Dr THEOPHANOUS (12:17 PM) —There has been a lot of discussion on the economic shortcomings of the budget from those on our side of the House and from others. I will not focus primarily on those. What I want to talk about is the fact that the budget—and, indeed, the image presented by the budget—totally fails to show any vision or leadership as to where the Australian nation is going, especially when we consider fundamental questions such as those concerning our national identity and those concerning questions of race and multiculturalism.

I think it is pretty sad that the only international reference to Australia yesterday in the AAP wires, Reuters and so on read like this: `National government refuses to say sorry.' That was the image of Australia yesterday that was presented throughout the world. This is part of the overall picture of our nation that exists at the moment. Having recently returned from travels abroad, having had discussions in a number of countries, the leaders of every country to whom I spoke raised with me these issues: the question concerning the member for Oxley (Ms Hanson); the question of where multiculturalism is going in Australia; the question of whether racism is on the rise in Australia.

These are the issues which this government has totally failed to confront in its two years in office. And nothing in the budget and nothing in the pronouncements of the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) have done anything to help alleviate these continuing and deepening problems.

A few years ago, Australia was held up in terms of an image of a nation that was tolerant, multicultural and an example to the world. In the last two years, and especially in the last 12 months, we have had the politics of division based on attacks concerning race, culture and multiculturalism. Indeed, the failures of the government have now created an atmosphere in the media and in society in which one can become popular, sell books, appear on television in populist programs. Why? In order to pronounce racist views; in order to pronounce divisive views; in order to pronounce views against multiculturalism; and in order to pronounce views against particular sections of the Australian community.

You would think that in this context the coalition and the Liberal and National parties would have been alarmed and would have acted. And do you think the Prime Minister has acted in the face of all this? On the contrary, in the Queensland election coming up, we got the news today that all the candidates for the Liberal and National parties, with the exception of only one candidate, one person of Chinese background, are going to give preferences to Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, completely contrary to the public request of the Leader of the Opposition and of the Labor Party that all major parties should put that party last on their how to vote tickets.

But what is even worse is that not only did they decide to do that but also they admit to actively seeking out representatives of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party and seeking to do a deal with them on preference swaps. These are the same people who protest that they really do support multiculturalism, that they really do support a fair society, that they really are opposed to racism in our community. Imagine that—actually seeking out those officials and seeking to do a deal with them. You can imagine what would have happened in such a meeting, if it had taken place: `Ms Hanson, we are of course publicly opposed to everything you stand for, but we would love to have your preferences.'

This is a disgrace for this country. This has created fear in the ethnic communities of this country. That is what it has done—it has created fear. Go and talk to the Chinese community in Australia and see what they think about the Howard government now. The Prime Minister promised them before the election that all of his pronouncements in 1988 were to be forgotten and that he would stand up for their rights. Instead, he has run away in the face of the assault from the member for Oxley and her team.

This failure is compounded by many other actions, or lack of action, on the part of the government to show any backbone in relation to this amazing and terrifying threat to our society and to the unity of our country. There is the failure of the government to spend $5 million which it put aside two years ago in its budget for a campaign against racism. We hear from the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Mr Ruddock) all sorts of excuses: `Oh well, this takes a long time and we've got to do test campaigns and we've got to do this and we've got to do that,' all of which could have been done within a matter of a couple of months. The reality is that this government has never been committed to that campaign, and it has not pursued that campaign. In the end, we had the offensive situation where, as part of this extremely long process of trying to consult people as to how to run the campaign, they had some agency ring up people and pose to them very offensive questions about race and racism. And the minister would not even apologise for that activity.

We have also had the virtual emasculation of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The commission made a statement about what was happening, but it did not have any impact. Now there is legislation coming before this parliament which would effectively emasculate that commission and its activities, which are orientated towards ensuring that human rights are properly protected in this country, including human rights based on an opposition to racism and support for a multicultural Australia.

With the abolition of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the promise from the government was that this was only a structural thing—that it was not something which was intended to reduce the level of programs of support for the ethnic communities. But, in actual practice, that is what happened—there has been a reduction in the support of those programs. Increasingly, we have fewer and fewer references to the philosophy and to the practice of multiculturalism. Meanwhile, we have an increasing level of attacks against multiculturalism in the mainstream media from all of the friends of this current government. And what do they do? They get up in the media and they strongly attack the essence of multiculturalism. They try to misdescribe it and to redefine it in some way which is contrary to its true meaning. Then they seek to attack ethnic leaders and specific migrant communities. They attack the question of Australia's role in its neighbourhood within the community of Asia. All those things are part of this process.

In Monday's Australian, there was an article by Mr Frank Devine, headed `Tailing the Tigers was a cow of a path'. Basically, if you look through the sophistication of the article, it really comes down to an attack on multiculturalism. For example, he says:

Official assertion of multiculturalism without the American coda of "from many, one", has alarmed rather than rallied Australians.

Where does he get the evidence for that? Lies! The fact is that all of the recent opinion polls show that more than 70 per cent of Australians support multiculturalism both as a philosophy and as a practice. But that has not deterred people like Mr Devine from claiming nonsense—that the Australian people do not support multiculturalism.

Do you think that if I wrote an article in response to Mr Devine it would be published in the Australian newspaper? Of course not. In the last few years, we have had article after article, and newspaper reports and television reports, all attacking multiculturalism. Recently we had attacks in Victoria on the only Cambodian born member of the state parliament, the only Turkish born member of the state parliament, the only Croatian born member of the state parliament and the only Vietnamese born member of the state parliament. All of these attacks were based on a very clear understanding: they were coming from people who were being organised by enemies of multiculturalism; they were organised in such a way as to bring discredit to those people. This is irrespective of the fact that we in this country have an official access and equity policy, and that we have heard ministers and others say, `We want to promote the participation of people of non-English speaking backgrounds in our parliaments and in our society.' And yet we have all these attacks in the media.

The responsibility can be sheeted back to the federal government and the leadership of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said, just before the election, that he had abandoned his previous views on multiculturalism, that he had abandoned his previous views on race and that he was in a position to say to the Australian people that he now believed in different things. The Australian had an editorial saying, `Forgive and forget, the Prime Minister has learned his lesson. When he becomes Prime Minister, he will be very good on these issues.' Well, he has been appalling on these issues—not only on the Aboriginal issues, so that his behaviour has been overwhelmingly condemned here and internationally, but also on the question of support for multiculturalism and on the question of a clear denunciation of Pauline Hanson, the One Nation Party and its supporters.

The Prime Minister himself said only a matter of a couple of weeks ago that the supporters of Pauline Hanson are no more racist than you and I. What is he talking about? Does he know who is behind Pauline Hanson and her party? Does he understand what is going on in this country in terms of the divisions being created by the One Nation Party and its supporters? Why will he not stand up and be counted in these matters?

We are facing a crisis situation in respect of these issues and, unless something is done, we will be in a situation where we will have gone from being a united multicultural country based on tolerance to a divided country based on prejudice, on race and on dividing those who come from European or British backgrounds from those who come from non-European backgrounds. Is that what we want for this country?

It is about time the Prime Minister made some clear, unequivocal statements on these issues. He should especially condemn the decision of the Queensland Liberal and National parties in relation to giving their preferences to Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party.