Australia's Peril


Moves Towards Asianisation:
The "Fellow Travellers"

The pro-Asia attitude of the Labor Party's leaders has been echoed by many of their cosmopolitan-internationalist "fellow travellers":

    "It's not easy for people of English-speaking background to accept the fact that we are a South-East Asian country" - Frank Galbally, 1984 (then chairman of the National Advisory Council of the Special Broadcasting Service).(93)
    "We must realise Australia is an Asian country, not European. We must be Asians racially as well as geographically" - Eddie Lui, 1989 (Chinese-Australian community leader).(94)
    "Australians need to accept the geopolitical reality of their destiny in Asia" - Richard Woolcott, 1992 (then the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - and a former Ambassador).(95)
    "Australia has to recognise that it is an Asian nation" - Wal King, 1992 (Chief Executive Officer of Leighton Holdings).(96)
    "Nowadays when one talks about Australia's image, the question which almost invariably arises is to whether Australia is part of Asia... it is" - Dr Peter Wilenski, 1992 (Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).(97)
    "Australia... is an Asian nation"; "Australia's future will be primarily determined by its relationships with Asian countries" - Irene Moss, 1994 (then Race Discrimination Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - and a Chinese-Australian).(98)
Also, in 1994, Bill Ferris, (then the immediate past Chairman of Austrade) said that Australia needed to focus its attention on Asia, and should resist "attempts to 'de- Asianise' our immigration and education programs".(99)

In 1996 Ross Terrill, author of China in our Time, wrote
    "I hope and expect Australia will become Eurasian. But I would not argue about that vision with people who disagree because it will come about, if it does, through a thousand incremental decisions, and many involuntary happenings, that go beyond the policy of any party or the will of one generation."(100)
    "I think that the increased emphasis on Asian migration and a lot of things related to Asia will in the long-term enrich Australia" - Dr John Yu, 1996 (Chief Executive of the New Children's Hospital, Sydney, and "1996 Australian of the Year"). The Australian reported that Dr Yu "was adamant the Asianisation of Australia was a positive development".(101)
    "Australians are learning, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, to accept that our future lies in the Asian region" - Judith Brett, 1997 (teacher of politics at LaTrobe University), writing for The Age.(102)
    "Asia is our future." - Tim Colebatch, 1997 (Economics Editor for The Age).(103)