The truth behind ‘Harmony Day’

Who would have thought that Al Grassby would be back in fashion? Attorney-General Christian Porter, it appears.

Grassby was Australia’s first community relations commissioner, appointed under the original Racial Discrimination Act. The act was amended in 1986 to establish the racial discrimination commissioner but the functions remained essentially unchanged.

The commissioner – whether of ‘community relations’ as was, or ‘racial discrimination’ as is – promotes understanding and acceptance of, and compliance with, the Act; and engages in programs to combat racial discrimination and prejudice, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among racial and ethnic groups, and propagate the purposes and principles of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The Race Convention is pretty clear on what is required: Australia is bound to condemn racial discrimination, and to eliminate it ‘by all appropriate means and without delay’.

Like each of his six predecessors in the role, the outgoing racial discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, has had his own way of carrying out those very onerous functions. Porter, and many conservative politicians and commentators, have not agreed with the way he has done his job.

In an interview in July, Porter agreed with Miranda Devine’s description of Soutphommasane as one who is ‘paid to, by the taxpayer, to ruin our society, or do their best to damage it’. Porter would prefer that the commissioner ‘acknowledges and further enhances all of the fantastic features of Australian society which are about middle Australian values of temperance, tolerance, a fair go’.

This has led Porter to pine for the days of Al Grassby. It was Australian Human Rights Commission president, Rosalind Croucher, who started it. In what might have been a throwaway line, Croucher said to a Senate estimates hearing in May: ‘in a way, I’d quite like to shift the title [race discrimination commissioner] almost back to the commissioner for community relations’.

I say ‘throwaway line’, because Croucher went on to explain the commissioner’s role in terms that are quite consistent with Soutphommasane’s approach, saying ‘This role is actually to be in advance of and to tackle the prejudices that lead to [discrimination]’. Throwaway line or not, Porter grabbed it, invoking it in the interview with Devine.

Porter is not alone in his discomfort with the reality of race discrimination in Australia. In the estimates hearing where Croucher floated the name change idea, Senator Ian MacDonald asked ‘whether there is a need in today’s Australian society for a racism commissioner?’, saying ‘as far as I’m aware, there is very little actual racism around’.

As Soutphommasane has shown, in his attempts to give voice to those whom MacDonald and others do not hear, there is quite a bit of actual racism around. It is an uncomfortable truth that talking up the positives, and saying ‘harmony’ a lot, do not alter.

Preference in conservative politics for talking about ‘harmony’ rather than ‘discrimination’ goes back at least to 1999. Until then, Australia had acknowledged 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed by the United Nations in 1966. The date marks the day in 1960 when police in Sharpeville, South Africa shot and killed 69 peaceful protestors.

But in 1999 the Australian government, anxious to avoid a suggestion that racism is an issue in Australia, chose instead to emphasise the positive and announced that 21 March would, instead, be ‘Harmony Day’. Reverting to ‘community relations commissioner’ seems like more of the same papering over.

As I pointed out, by its former or current name, the commissioner has always had the same functions. Critics of the way Soutphommasane has done his job are not wanting a name change, they are wanting to change the nature of the job. That would require legislative reform, amending provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that are better established than section 18C, the resilient anti-vilification provision that has withstood the sustained scrutiny in recent years.

Soutphommasane’s term ended on 16 August 2018, and the new commissioner, Mr Chin Tan, will have to decide how best to carry out his functions, and he has complete independence in doing so. Even if amendments change both the name and substance of the position, the essential task remains to give effect to Australia’s clear responsibilities under the international race convention.

Outside of politics, it really shouldn’t be hard to be aware of and pleased with the extent of cultural ‘harmony’ in our society, and at the same time be honest, caring and concerned about persisting levels of racial discrimination and exclusion. Politically, this seems too dangerous or difficult an idea, and policy is reduced a to a crude good/bad binary.

It is substituting ‘harmony’ for ‘discrimination’ that explains why Senator MacDonald said he feels that he ‘might live in a bubble’ in regard to the question of racism. It is the role of the commission under the racial discrimination commissioner, however titled, to burst that bubble.

Published on 23 August 2018 by The Guardian as ‘Talking about ‘harmony’ a lot does not eliminate racism’.