The search for Australian values

Driven by suspicion and fear ... The store detective cases ... The "intuitive" actions of the Border Protection brigade ... Persecution of artists ... Cases that reflect different traditions ... How broadminded and tolerant are we, Procrustes asks? 

Patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel? Oh, surely not. Our very own Prime Minister has challenged us to embrace "Australian values", so it only remains to wonder what they might be.

It was our warm and cuddly inclusivity, and our general broadmindedness that the PM was alluding to, and never mind our propensity for locking-up the defenceless who sought our protection on very unpleasant equatorial islands in the south west Pacific.

Put aside this fixation with refugees and contemplate our highly successful integration of people who, well frankly, weren't really like us. Sure, back in the 50s and 60s the epithets "wogs" and "dagos" were bandied about, but we've all grown up since then - until, perhaps, the "great fear" descends, and God knows how quickly that occurs in the Wide Brown Land. 

Take the store detective cases. These arise from information imparted by store employees to the police as to the alleged thievery taking place on the premises. The sting in these cases for the informing employees when they overegg their pudding, is personally liability for the false imprisonment that follows, while the luckless victims of this officiousness struggle to establish their innocence.

The NSW Court of Appeal decision in Coles Myer v Webster (2009) is instructive The Coles functionary phoned the police to report on "two males about ... 18-20 years old, Leb in appearance ...".  The two Lebs, when apprehended (and strip searched) turned out to carry the names Thompson and Webster - sorry, El-Thompson and Al-Webster.

The previous leading case on the liability of over-zealous store detectives was Myer Stores v Soo out of Victoria in 1991. I rest my case. 

More front than Myer

I also rest my boot well up our ever-loving Department of Immigration (and whatever other fevered political fantasy is going on in the department's name, presently Border Protection) where we find the case of Mr B, set out in an Ombudsman's report. He flew into Perth from Zimbabwe (with a valid visa, and a rasta haircut) and was promptly set by the Immigration goons acting on an "intuitive" basis . 

B described his experience, as he was processed via a strip search to having his visa cancelled and shoved on a plane back to Zimbabwe, leaving his sponsor in Melbourne wondering what had happened.

"The other officer suggested to cut my hair and I refused. He asked if I was a Rastafarian and I said I am Rasta and not a Rastafarian. The officer laughed and said its the same and I said its not because Rastafarian sounds queer and meaningless whereas Rasta sounds nice and meaningful. They locked the door and left me ...

I asked if I was being arrested and they said 'yes'. I asked why and they said they were not sure, they were just carrying out orders. The other one said I was not being arrested as such but just being detained until further instructions from the officer in Perth. I asked who the officer in Perth was and he laughed and said the man whom you made first acquaintance with. I asked if he was racist and they said he was not, but he is very thorough when he meets non-whites." 

Good old fashioned Australian values: we're not racist, just very thorough when dealing with non-whites.

But the Ombudsman salvaged something from this wreckage, and his report on the department:

"Importantly the new policy directed an immediate end to 'intuitive' referrals of incoming passengers for further questioning. Specifically it states: 'The use of subjective indicators (such as tattoos, attire or presentation) to identify possible non bonafide travellers is not appropriate'."  

Goodness me: how long does it take to get the news from Aix to Ghent. This report from 1998 had still not reached Brisbane International Airport in 2005 when a Nigerian, Mr Okwume, currently before the Federal Court, was first intercepted on an "intuitive" basis (how many other black Africans got off that plane from Dubai)?

Just the beginning of his trail of tears as he was locked in Baxter for eight months on the basis of a suspicion that his passport was fake, a suspicion dispelled at the ten week mark by government checkers.

See: Procrustes, Unreasonable suspicion 

Yet really, we are a relaxed and broadminded nation - live and let live - unless you're an artist like Bill Henson and the Hounds of Hell decide to have a go, as they did in 2008.

Henson had a photographic exhibition waiting to open in Sydney's Paddington, many of the works showing pubescent boy-men and girl-women nude, but not titillatingly so. Miranda Devine was first out of the blocks with a slathering attack ("perverts" were among those promoting this material) that then morphed into a full witch-burning frenzy from the crew at 2GB.

Politicians to a man (with one exception) sniffed the wind and laid in, from Iemma and Farrell, then NSW Premier and Opposition Leader respectively, to Prime Minister Rudd. Henson was filth. The police were called to vet the exhibition, which then voluntarily closed: no matter that the Classification Board, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, bodies set-up to make judgment calls as to acceptable artistic standards, were unperturbed by the material.

Bill Henson: Untitled #5 Roslyn Oxley Gallery

The one exception in this electronic village lynch mob was Malcolm Turnbull, then short of becoming Leader of the Federal Opposition. He said:

"... before we have policemen tramping through art galleries, tramping through libraries, going into newspaper offices, we have got to think freedom is what makes this country great and that is what enables us to be the type of nation that we are ... Just remember, freedom is what makes Australia great". 

But upon becoming Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm no longer said brave things about art and freedom.   

On June 14, 1943, in the middle of World War II, the ultimate national courts for the USA and Australia both delivered judgments in cases brought by Jehovah's Witnesses, attempting to obtain constitutional protection for their (non-mainstream, State denying) religious practices.

The Australian case, Adelaide Company of Jehovah's Witnesses, gained no traction on the basis of religious protection, but received some scant comfort under the Defence power.

The case in Washington dealt with whether the state could demand a show of allegiance to the national flag, which public display offended the Witnesses. The question was whether dissent from displays of allegiance would be allowed in schoolyards: did the Jehovah's Witness children of West Virginia have to salute the flag?  

Justice Robert Jackson said in West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette (1943), as he led the majority to exempt the Witnesses, that those "who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard." 

Jehovah's Witnesses: trying to avoid compulsory unification of opinion

These cases, so reflective of different national traditions, still speak to us three-quarters of a century later, but beg the question: just what are "Australian values"? 

Are we only comfortable with sheep like conformity, or can we genuinely - and this is a really a question for those who comprise our "official classes" and populist commentators - embrace heterogeneity?