After the Neonazi demonstration at St Kilda a couple of days ago, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison grouped the Neonazis and the antifascist demonstrators together in his weak tweeted ‘condemnation’. The second of his two-part tweet referred to Australia as “the most successful migrant country in the world”1. Notice he did not say ‘multicultural country’ which numerous PMs before him have used. If you were generous, it could be construed as a slip of the keyboard. However, late on Sunday night, Mathias Cormann tweeted the following in a three-part effort:
“Having just got back from a short break overseas, let me restate what I said in response to Senator Anning in the Senate before (15/8/2018): ‘Australia is a great migrant nation. Australia is a country which has welcomed people from all corners of the world. Australia is…
a country where whatever your background, you will have the opportunity to contribute, to reach your full potential & to build a life for yourself and your family. Ours is a nation where all Australians, whatever their background, should be judged by the content of…
their character and their actions, not by the colour of their skin, their religious faith or any other such considerations…’”2
While he may have reiterated a rebuke he gave to Senator Fraser Anning after the latter’s ‘final solution’ speech, he did not condemn the Neonazis themselves beyond uttering platitudes. I’d have thought that a person born in Belgium would be a bit more attuned to the depredations of Nazis. Indeed, Cormann used the same turn of phrase as Morrison in calling Australia a ‘great migrant nation’. The omission of the word ‘multicultural’, given that was omitted by both Morrison and Cormann is most likely intentional. This is clearly a nod and a wink to the far right, including many in their own party, for whom ‘multicultural’ is a dirty word. It seems that the Liberal ‘base’, whose votes Cormann and Morrison are chasing, include people like the Neonazis who demonstrated at St Kilda on Saturday. Morrison’s inclusion in his second tweet of the phrase “maintaining sensible immigration policies” is another nod and a wink to the far right, who will interpret this as advocating a continuation of the crimes against humanity that are Manus and Nauru. This suspension of principle in the pursuit of votes from the far right is hastening the demise of the Liberal Party.
Sources
Well spotted.
And Neonazis are “right wing activists”.
Dianna,
Yep. I think the media are a bit gutless and are afraid to call a spade a spade.
Most of what we supposedly ‘know’ about refugees, Manus, etc we have learned from News Ltd, Fairfax and the Guardian. None of these organisations could be accused of letting the truth interfere with a good story. What we’ll never be told is how many refugees were put in that situation as a result of warmongering by the yanks and their puppets like Australia.
YM,
I think you will find that many of the refugees come from countries having had the bejesus bombed out of them by the west (Afghanistan, Iraq); in the middle of civil wars (Syria), or having had civil wars (Sri Lanka, Sudan) or murderous pogroms (Myanmar).