Australia's reflex decision to follow the United States into the war on terror was a major strategic blunder. Internationally, it has ensured that the many errors of the Bush administration have become our errors. Domestically, it has eroded the tolerance and peacefulness of the Australian people.
There has always been a racist streak in this country, for many decades, legalised and legitimised by the White Australia policy. But it was a passive form of racism, expressed in social attitudes and values, rather than ethnic-inspired violence. The great Australian preference for apathy over action saved us from the extremism of other multi-racial societies.
The war on terror, however, is different. Politicians and the tabloid media have stirred a fierce backlash against the Muslim community. The Cronulla riots in 2005 showed that Australians are willing to use violence as an expression of their bigotry. As a result, pro and anti-Muslim gangs are now a regular part of Sydney's youth culture.
Prejudice is also having an impact on the pattern of urban settlement. Sydney is experiencing the phenomenon of white flight: people from English-speaking backgrounds moving from older suburbs that have growing migrant populations to new estates on the urban fringe.
In the local government areas of Camden, Wollondilly, Penrith and Hawkesbury, the 2006 Census data showed a significant increase in the proportion of males aged 25-64 years who were Australian-born. In Wollondilly, for example, the proportion jumped from 75 per cent in 1991 to 82 per cent in 2006. (The figures for other demographic groups are not yet available but they are likely to confirm this trend.)
This is a remarkable statistic given Sydney's high intake of migrants. While an area like Parramatta, close to the demographic centre of the city, increased its proportion of overseas-born men from 43 per cent to 55 per cent, the fringe suburbs have moved in the opposite direction. Some of the estates are white enclaves. Visit their shopping centres and playing fields and you will not find an Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern or African face.
While governments talk about the virtues of multiculturalism, the residents of these areas associate it with ethnic gangs and trouble in their old neighbourhood. One of the challenges of globalisation is to cross social and cultural boundaries.
Yet the evidence shows that Sydney's suburbs, in Australia's so-called global city, are becoming less cosmopolitan and more segregated.
Indeed, the liveliest tabloid controversy in recent times has been the struggle to establish an Islamic school at Camden, in Sydney's south-west. The opposition to the proposal has been frightening. The school site has been defaced with pig heads mounted on poles. Small children have appeared on TV declaring their hatred of Muslims.
Yet by any rational assessment, the school makes sense. The NSW government has approved land releases for 90,000 housing lots in the region surrounding Camden. The Islamic community simply wants to plan ahead, building a school for its children at the same time as the new homes are being constructed. It has selected a site similar to those on which state, Catholic and Anglican schools have been built in the past, without a ripple of public concern.
In truth, the only offence of the Islamic community has been to upset the aspirations of the white flighters. They moved to the urban fringe to get away from Muslims, not to be followed by them.
Thankfully there are voices of reason in Camden. State Labor MP Geoff Corrigan has said: "I am not opposed to an Islamic school in a rural zone, nor was I opposed to Camden High School, nor Macarthur Anglican, nor Magdalene Catholic School. I will continue to stand up for all citizens and their right to free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion."
For a member in a marginal seat, this is the most courageous and principled stance I have witnessed in Australian politics. Most likely, it will cost Corrigan his seat at the next election. This is a price he is willing to pay, putting social tolerance ahead of electoral necessity.
A feature of the Howard era was dog-whistle politics; rhetoric that conveyed an anti-Muslim message without appearing, at face value, to be racist. During last year's election campaign, Kevin Rudd visited the seat of Macarthur and was asked about the Islamic school. He said he opposed it on planning grounds. Anyone who thought the dog whistling would stop because of the change in government should think again. Kevin Rudd is no Geoff Corrigan.
- Australian Financial Review