The Inherent Racism of SBS

This article reviews the SBS documentary Is Australia Racist? hosted by Ray Martin and funded by Screen Australia, part of a series shown during “Face up to Racism Week” aired on Sunday, February 26, 2017. The program drew on four leftist professors, and contained numerous factual and methodological shortcomings combined with anti-Anglo bias.

Ray Martin began by stating that Australian society now contains over 300 ethnicities. Martin advised his audience that Australia is a “fabulous melting pot … a nation based on racial diversity”. This view is a staple of multiculturalism. For example, while interviewing Pauline Hanson in early March 2017[1] Barrie Cassidy stated, “Cultural diversity is now Australia’s identity, it is our identity!”

The proposition is nonsense. If Australia’s identity consists of its ethnic diversity, then many countries are more Australian than Australia, because their index of ethnic heterogeneity is much higher. But Nigeria or Brazil are not more Australian than Australia. In fact modern Australia was forged long before large-scale non-European immigration began in the 1970s. It is more accurate to say that Australia is an Anglo-Celtic nation with substantial minorities.

This essay appears in the latest Quadrant.
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Martin’s opening words were not an auspicious introduction to a supposedly serious documentary. The program’s experts did not improve matters.

Martin consulted Professor Kevin Dunn, an academic at the University of Western Sydney who researches and teaches ethnic affairs. Dunn had conducted a survey of Australians’ racial attitudes for the program.[2] The survey formed the basis of the program, and Dunn featured as an expert throughout the show.

In his survey Professor Dunn asked people about their attitudes towards minorities and outgroups. He did not ask about attitudes towards the majority, as if minorities cannot feel or express racism.

Black Africans

Inspired by Dunn’s survey, Martin’s camera team sought to test the claim made by Australians that they would defend others against racial discrimination. They hired actors to pretend to harass another actor publicly, a woman of colour in African dress. Martin’s film crew surreptitiously videoed bystanders’ responses. Would they defend the victim?

The experiment was hardly representative of Australian society. The two actor-racists were white, as were all the passers-by, yet the scenes were filmed in Melbourne, a diverse city. Most of the bystanders did not object, though a few were vocal in their disapproval of the actor-racists.

How realistic was this experiment? The actors’ behaviour—casting rude accusations at a woman who was minding her own business—would have been offensive even without the racist content. Australians find gratuitously offensive remarks unacceptable. Who doesn’t? A valid experimental design would have repeated the scenes without ethnic slurs or innuendo, featuring non-racial abuse. If a similar number of bystanders had objected, that would have indicated that racism is perceived as just a form of rudeness. Fewer or more objections would have indicated that racism is considered a milder or harsher form of rudeness than other types, respectively.

But that would have involved control groups, a normal part of scientific method. The niceties of experimental method were lost on Martin and his team.

Another problem with the “experiment” was its definition of racism. The program adopted a multicultural definition, which portrayed it as unprovoked white aggression against passive non-white victims. In this imaginary universe, minorities are never racist against white people. Indeed, racism is assumed to be a white disease.

Actually minorities are generally more ethnically motivated than majorities, due to such factors as experience of migration, small numbers and tribal culture.[3]

Why didn’t Martin’s experts put him right? They had plenty of opportunities to do so. Martin asked Professor Dunn to interpret the street theatre described above. The expert saw nothing wrong, leaving Martin to add his own editorial comment. Martin said that most bystanders’ failure to defend the black victim was due to an almost tribal preference to be among people like themselves, implying that this was normal. But he added the opinion that in practice we should ignore physical and cultural differences. “It’s easy to understand racism. It’s almost tribal. You like to be amongst people who are like you. But when you don’t know them, you’re afraid, and that’s all part of ignorance.”

Neither Martin nor his expert advisers asked how many bystanders intervene when white people are treated nastily. No comparison was shown. There is a considerable literature on the broader subject, which finds that bystanders are often unsure of the situation, unsure of the norms applying to that situation, and afraid that the aggressor will turn on them. Intervention is more common when there are only a few bystanders.

Martin next spoke with Jafri, a black immigrant from Uganda, who claimed that his only experience of racism occurred in Australia. He was filmed educating the Melbourne public about the evil of racism, by holding up a placard to that effect. He received many positive responses, but he noted that this was not always the case. Some passers-by made disparaging remarks, some racist.

Jafri complained that he was racially profiled, that it was difficult to rent houses, that police questioned black people for no reason.

