Last week the Gillard government announced a plan to expand onshore housing of asylum seekers by using and converting an unused barracks in the Adelaide Hills. It’s a sensible and slightly more humane approach to a policy area that this country hasn’t approached with any sense of maturity for a long time. For a nation of immigrants, we sure seem threatened by….. immigrants.
The reaction within the community was as predictable as it was disappointing. Hundreds outraged residents crammed into the local community centre to “voice their concerns”. The leaders of the opposition to the plan insisted they weren’t racist and that they are simply concerned about the lack of community consultation and a strain on local services.
“I don’t think our anger has anything to do with race,” Ms Pitts said.
She said that even if the new arrivals were born and bred in Melbourne, the town would still protest against the strain on local services.
People at the public protest suggest otherwise.
The meeting on Thursday turned ugly with some in the crowd shouting anti-Muslim slogans as an Immigration Department official fielded questions about plans to transfer the families with their children to Woodside.
Cant we call a spade a spade? It seems that when a protest is clearly racially motivated politicians and commentators do anything to avoid the obvious. The unpleasant truth is that there is a section of our community that is outright hostile to certain races and religion. The “strain on the community” line was a furphy, the asylum seekers will be in low security detention so will not have general access to the community. Health and other basic services will be provided in the centre to prevent the locals being forced to see strange brown looking people in their community. The children will be enrolled in local schools, but the commonwealth will provide extra funds to make up for this.
And do you really think you would see a similar level of opposition if it were announced that the barracks was going to be used to house defence personal of a similar number? Of course not. Even though defence housing would put a greater strain on the community because they wouldnt be locked in a low security prison. This is entirely based on xenophobia.
So no members of Woodside, you don’t get to complain about a lack of courtesy by the government for not consulting when you have shown a complete lack of courtesy on your part. You don’t get to freely abuse and threaten immigration officials, shout racial slogans in public and fear monger about the terrible things a couple of hundred women and children will somehow do to your community and THEN complain that you are the ones that have been treated unfairly.
