Racism in Australia

I went to a dinner meeting with a group of local GPs last week. One of them brought up the topic of the isolation and frustrations foreign-trained doctors feel while working in Hervey Bay.

Just some background information. The public hospitals in the area are staffed by doctors from all over the world: England, South Africa, Croatia, Germany, the US, Burma, Nigeria, Fiji, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, with the South Asian contingent being the largest. Walking around the hospital is like touring the United Nations. The English everyone speaks is tinged with different accents. The hospital seems to function well enough. But if you were to walk into the emergency department, you can feel the numerous posters that proclaim "Racism is not tolerated here!" silently performing their pre-emptive role, putting a lid on something almost palpable roiling beneath the surface.

Backtrack a little more. Australia is having a huge shortage of doctors at the moment, some places worse than others. The Fraser Coast area, which includes Hervey Bay, is among the hardest hit. To bridge the gap, Queensland Health has recruited large numbers of what's called international medical graduates (IMGs) from around the world.

Besides the expected culture shock, what a lot of these doctors didn't expect was the overt racism from some patients hurling racial slurs. I personally haven't seen it happen, but I've heard nurses and some doctors describe what had been said by some irate patients.

"This is one of the most racist places I've seen in Austrtalia," said an administrator of the hospital at the meeting. "Maryborough and Bundaberg [two towns within an hour's drive from Hervey Bay] are One Nation territory," he continued. For those unfamiliar with Australian politics, the One Nation Party was a short-lived but influential party in the last ten years in Austrlia. Its xenophobic nationalist and protectionist platform ran counter to the Australian federal government's policy of multiculturalism. Being in the middle of a place where the party's base, it partially explains the sometimes intolerant attitudes displayed by some patients.

Today's local paper reports that Pauline Hanson, one of the founders of the One Nation Party, has stopped by Hervey Bay on her campaign trip for a Queensland Senate seat. Hanson achieved notoriety when she said, in her first speech to the House of Representatives in Parliament in 1996, that Australia was "in danger of being swamped by Asians" while denouncing the "privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians." The paper's editorial, noting her sizable group of supporters in the Fraser Coast area, attributes her popularity to her honesty in saying things people now are only able to think, but not dare to say. That instantly reminds me of a certain media personality in the US. Looks like it's the same reason for the popularity of Ann Coulter, of the US Fox Network screaming match fame. Have we really progressed all that much when intolerant remarks can find so much support? In the four decades since the Civil Rights Movement in the US and the end of the White Australia policy, have we achieved nothing more than shoving ball gags into people's mouths and draping thin veils in front of their faces?