Martin asked another expert, Professor Andrew Markus of Monash University, to interpret. Markus agreed that the Melbourne public had not treated the African man well. Professor Dunn commented that there was no evidence that Africans increase crime. But 20 per cent of Australians surveyed thought they did. Martin referred to the 20 per cent figure to claim that such “preconceptions” are a problem.

The assertion that Africans do not show elevated rates of crime allowed Jafri and Martin and Dunn to portray negative attitudes towards Jafri and other African immigrants as unfounded, the product of ignorance and bigotry. And it was an absolute claim—that there is no evidence whatsoever of different ethnic crime rates.

No one referred to widespread news reports of Sudanese youth crime and riots in Melbourne in recent years, the sort of reports that might have influenced public perceptions. A few minutes of online research confirms that perception. Data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that in 2011[4] the rate of serious crime for Australians born in Sudan was at least three times the Australian average.[5] That is probably an underestimate because it omits crime committed by individuals of Sudanese descent born in Australia. Among slow-to-assimilate immigrant and refugee communities crime rates often increase in the second generation.[6]

The denial of an African crime problem has a history. In 2005 Professor Andrew Fraser lost his position at Macquarie University for warning that African immigration would increase crime.[7] One of his inquisitors was Ray Martin, who accused Fraser of racism. Another inquisitor was the Human Rights Commission, which adjudicated a complaint made against the professor based on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Fraser’s attempt to argue his case in a scholarly journal, the Deakin Law Review, was censored by the vice-chancellor of Deakin University, who summarily ordered his article to be removed, despite it having passed peer review.

In 2010 journalist Andrew Bolt reported that Victoria Police was hiding evidence of high African crime rates.[8] Some honest police officers have felt it necessary to warn the public. In 2014 former New South Wales assistant police commissioner Ken McKay warned that African refugees pose a criminal threat.[9]

Overseas evidence provides comparisons. African-Americans show high rates of imprisonment, as is the case with British citizens of African descent. For example, in the 2011 London riots blacks were overrepresented among those charged by a factor of seven. A similar figure emerges from normal street crime statistics.[10]

Whatever the cause of group differences in crime rates, the evidence supports the opinion of the 20 per cent of respondents who associated black Africans with crime. Eighty per cent of Australians were ignorant of a well-established correlation. Ray Martin and his academic advisers were among the ignorant, but unlike the general public had no excuse.

So far the SBS program resembled propaganda. I wondered whether it would improve with the next topic.

Martin returned to his initial question, whether opening our doors to different races and religions has made us more tolerant or more racist? “Is Australia a multicultural success story, or are we racist?” Here he used “multicultural” to mean diversity, not an ideology.

He turned to Professor Markus for an answer. Markus stated that four out of five Australians support multiculturalism. He did not discuss the meaning of that term. Were his respondents supporting the fact of diversity or the ideology of minority interests? He left it at that, giving the impression that multiculturalism is working well.

Markus did not report his own finding that verbal support for multiculturalism is not a reliable sign of multicultural harmony. Based on his work with the Scanlon Surveys of Social Cohesion at Monash University, Markus found that verbal support for multiculturalism can have little connection with personal experience of diversity. Markus found that people could simultaneously offer verbal support for multiculturalism while reporting their personal alienation in neighbourhoods of heavy migrant settlement. “The highest level of support [for multiculturalism] is obtained for general propositions, lower levels of support when the question is specific.”[11]

Then Markus told Martin that there had been a dramatic change in racial views since the 1960s, evident in the acceptance of immigration. He failed to explain that unrestricted immigration was never voted on by the electorate and was instead imposed by the mainstream parties and media. Nor did he admit that his own research shows a hardening of ethnic attitudes among Australians who experience substantial diversity. In a 2012 comparison of neighbourhoods with low and high migrant settlement, Markus concluded, “This finding supports Putnam’s interpretation that ethnic diversity has a significant negative impact on social cohesion.”[12] Robert D. Putnam is the Harvard political scientist who conducted a large-scale study of ethnic diversity in the United States. Numerous studies in different cultures have replicated Putnam’s finding that diversity causes many people to feel less at home, less supported by neighbours, less optimistic, less safe.[13] This is especially true when Muslims figure in the mix.[14] This behaviour is not limited to white people. It is normal evolved human behaviour.[15]

Muslims

Martin next examined discrimination against Muslims. How does a documentary on racism deal with Islam, which is a religion, not a race? People of all races have converted to Islam. Race is a matter of physical difference caused by genes, while religion is a matter of culture and belief.

