2006 Budget backs anti racism

This month the 2006 Budget revealed funding for a national anti-racism program amongst criticism that the John Howard and Peter Costello leadership team is painting an increasingly exclusionary picture of national identity.

The Department of Immigration claims the support given in the recent Budget to ‘Living in Harmony Community grants’, one of three national initiatives under the Living in Harmony campaign, “demonstrates the Australian Government's serious commitment to promoting community harmony and to addressing issues of racism in Australia”

This boost for racial relations coincides with the submission of a set of proposals to the Federal Government aiming to prevent racism towards the Islamic community.

The proposal was a product of the Muslim Youth Summit which took place last December forming part of the Howard Government’s national action plan to prevent Islamic extremism following the London Bombings last July.

Former Parliamentary Secretary for children and youth affairs, Sussan Ley, said “The Muslim Youth Summit is an acknowledgement of the contributions that young Muslims are making to our communities and an opportunity for young Muslims to continue to have a voice in the community”

The proposals which include police involvement in Islamic community sports, media regulation in regard to the perceptions of Muslims, an anti-discriminatory phone line and a television campaign are currently being accessed by the government.

Since last year’s Muslim youth Summit, Howard and Costello have infuriated many sections of society with their exclusionary comments on Australian Citizenship, drawing particular attention to the Islamic community.

John Howard said in February of this year some of the Islamic community is "utterly antagonistic to our kind of society".

This sentiment was supported by Peter Costello in the same week with the comparison:
"Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes. This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks don't enter the mosque. Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objection to those values don't come to Australia."

Expert in political theory and speechwriter for former premier Bob Carr, Tom Soutphommasane, said “notions of national identity under John Howard’s prime ministership have appropriated a ‘radical’ nationalistic tradition”

What Mr Soutphommasane found more worrying was the “absense of engagement with the reality of Multicultural policy among many of our politicians”

Lecturer in Politics at the University of Wollogong, Steve Reglar, said he believed there had been a steady move under the leaderwship of Howard towards a right wing view on multicultural policy.

Dr Reglar described this shift as “Howard’s system of exclusion, starting with the intelligencia” from which Howards policies receive much of their opposition.

As part of this exclusion Dr Reglar and fellow political lecturer, Athony Ashbolt, "had been struck off the interview list" for Sydney's media, for being too far left of the current political spectrum.