A furore has erupted in the Victorian Parliament after the State ALP Member for Frankston, Alistair Harkness, accused Bruce Billson, the Federal Liberal Member for Dunkley, of using a stoush over public housing to incite a racist campaign against Africans.
During an extraordinary adjournment debate in the Victorian lower house last night, Harkness called on the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to investigate the distribution of offensive pamphlet, which claimed an influx of African migrants into a planned public housing development would lead to a crime wave.
However, after making his objections known, Harkness went on to accuse Billson and Victorian upper house member Inga Peulich of inflaming the controversy, in an echo of the Lindsay pamphlet scandal that erupted in the last days of the 2007 federal election campaign.
“While Mr Billson identifies himself and his public statements as a leader of a ‘community campaign’ on this issue, he has consistently misrepresented the facts and incited the sort of response we saw last weekend”, Dr Harkness told the lower house.
“Whilst undoubtedly the actions of some people in the local area may have led to this outrage, it is now imperative that Bruce Billson, Inga Peulich as well as the outspoken …”
The Deputy Speaker, Ann Barker, was then forced to intervene, warning Harkness over standing orders which prohibit accusing fellow members of “improper motives”. The statement led to vigorous interjections from opposition members.
The offensive pamphlets, headed “Do You Want Frankston to Become Like Dandenong”, repeat a false assertion that the state government is planning to build 386 housing commission flats in central Frankston. They claim that an influx of migrants would lead to higher crime rates and say Africans have been responsible for rape and machete attacks in other municipalities.
The pamphlets were taped on to poles and left under windscreen wipers around Frankston train station last weekend.
Billson told Crikey that the apparent attempt to manufacture a Lindsay-style controversy was “outrageous and wrong.”
“The first I heard about the leaflets were from the Member for Frankston’s speech. This is an issue of significant concern, is factually incorrect and beneath the State Parliament.”
Billson called on the Government to come clean on its plans for the development. The federal MP has been running a community campaign on his Frankston Liberals website, which repeats the “386” figure used in the pamphlet.
However, Harkness says the “386” figure did not relate to any Frankston proposal, but from the total number of public housing projects planned across the state.
“If it has been proposed that I am somehow suggesting the Member for Dunkley produced the pamphlets, than I am outraged by the the suggestion,” he said.
When asked how Billson and Peulich had “incited” the pamphlets, Harkness pointed to a campaign against the development that was being run out of Billson’s office.
The pamphlets were condemned yesterday by Harkness’ ALP colleague John Pandazopoulos, who branded them ”outrageous” and “racist”.
Activists monitoring far-right groups in the Frankston region have told Crikey that a variety of unsavoury outfits are active in the area. They said it was possible that an individual might have been to blame.
There has been a long-running to-and-fro over the Frankston public housing proposal, that has been fast-tracked in the wake of the Federal Government’s stimulus package. State planning minister Justin Madden now has the power to “call in” priority projects from local councils in order to boost construction activity. The Frankston proposal has been significantly scaled back after local objections and it remains on the drawing board.
A Frankston councillor recently claimed the suburb risked being branded as “Frankghanistan”, if an influx of migrants was permitted, while Billson has accused the government of hiding “secret plans”.
Meanwhile, the Victoria Police Security Intelligence Group is believed to have launched an investigation in to the source of the pamphlets.
I cant believe no one has written about this article yet! There have been a couple of dozen entries on the climate change lead article. But surely this upsets people too!
I live in Springvale and work in Dandenong. I love the multicultural flavor of the area I live in. It is an honor and a growing experience to live with people from so many nationalities and backgrounds and religions and cultural practices. And the people in these suburbs are wonderful and friendly and hard working. And Frankston or any place would do well to be “more like Dandenong”.
Time to get past xenophobia folks. The world is way too small these days to hold onto old school values like that.
Jim Reiher – Indeed! This is the sort of stuff that makes me feel physically ill. No wonder indigenous people of this country are still being treated in a racist manner. Over 25% of the population of this country were born overseas; in NSW I think it’s closer to 40%. I once worked in a school, where 85% of the kids came from non-English speaking backgrounds. Lovely kids who couldn’t speak or understand english when they started school. They were a joy to be around, and their parents were too. This racist hatred is so destructive. I can only imagine how heart sick those people must feel after these leaflets were spread around. It must be soul destroying to try and raise your kids to be ‘good citizens’ when they’re exposed to such destructive propaganda.
Thanks for your comments Liz. I certainly agree.
I sometimes wonder if we will truly ever beat racism and fear of others, in this lucky country. So many of us seem to be utterly pre-occupied with our own busy lives, accumulating, consuming, maintaining, and being exhausted… to ever have any time to invest into getting to know and understand others. Especially others who are from different cultures and world-views. And without that, ignorance and fear seem to surface way too easily.
Hi Jim. When I was speaking of the kids at that school, I made a mistake. They were born(4-5 yr olds) here to parents who were born overseas. The rest was as I stated – they were a joy to be around. Funny how kindness is always recognized, regardless of colour or language. These little kids would still give you a hug when you put on a smiley bandaid, even if they couldn’t speak english.
A true story to give you heart. I was in Newcastle a few years ago visiting my eldest son, his lovely wife and their three cherubs. These little ones are descendants of the Mayan Indians – their mother is from Central America. A lovely family, also refugees who sought asylum here in the 1980’s. We are indeed blessed to have them here.
There was a similar revolting campaign like the one reported here. The good people of Newcastle weren’t going to have such racism in their midst. In less than 24 hours a rally was organized. My son said, ‘looks like the kids might attend their first rally’. On the Saturday morning off we went. The kids dressed in ‘rainbow type’ outfits they got while at a huge folk festival earlier that year – very colourful and beautiful. The community hall was packed to overflowing. There were people doing face painting etc. All three levels of Government had a representative there, including the Mayor. There was a standing ovation when representatives of the African people at the centre of the ugliness arrived. They weren’t going to appear, as they didn’t want to incite trouble. But the racists only had a handful of supporters, while we were part of the huge majority. The lovely people who’d had to put up with this ugliness were a joy to meet. One man had lost an eye, another had lost his hand, due to being tortured in their home country. Makes me teary just remembering those lovely people. My grand kids got a huge lesson in how to positively react to racism. I’ve not heard a negative word since! The good people in Melbourne need to do the same thing. The organizers of this hatred are probably from the same group?
The irony is, that the two girls have their mother’s colouring, and my grandson is like his dad – paler skin with blue eyes? All drop dead gorgeous! Under the system of racism and the stolen generations of this country, he’d have probably been removed from the family. Sobering thought isn’t it – his sisters have olive skin, but I often think of them and how horrific it would’ve been to lose this dear little boy? Makes you think doesn’t it? Some indigenous families in this country lost all their children, other families, maybe one or two out of four or more – depending how ‘pale’ they were? Sadly, a couple of members of my own family asked me what colour they were when they were born? Not, were they healthy and how’s their Mum?Racism? Insidious isn’t it? I was stunned at the time. Later on I wished I’d said ‘purple with green spots’ or ‘pink’??It’s often not until after that you realize that even your own extended family members can be racist? Very sad indeed!
Enough is enough. Deport each and every black. THEN go after other refugees … including the Vietnamese. Oops, that means deporting the Governor of Sth Aust. Then all the others… Hang on, that would leave the aborigines in full control