NSW Liberal leader Peter (who?) Debnam was forced by Sutherland’s Liberal Party Lord Mayor David Redmond to remove a party-political tirade from his speech to a group of migrants who were being installed as Australian citizens.
Debnam himself had asked to speak at the Sutherland Shire (home to the world-infamous December 2005 Cronulla race-riots) ceremony, knowing that party political screeds are prohibited by Department of Immigration policy at citizenship ceremonies.
“Becoming an Australian citizen does not give you the right to a patch of land where you simply recreate your old country in the new, separated from the rest of the community.”
Look here, Pete- you’re dealing with people, not computers. You can’t erase an accumulated lifetime and install your own cut-snake-mad nationalist operating system. If you’re going to accept migrants, you get the personality along with the person.
I am a dual American-Australian citizen- and quite unapologetically so. I retained my US citizenship when I adopted Australian citizenship in 2003 so that I could continue to vote as an absentee in US federal and some state-level elections. I was in that mob of voters who installed a Democrat controlled Congress last November. Even now, the new Democrat Congress is beginning to rein in King George the Decision Maker… and not an instant too soon. If you want to call that ‘recreating the old country in the new,’ so be it. I call it being a responsible citizen.
People who have seen nationalism in action in different countries strangely lose faith in nationalism. Same lies, different place. Nationalism demands faith and belief that your place is better than everyone’s else. Faith just means parroting what believers do.
Migrants are not usually stupid; if they think they will ‘fit in’ better by singing the nationalist tunes of the insular racists in their newly adopted country, some just might. Considering these people have rejected an entire nationalist structure from another country, don’t be too surprised when they can reject others. Playing along with a smile puts the go-team nutbaggery into the perspective it deserves.
Debnam’s dogma is so ridiculous that he thinks he can re-order reality.
A centrepiece of [Debnam’s] policy is a plan to change the name of the program “English as a Second Language” to “Teaching English as First Language”.
Umm… if someone has learned another language before they learn English, when they acquire English, it’ll be a secondary if not tertiary or quaternary language. Just what does Debnam think he’s accomplishing? Completely illogical. Mind you, one shouldn’t expect much logic out of people who want you to accept and believe a load of authoritarian, nationalist, Anglocentric rubbish.
Yeh mate, I’m fair bloody dinkum… but I’ll be a bloody seppo in the privacy of my own home if and when it suits me- and migrants from other places are apt to be similar.
Total assimilation and inculcation into a nationalist mindset is not only impractical but undesirable. Diversity is strength. Debnam needs to stop alienating the >20% of voters in his electorate who are migrants- or he’ll forever consign his NSW Liberal Party to the insignificance it already enjoys.
-weez
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“Teaching English as First Language”
All the funniest stuff happens in NSW politics. If I didn’t like Melbourne so much I’d move there so as to catch every hilarious utterance.
Comment by The Editor 01.27.07 @ 8:40 amWeez, Debs isn’t talking about you when he’s bashing migrants. You’re a blonde, blue-eyed American honkey who speaks English rather well.
You should be careful around little Johnny- he might get a crush on you. Lord knows he’s been kissing on Dumbya long enough.
Comment by Woody 01.27.07 @ 10:01 amEd, it doesn’t get much funnier. You don’t usually see a state party leader digging his grave this early on in an election year.
Woody, honkey or not- I’m a migrant to Australia with adopted citizenship. I can’t wait for Debs to rabbit on about revoking acquired citizenship or prohibiting dual citizenship. The Lying Rodent and his henchmen have already had a crack at that.
Comment by weez 01.27.07 @ 10:18 amIt’s pretty clear to me. Debnam is modeling himself on our popular PM.
HoWARd has just taken the multiculturalism out of DIMA to create DIC. So of course Debs has to take the second out of language.
I saw the footage of this particular Debs screed and it was delivered with such venom to a room full of new Australian citizens…bastard.
As for you Weez, you may be white and can speak the language, but I’ll tell on you if you ever cook another one of those New York hotdogs at your “Camp Kerry” bashes.
Comment by suki 01.27.07 @ 10:37 amSuki, I promise I’ll be more creative for my Obama election bash. 😉
Comment by weez 01.27.07 @ 10:45 amWoody opined: “Weez, Debs isn’t talking about you when he’s bashing migrants. You’re a blonde, blue-eyed American honkey who speaks English rather well.”
That’s a query I’d like to put directly to Debs himself.
If indeed Mr Invisible doesn’t have any qualms over caucasian, dual US-Aus or UK-Aus citizens, his objection is to the race and religion of some dual-nationals, not actually to dual-nationality per se, isn’t it?
This is what we in the business call a fully rednecked cryptoracist, one trying to get away with being a Grand Kollossal Klankrapper, signalling his fellow racists with the discrimination dog-whistle, but a respectable citizen of multiracial Australia to those absent such prejudices.
Comment by weez 01.29.07 @ 7:32 am“I’m fair dinkum, bloody oath I am” He ses.
that sounds nearly fairbloodydinkum!
Comment by fairbloodydinkum 07.06.09 @ 8:47 pmLeave a comment
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