and wages.

Although I accept its eventual retirement, muliculturalism has been a disaster that has probably ruined us. I just cant accept that people entering this country have no meaningful obligation and duty to assimilate but can rather gather in ethic ghettos, breeding crime and violence and destroying once safe, close and happy communities.
An outrage.

It's a two-way street, while creating a class of ghetto-ethnics, inevitably we have a class of gathered upsnots, breeding judgement and destroying any possibility of full-integration of these two ends of the class-continuum.

You can trace back any crime to greed, and the only difference between one and the other, is that the upper class HAS the money, flaunting it for all its worth, leaving these 'people' to only want.

 

[loquasagacious]

The implications of it certainly made it racist after some time. However in 1901, I dont think that you can really pin that on the founding fathers. It was just a fact that overseas labour, from SE Asia or the Pacific, would be unskilled, uneducated labour probably eager to work crazy hours, 7 days a week etc and thereby lower the living standards of all mainstream Australians except a fortunate few at the top. It happened to be racist because you couldnt really separate the valid economic issues of education, or even loyalty to the new Australian nation/British empire, from race and region (as you can today).

I mean, obviously there was an unfounded view that white people were the best people, but I think you can just as easily read the policy as a genuine attempt to build and maintain a cohesive community where egalitarianism was the prevailing ethos. Without this firm foundation for the nation, unrestricted regional migration would have sunk the Cth before it really began.

If it was purely economics and living standards which were the concern then surely a minimum wage would have been a more appropriate policy instrument. (not that I agree with either instrument)

 

[John McCain]

Lol I agree with the sentiment Locky, but the WAP was specifically anti-slavery, enacted out of a commendable fear that the dark Kanakas story could become the norm, spreading its evil for the sake of quick profits and eventually tearing this nation apart in a US-style civil war...

Yes it had this benefit, but being the lesser of two evils doesn't make it overall good.

We can condemn the policy of slavery, while simultaneously condemning the WAP as the wrong response to correcting this policy. Both were evil.

The fact the WAP replaced a more evil policy, doesn't justify it, it's a false dichotomy to pose those as the only two possible policies, it's a false choice between two amoral options, a third, good policy, is the only moral choice.

 

[John McCain]

It was just a fact that overseas labour, from SE Asia or the Pacific, would be unskilled, uneducated labour probably eager to work crazy hours, 7 days a week etc and thereby lower the living standards of all mainstream Australians.

But a policy of emancipation and free choice in work and immigration, would have raised the living standard of kanakas.

You're essentially saying that protecting the unearned priveledged status of 'mainstream Australians", acquired through birth alone, is good, when it comes at the expense of a non-citizens ability to seek work and support themselves at a basic level.

That the health and well being of an Australian citizen is more important than a non-citizen. The life of an Australian is worth more.

Is what you are suggesting.

 

[Iron]

Yes it had this benefit, but being the lesser of two evils doesn't make it overall good.

We can condemn the policy of slavery, while simultaneously condemning the WAP as the wrong response to correcting this policy. Both were evil.

The fact the WAP replaced a more evil policy, doesn't justify it, it's a false dichotomy to pose those as the only two possible policies, it's a false choice between two amoral options, a third, good policy, is the only moral choice.

Yes but I didnt argue this. From the context in which it was enacted, I dont call the policy "evil". To revive it today would certainly be so, but it's a totally different world now.

What would you have a new, fragile Cth do when faced with an emerging Japan which they judged (rightly) to be a military threat? Open the doors to unlimited Japanese migration into essential industry? Or better yet, with technological limits, how else could the Cth ensure that non-citizens (with no claim to the protection of Australian laws at the time) were not being exploited by shady businesses, other than by restricting migration to a more educated, skilled class of persons?

As to your second point, when strictly applied to Australian government and politics, clearly the Australian life is worth more. This is before WW1, the League of Nations, any multinational formation of international human rights. The threats that the new Cth faced were real. Our survival in WW2 was a close one. We would not have been in any position to mount such a defence if our leaders were seriously debating things like whether it's moral to kill a Jap in self-defence or not etc.

 

[loquasagacious]

With technological limits, how else could the Cth ensure that non-citizens (with no claim to the protection of Australian laws at the time) were not being exploited by shady businesses, other than by restricting migration to a more educated, skilled class of persons?

Grant them citizenship and all of the legal rights which come with it?

 

[Iron]

Grant them citizenship and all of the legal rights which come with it?

And trust that business will pay them the same wage as a Welsh coal miner - even though the foreign immigrant cant speak the language, knows none of the people in the country, has no common history linking them or allegiance to the empire??? The idea of the living wage was based on the pressumption that we were all very culturally similar and would be brought closer together if we were more economically similar. It was a beautiful idea. We were a paradise for some glorious time, happy, healthy, homogenous. Importing foreign, unskilled labour would have necessitated drastic cuts to, or the abolition of, this generous minimum wage. It would also have opened the floodgates to illegal immigration and-
oh look at me

 

[loquasagacious]

And trust that business will pay them the same wage as a Welsh coal miner - even though the foreign immigrant cant speak the language, knows none of the people in the country, has no common history linking them or allegiance to the empire??? The idea of the living wage was based on the pressumption that we were all very culturally similar and would be brought closer together if we were more economically similar. It was a beautiful idea. We were a paradise for some glorious time, happy, healthy, homogenous. Importing foreign, unskilled labour would have necessitated drastic cuts to, or the abolition of, this generous minimum wage. It would also have opened the floodgates to illegal immigration and-
oh look at me

My my how far you have fallen... what of the dignity of all human beings? Their right to pursue happiness and such?

 

[Iron]

The Cth and Australia in general was simply too fragile to import vastly different cultures en mass around the time of federation. We needed more time to consolidate and build. When it was clear that we had to officially scrap the policy in the 70s, though it was painful, we were probably, essentially strong enough.

Egalitarianism painted a solid canvas of identity in two world wars. Post-war reconstruction was the safest way to begin to extend this principle to non-Anglo-Saxons and it was a success. The policy of multiculturalism was far less delicate, imposed by our cold-hearted fat-headed Whitlam without popular or bipartisan support. It was an artless imposition, but we've just managed to deal with it bc we are ready

 

[Cyrus the Great]

Iron you racist. Why you hate non whites?

 

[Cyrus the Great]

My dad employs 4 Anglo Saxons. If it wasnt for whitlam they would be unemployed.

 

[Cyrus the Great]

Are anglo saxons racist?

 

[Cyrus the Great]

Are people from the blue mountain area racist?