It’s election season and you know exactly what that means. That’s right, politicians making a beeline for photo opportunities in saris, sherwanis, bindis and beyond. It’s a phenomenon that some love and bemuses others. Indeed, during this campaign you may have seen images of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, visiting Hindu temples, mosques and visiting the Sikh Games. Personally, and in principle, I am perfectly happy seeing representatives from across the political spectrum celebrating and showing respect towards this nation’s proud multicultural fabric. However, what I cannot abide by is smiling for the cameras with multicultural communities whilst simultaneously making deals in political backrooms that have the capacity to severely devastate our communities.
Specifically, I’m talking about Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party striking a staggering preference deal with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. A quick refresher for the uninitiated – One Nation is a party founded on an anti-multicultural and anti-migration platform whose leader has an infamous history of racist rhetoric (indeed, as recently as November where she was successfully sued for racial discrimination). The preference deal is a move that sees the Liberal Party include One Nation on their Senate preferences as well as place One Nation candidates as high as second on its how-to-vote cards. In short, it increases the likelihood for parties like One Nation to increase their representation and power in parliament.
Historically, the Liberal Party have refused to engage with and enter deals with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. I may not have agreed with much of Scott Morrison’s politics, but even he preferenced his main rival (the Australian Labor Party) ahead of One Nation. There is of course very good reason for having done so. Indeed, former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser provided those reasons when condemning Hanson’s entry into politics stating:
Racist politics are evil. Through the centuries men and women have suffered because they were presumed to be different from other people in their communities…There is only one honourable option: absolute rejection, refusal to cooperate, refusal to lend credibility to those promoting the evil of racism.
What is remarkable is that Liberal political leaders from decades past held stronger anti-racist positions than their current leader. And whilst it may be easy to dismiss Dutton’s deal as just a cunning political manoeuvre, it’s a lot more serious than that.
Whether you support the Liberal Party or not, they are a major Australian party and the decisions they make wield great power and influence in shaping political debate in the nation. Cosying up to One Nation normalises their rhetoric and their policies. It means instead of talking about positive change in multicultural Australia, we risk having to return to the debates about the place of ethnically diverse Australians in this country; a debate so many older South Asian and multicultural Australians have had to fight through in the hope their children will not have to fight the same battles. Yet, here we are at these crossroads today.
If we want politicians to stop treating us as token photo opportunities, then it’s critical that we don’t just smile and stand idly by in that photograph. We must call it out together, especially when populist politics betrays our communities. Peter Dutton Pauline Hanson
Ultimately, with this shift in policy and doing backroom deals with far right and xenophobic parties, the message the Liberal Party sends to multicultural communities is disturbingly and depressingly clear. They want your vote.
But they do not want you.
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