Multiculture melting pot threatened by hardliners

Australia is a success story. We have built a harmonious nation of immigrants from around the world, but our success story is now being threatened by the rise of hard multiculturalism.

Supporters of hard multiculturalism argue the only way to ensure the "fair go" is extended equally to all Australians is for the state to devote an entire policy framework (which includes the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Multicultural Council) to managing cultural and ethnic diversity.

But the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia (FECCA) says the fair go is under threat. It is worried the Abbott government will turn its back on multiculturalism. The FECCA wants parliament to pass a Multicultural Act to make sure multicultural policies are set in statute.

Here is an opportunity, says FECCA, "for an Australian government to make a lasting and meaningful contribution to Australian society, social cohesion, and quality of life now and into the future''.

The FECCA does not mince its words: apparently, all that stands between the way of life we enjoy in Australia and the hardship millions of citizens living elsewhere endure is the passage of a Multicultural Act.

Of course, Australia is a cohesive and peaceful country. According to the 2013 Scanlon Foundation's mapping social cohesion report, our support for a tolerant, multi-racial, multicultural society and its many benefits sits at a healthy 84 per cent.

Multiculturalism is still popular here and there is little doubt Australia will remain a multicultural nation.

But there are disturbing trends in this success story. The 2013 Scanlon Foundation report also found more of us believe government should get out of the business of supporting the customs and traditions of minority groups.

Multiculturalism is now posing questions about just how public policy promotes the peaceful coexistence of diverse people in one society.

It's a new, "hard" form of multiculturalism. But what began as a sincere desire to eliminate racist prejudice and promote cultural diversity has turned into a determined drive to promote diversity as a moral and political end.

It's a determination that has become obsession. And when hard multiculturalists say we must treat topics such as forced marriages and female circumcision with "cultural sensitivity", we see how that obsession begins to cast doubt on the very idea of a core national culture.

Diversity is no longer something that exists naturally, as you might expect in a country that by 2010 had become the third-most culturally diverse nation in the world (after Singapore and Hong Kong). Instead, diversity has become a moral objective promoted as an end in itself – precisely what is intended in the proposed Multicultural Act.

This narrow focus on promoting diversity threatens liberty because it promotes the interests of particular groups over the individual. This will only reduce the liberty of every citizen.

As former Keating government minister Gary Johns, has noted: "To legislate for multiculturalism is to introduce the potential for different rules by which behaviour should be judged."

The debate about hard multiculturalism is about the weight we should afford cultures other than the prevailing Australian one.

It is time for the fetish of diversity to end and the advance of hard multiculturalism to be checked. In pursuing a vested notion of social justice, the demand for equal recognition should never trump the demand for liberty.

Hard multiculturalism opposes social integration by pursuing a program of cultural diversity which does not tolerate any divergent points of view. But you can't prevent the differences that occur naturally between people by passing a piece of legislation.

Australia does not need a Multicultural Act. The fairest way to accommodate differences is by maintaining a stable framework of laws and institutions to guarantee the freedom of the individual.

Australia already has a stable legal system that governs the behaviour of its citizens. The rule of law is the only acceptable basis for a healthy, descriptively multicultural society.

Once the rule of law determines the extent of permissible behaviours, the state should get out of the business of supporting or maintaining the cultural, ethnic or religious components of identity.

Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.