Image – www.seronline.pt
Recently Paul Murray of Radio Station 6PR and The West Australian newspaper wrote a column regarding the Ministerial responsibilities of the Tony Abbott led coalition. His examined the response of the government in respect of a number of issues. The overriding issue that Mr Murray looked at was that of the gender balance in the ministerial milieu. However one comment that he made in respect of Kevin Andrews and his complete unsuitability for Ministerial responsibility following his actions involving Dr Haneef struck a chord.
Kevin Andrews will have responsibility for Multicultural Affairs inter alia as part of his super portfolio of Social Services. This is the man who, in addition to the sorry and completely botched matter of Haneef also presided over the comments in respect of the migration to Australia of people from Africa, comments in respect of the migration to Australia of people of Muslim faith and introduced the citizenship test to Australia. Andrews was also the Minister for Immigration when the portfolio was renamed “Immigration and Citizenship” thus removing Multiculturalism from the list of portfolio responsibilities. This is not a track record to be proud of.
For Multiculturalism, the appointment of Kevin Andrews to the position is dire. For a policy position that thus far has been committed to on a bipartisan basis and has worked very well and is the envy of a number of nations around the world, this is a harbinger of uncertain times ahead.
But there are implications far wider than for the Multicultural sector. Not long ago Michael Pascoe, generally regarded as one of the finest Business commentators in this country had this to say of Kevin Andrews in respect of a crusade that he is going to be waging against the not for profit sector:
“Kevin Andrews’ last big contribution to Australian public life was when he was Immigration Minister and totally botched the Dr Mohamed Haneef case, defaming and wrongly imprisoning the innocent doctor. The indications are that he intends to pick up in the style with which he left off, this time as Family and Human Services Minister.
The current target of Mr Andrews’ zeal is the vast bulk of the charity and not-for-profit sector. As Royce Millar very nicely reported, Andrews seems to have carriage of Cardinal George Pell’s desire to scrap the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, a body that’s actually designed to help the bodies it watches over.
Kevin Andrews, as the shadow minister for families, housing and human services, ran a particularly ill-informed, ideologically-driven and hugely ignored campaign against it, including a waste-of-space filibuster over the legislation. Despite the ACNC’s subsequent success, Andrews remains unrepentant and promises an Abbott government will scrap it.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bad-liberal-policy-will-damage-charities-20130902-2szep.html#ixzz2fZTWAPzZ
The other area that Andrews has been prolific in, in his writings has been on the subject of marriage. He is a member according to his Declaration of interests’ document at the Australian Parliament, of the Marriage Educators Association, Marriage Education Programme Inc etc etc. His writings on the subject have been numerous and cover the issues around the sanctity of marriage and the family. For those readers who are supporters of same sex marriages, his pronouncements on this area are unequivocal and include the following:
Herald Sun columnist and TV presenter Andrew Bolt will launch a new book on the importance of marriage by federal Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews in Melbourne at 11.00 am this Thursday 4 October.
And in the words of the man himself:
The United States’ Brookings Institution economist, Isabel Sawhill, wrote this year that if individuals do just three things — finish high school, work full time and marry before they have children — their chances of being poor drop from 15 per cent to two per cent.
The respected scholar of child poverty went on the say that “unless the media, parents and other influential leaders celebrate marriage as the best environment for raising children, the new trend — bringing up baby alone — may be irreversible”.
These pronouncements are those of a person with very conservative views of marriage and marriage equality. They also exemplify a return to a time when diversity was not celebrated in this country.
Other pronouncements of Kevin Andrews which may be of interest to readers are (emphasis added):
The election of Neville Bonner and Ken Wyatt reflects the fact that the Liberal Party has been to the forefront historically in indigenous affairs. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were given the franchise in 1964; a non-discriminatory constitutional reform was achieved in 1967; and land reform for the Northern Territory was legislated in 1976. In the spirit of bipartisanship, the Coalition supported ATSIC in the early nineties; and when Mark Latham broke with that, it embarked on a new era of indigenous affairs that is about accountability and economic development, which the Labor Party has largely supported. It also reflects the fact that the Coalition traditionally has selected candidates that better reflect the wider community. (http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-parliament-should-be-as-diverse-as-society/)
How that highlighted comment fits with the selection of Julie Bishop as the only female in cabinet is of interest.
The important thing that we can draw from these pronouncements is that we are being delivered back to a time of a level of homogeneity in our society we have not seen in many years.
We live in interesting times!
I see that the missing ‘t’ has not yet been found in the italics. Could you please have this fixed as it makes the article very difficult to read. Either that or please don’t use italics.