Ian Macphee served as Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs under Malcolm Fraser between 1979 and 1983. By 1982, Australia had taken 55,000 Vietnamese refugees. He looks back at the process and contrasts it with the approach of the Morrison government. As told to Crikey‘s Charlie Lewis:
I was aware of the Vietnamese crisis from the beginning. I was studying South-East Asia at University and I actually visited Saigon just after the Tet Offensive — people thought that was very foolish, but it gave me a good sense of how things were on the ground.
The United States should never have gone into that war, and we should never have followed them. It came from the stupid idea that communism is a monolith — it’s not. Like Christianity and Islam, it’s influenced by local cultures. The Vietnamese brand of communism was not the same as Chinese communism, and Ho Chi Minh was quite a fine man.
And the Vietnam veterans I spent so much time with over the years, they were suffering because they had often had to kill and inflict pain on people who had nothing to do with extreme communism. I think there will be a similar situation in Afghanistan, with returned soldiers suffering because of what they’ve done.
Malcolm Fraser and I were discussing the situation regarding Vietnamese refugees back when we were in opposition, before he was even party leader. We had many things in common, and one of the strongest was an abhorrence of racism. We opposed the White Australia Policy. So we agreed, privately, that Australia should take Vietnamese refugees.
He had wanted me for the immigration portfolio when we assumed government, but due to various internal party issues I took on the new productivity portfolio. Then in 1979 I assumed the role. My predecessor Michael Mackellar had already started the process of taking in Vietnamese refugees, but it accelerated a great deal under my watch.
We set up resettlement camps in every state in Australia. We provided them with training and education, in English and practical skills — if they needed it; many of them already had skills — so they were able to get jobs, pay rent and move out of the camps, and be replaced with more refugees.
We would travel through cities and rural areas having town halls with locals about the bipartisan policy — it was bipartisan, which is an important point. And the Vietnamese integrated better than any other group after World War II — better than the Greeks, better than the Italians.
I think this is important to remember about the Australian people — there will always be a racist element, but Australians are, deep down, decent and accepting people when they have the facts.
The second generation of Vietnamese immigrants to Australia, 75% of them married non-Vietnamese — the integration was astonishing. There’s no reason Afghans shouldn’t be able to integrate as well. Indeed last night’s Foreign Correspondent illustrated it wonderfully — there are more Afghans here than we realise, and there’s no indication that they just live in separate groups and don’t integrate. It shows what a wonderful contribution they can make over here.
It could be now what it was back then — we could work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and neighbouring countries and set up pathways to integration. We should never have gone to Afghanistan. But having gone, we owe a duty to our allies. We have a moral obligation to the people who helped us — not only the people who worked in the embassy and worked as translators but the people who were determined to reform life in Afghanistan, particularly for women.
I feel very strongly about that and I think most Australians — not all, but most — will feel the same way, if they get the facts.
Ian McPhee, Fred Chaney and others whose names I can’t remember right now were principled, ethical members of the Liberal Party who wanted to make positive contribution to the nations wellbeing. Very admirable men. McPhee was elbowed out of his seat by the Neo-liberal, right-wing and very forgettable David Kemp and the Liberal Party has been going down hill ever since.
Chris Puplick and Alan Missen were two more. Howard divided his broad church into “wets” and “dries” and proceeded to cancel the wets from Liberal culture. Keating said when you change the PM, you change the country. He was correct. Let’s hope it happens again at the next election.
There was also Peter Baume, senator for NSW in the same era, who worked with Neal Blewett, the ALP minister for Health in the Hawke government, in dealing cooperatively and constructively with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In a pandemic Blewett and Baume were giants compared with Hunt.
Baume was the one whose name I’d forgotten, and the other two mentioned above
Can anyone imagine ANY member of the Morrison Cabinet speaking as humanely as Ian McPhee? We are really down to the absolute dregs.
I can’t imagine any of them having the humane feelings to want to speak that way.
Ah for the days when being LIberal meant not being a racist. Howard destroyed all this. McPhee. Mackellar, Cheney and theri ilk would not even get preselection. I doubt that Menzies would either, being a believer in science.
Those were the days. After Whitlam, I hated Fraser for many years, but he never deliberately made political mileage out of desperate refugees to further his own interests.
I hated Fraser too for his grab for power, but he ended up doing quite a lot of good, and he was responsible for setting up many of the beneficial settlement programs for newly-arrived migrants and refugees,ably supported by Petro Georgiou in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, another small-l liberal sadly succeeded by his parliamentary seat by Josh Frydenberg.
I too was very anti-Fraser at the time, but learned as others have that there was more to this man than the immorality of his grab for power. One can clearly say that he was the last truly “liberal” prime minister in this country and without doubt the best liberal party prime minister since John Gorton.
Andrew Hastie said he should remain forever silent. ‘He has done quite enough damage to the Liberal Party’. And now there are many worse than AH. I don’t know why it has come to this for the LPA.
Afghans are working now in the building industry, they are good workers. Tiling is something that are very good at.
Mr MacPhee, you will be fondly remembered by all who were around at the time. You were part of a group of LNP members I could almost vote for.
Howard made the party in the image of his soul; small, shrivelled, desiccated, resentful, vengeful, petty. All informed from troubles his dad had as a small business owner who had trouble with unions. Born of small events, he never outgrew his upbringing and presumed he was Everyman. He was and remains unflushable.
>You were part of a group of LNP members I could almost vote for.
We would now.
Anyone who has spent time in the nNT and of course many other Australians will be aware how deep the connection between Afghanis and other Australians. Anyone ever been on the ‘Ghan? And my senses reel as I listen to such jobsworths as Marise Payne [one of the least-bad Libs but not spectacularly clever] wittering on about “not sending “them” back”. JMNO these people are no longer going downhill, they have reached rock sodding bottom. Turf the lot. SOON ST CATHERINE & BIBI MIRIAM!
The name is a little misleading, as they were not all from Afghanistan.
Given the original Retreat from Kabul had only recently occurred and prior to the Mutiny, Afghans would be few and far between.
The cameleers, usually Muslim & male came from Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Raj India/Pakistan.