Teresa Gambaro clearly encountered a smelly taxi driver or two over the festive period. It sparked a thought-bubble (to be generous) in the opposition citizenship spokesperson’s mind that somehow made it to page one of the national broadsheet today — immigrants are in desperate need of some “cultural awareness training”.
“Without trying to be offensive,” Gambaro told The Australian — the sort of caveat that inevitably precedes the giving of copious offence — “we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country when you are working closely with other co-workers.” Immigrants must learn the need for wearing deodorant, she said — failing to express a preference for roll-on or aerosol variants — and how to wait patiently in queues. Australians who smell, or who push in, will presumably be dispatched to re-education centres.
But carefully hiding in Gambaro’s stupidity — and the carping from immigration shadow Scott Morrison yesterday that Labor is failing to properly integrate temporary migrants — is a reasonable point. Just how do we “induct” new Australians? What support is there to help migrants with housing, employment and accessing social services? Charities, SBS Radio and community groups do some of it, but can and should the government do more? Is anyone thinking about what will ensure the community gets the best value from new arrivals, and vice versa? After all, immigration has been the huge success story of post-war Australia, economically and socially — what do we need to do to keep that going?
Labor affirmed its commitment to multiculturalism last year, promising to beef up the Australian Multicultural Council and examine service delivery to new migrants. The findings of that work should spark a new conversation on citizenship, integration and how to ensure multiculturalism doesn’t become the failed experiment some ideologues and opposition MPs believe it has.
The Coalition’s contribution to date just stinks.
‘Thought bubble’ – bah humbug! Without meaning to be offensive, it’s surely one of the bigger, louder, stinkier brain-farts on record.
If we have ever had doubts about the paucity of intelligence in the Opposition – this confirms it. That this stupid woman, I use the term not in the derogatory but in an entirely literal sense, has been sanctioned to spout this rubbish is a poor reflection on her leader.
I doubt that Ms Gambaro’s father who arrived in Australia as a post war immigrant and who then worked as a farm hand before saving enough money to buy a fish business, was ever troubled by small minded politicians in the Menzies government exhorting him to use deodorant and “queue” so as to keep him in his place.
Australia day looming- the loonies are coming out. Heaven help us all
When we get past the racist right- there is a valid question as to how we welcome and assist arrivals? It aint great. The old days of settlement services and Good Neighbour Councils are gone. In their place is a complex layer of private contractors. This contractor for meet and greet, then another for health bank centrelink schools link up then another for this and another for that. In the end no one is responsible which is the mark of Government today and the service provided depends on the worker paid at a minimal rate for carefully counted hours. I remember one family being shocked to find out that their 20 minute cup of tea in a heavy days tour through the bureaucracy was carefully ticked off as one hour less service.
That woman is in the ‘right’ place a Liberal Party surrounded by fellow fruitcakes, God help us they ever actually get into a position to attempt to run this country!!!
The Australian has run the story online (free access) and there are heaps of comments. Crazy!
What Gambaro needs to address is a very real problem with some migrants not using footpaths. It looks as if some cultures view footpaths as an extension of private propery which is only for “select” users.
I have been surprised (shocked) on several occasions, when driving, to round a corner to find people directly in my path, often pushing a pram.
The penny dropped the other day when I saw a woman struggling to gat a pram over tree roots in the small bit of nature strip between a perfectly good concrete footpath and the street.
This is not to be confused with bogans in the middle of the road “because I got a right”. They may seem exotic but they are definitely home grown.