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The Forum > Article Comments > Discrimination study > Comments

Discrimination study : Comments

By Andrew Leigh, published 19/1/2010

Three experiments were undertaken to gauge racial and ethnic discrimination in Australia.

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I must confess I find your results underwhelming, Mr Leigh; they seem to indicate underlying and perhaps even some degree of unconscious prejudice or filtering going on--and/or, of course, blatant non-compliance with that sacred secular dictum we all hold dear, "non-discrimination". Shock horror!
Anecdotal evidence is of course not something measurable, but in my experience racism, and other prejudices, are widespread and commonly spiteful (maybe I just hang around with a rough crowd?). Protestations of the opposite, often from political figures, that Australia is all-embracing, or "tolerant" at worst, are politically correct spin--or tourism advertising. Appearances are everything--quite literally--or at least "politique".
Racial prejudice is no doubt an education issue primarily, but the tertiary enlightened--and political rhetoricians--are hardly representative; I doubt they'd even qualify as "Australian" in the popular/political sense.
So I'll trump your notion, Andrew, of a "redneck Brissie", with my notion that it's Australia wide! with honourable, though "unAustralian", exceptions :-)
Posted by Mitchell, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 11:00:47 AM
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This study clearly demonstrates that the policy of multiculturalism in Australia has failed and if the Austrtalian Labor Party continues to pursue this policy as resources like oil, water and food become more scarce - then racial, religious and ethnic tension will continue to rise making Australia ungovernable.
Posted by TRUTHNOW78, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 11:16:12 AM
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Try applying for a job with the national broadcasters. It seems being a feminist, homosexual, socialist or ethnic is a pre requisite or at least will help you get the job.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 12:34:03 PM
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Recently I was employed in an Australian hospital, recruiting pregnant women for a clinical study with the aim of improving the health of the mother and baby. My job was to basically call the ladies names who were waiting for their appointment, and then briefly speak to them regarding the study.

This hospital has patients from range of races/ethnic groups. However, I had some trouble in the pronunciation of many of the chinese and indian names, while I was fine with the european/anglo names. This lead me to speak to many more Anglo women than those of other backgrounds.

Now obviously this does not make me a racist, however, If I was an employer, would you say this is discrimination?
Posted by Stezza, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 12:46:46 PM
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How hard is it to say Lee, Chan, Singh or Gupta?
Posted by David Jennings, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 12:52:24 PM
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There has never been a shortage of people wanting to ‘prove’ that Australia is a ‘discriminatory’ country, a ‘racist’ country.

Unfortunately and disturbingly, many of the culprits are themselves Australia. They totally overlook the fact that ‘dreadful’ Australia allows people to rubbish it, even those people who we are supposed to be discriminating against. If Australia was as bad as they claim, they would have been in strife long ago, and they would not be advertising what they found in ‘studies’ which rarely prove anything anyway.

Another thing they overlook is that thousands of people are busily trying to get to Australia to live, legally and illegally. When they have been here for a while, they then busily try to get all the relatives here. As most of these people nowadays are of totally different culture, colour and are non-English speaking, why are they coming here to be discriminated against?

As usual, the Anglo-Australians are the bad guys. There was, it seems, no study on how Bill Smith, 7th. Generation Australian would get along if he tried to get a job at a Chinese restaurant or even an Italian, Greek or other ‘ethic’ workplace, when there is a firm tradition of keeping everything in the family or the particular ethnic group.

As an aside, I would be interested to know how “Gabriella Hannah, formerly Ragda Ali” got two years experience in the type of job she was after, but was knocked back 30 times for the same work until she changed here name. And, as for the “return to sender” experiment, I find that very hard to believe. It doesn’t stretch the imagination all that much to suspect that the “48-49% per cent of letters” not returned fell into the hands of people who have no patience with others who can’t get addresses right.

And the fact that Italian-Australians, whom nobody even thinks of as migrants these days, are being lumped in with Asians and Middle Easterners makes the whole thing suspect. Anyone having a problem with Italian - Australians died long ago.

........
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 19 January 2010 3:40:11 PM
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