At the end of 2013 society can reflect on the passing of
Nelson Mandela, revered anti-racism activist and founder of post-apartheid
South Africa. Shortly after he died an ABC television interviewer asked a former Australian
parliamentarian what Mandela’s legacy might be. He answered that it would never
again be acceptable for people to be discriminated against on the basis of
race, language, colour or creed. There was no mention of class or the
increasing economic inequality which now exists between
nations and within nations. Yet many would argue that the struggle against
increasing economic apartheid and social disadvantage based on class and race
is far from over in Australia.
Instead we find an impoverished class of people, up to 40 %
of the population, subsisting in precarious employment. Australian Bureau of
Statistics data show that they are involuntarily trapped in part-time or
temporary casual jobs, dead end vocational training, underemployed or unemployed.
This 'flexible' workforce forms a Third World sometimes described as a fourth
world, co-existing uneasily within a First world. But rather than
discrimination being based purely on skin colour now there is evidence of a
type of postcode rascism depending on where one lives and exacerbated by race. People denigrated as 'Westies'
or bogans for example are denied jobs and other opportunities because they come
from the western suburbs of
Sydney.
This reached its nadir when the former Federal government picked
on poorer suburbs throughout Australia to extend Northern Territory
Intervention measures to non-Aboriginals. Reminiscent of South Africa's dreaded
Pass Laws, jobseekers from disadvantaged communities such as Bankstown in
Sydney were to be issued with dehumanising ration cards otherwise known as the
Basics card until there was stiff resistance. More marginalised Aboriginal
communities in Northern Territory however still suffer this form of
discrimination and recent frontpage headlines in the Sunday Telegraph vilifying
disabled citizens as “bludgers” show that Australia still has a long way to go
before we can claim to be a diverse, inclusive society.