Professor Dunn helped square the circle by explaining that racism now includes behaviour towards cultures, not only races. Professor Markus agreed. Now racism is defined very broadly. It can mean almost anything, he exclaimed. Another academic, Yin Paradies, also agreed. Paradies is Professor of Race Relations at Deakin University. He explained that now “racism” includes discrimination towards religions. A sense of cultural incompatibility has replaced the sense of racial superiority.[16]

So that did it! The program seamlessly transferred the language of anti-racism to behaviour towards a religion. The three experts agreed to adopt this language. There were no dissenters. No one suggested a more nuanced terminology, using words such as “chauvinism”, “ethnocentrism”, “xenophobia” or “sectarianism”. Instead, these were all rolled into “racism”.

Professor Dunn introduced an additional term, “Islamophobia”, which he stated is a form of racism now common worldwide. He used the label without qualification, implying that all those critical of Islam are experiencing a phobic reaction, an irrational and extreme aversion to a stimulus. And no allowance was made for rational criticisms of Islam.

Dr Charles Miller, a researcher in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University, doubts the validity of the term. “The term ‘Islamophobic’ is frequently used to describe anti-Islam groups, yet this term is disputed and controversial, with some alleging that it is a loaded term used to silence debate about aspects of Islam, even amongst Muslims themselves.”[17] Miller prefers the more descriptive term “anti-Islam”. His content analysis of anti-Islamic groups confirms this choice, because they express concerns about terror and political threats.

None of the four academics on the SBS program acknowledged doubts about “Islamophobia”. Instead, Martin introduced Professor Andrew Jakubowicz, a sociologist at the University of Technology Sydney, who thought it relevant to note that in 1998 only 3 per cent of Australians saw Muslims as a problem, compared to 45 per cent who saw Indochinese as a problem. Dunn and Martin agreed and implied that the present high rate of negative views towards Muslims is irrational.

None of the experts tried to explain popular disquiet with Islam. There was no mention of the rapid rise in Muslim numbers, of Muslim gangs, of the low intermarriage rate, of flight away from Muslim suburbs, of anti-social behaviour of young Muslim men, of the hundreds of Muslims in Australia who have volunteered or tried to volunteer to fight for Islamist forces in the Middle East. And there was no mention of Islamist terrorism or attempted terrorism against Australians.

The group criticised Pauline Hanson for opposing Muslim immigration, but failed to explain the widespread support for her policy. In 2013, even before the first domestic terrorist attacks, a Roy Morgan poll found that 53.4 per cent agreed that the government should enact laws banning Islamic clothing that covers the face, 44 per cent saw a strong relationship between Islam and terrorist acts, 50.2 per cent thought the government should ban sharia law, and 57.3 per cent were concerned about Islam in the world today. Only 16.4 per cent agreed that Australia was a better place due to Islam, while 70.6 per cent disagreed. [18]

Nor did the program attempt to explain the fact that critical attitudes towards Islam often focus exclusively on that religion. “Islamophobia” is often not part of a generalised dislike of immigrants or non-Christians. Professor Markus’s own Scanlon Survey data reveal many respondents with negative attitudes to Islam. The 2014 Scanlon area study asked respondents to express personal attitudes towards two non-Christian religious groups, Muslims and Buddhists. Eleven per cent were strongly negative towards Muslims, but only 2 per cent were strongly negative towards Buddhists. More broadly, 5 per cent or fewer of responses were “very negative” or “negative” towards Buddhists or Christians. But five times that number, 25 per cent, were negative towards Muslims.[19] The asymmetry in attitudes towards Buddhists and Muslims has continued since 2010 when the Scanlon surveys first included these questions. The contrast was striking even among the 37 per cent of respondents who strongly endorsed multiculturalism. Supporters of multiculturalism generally report positive attitudes towards minorities, and only a small minority (2 per cent) were negative towards Buddhists. But nine times that number, 18 per cent, were negative towards Muslims.

Markus did not discuss these findings, though they came from his own survey. Neither did Markus object to Dunn’s use of the term “Islamophobia”. If Markus does accept the term, at which point does he believe that dislike of Islam becomes phobic, like the paralysing fear of snakes? Is moderate dislike of Islam phobic? Or does that term only apply to strongly negative attitudes? And what about negativity to Buddhism? Does Professor Dunn think that Buddhaphobia is a global phenomenon? If not, why? Buddhists have migrated all around the world. And what about Christophobia? Why are these terms not in use? Uncritical adoption of the term “Islamophobia” does not raise confidence in the objectivity of Ray Martin or his experts.

Next, Martin interviewed a Turkish Muslim in Melbourne, Nail Aykan, the general manager of the Islamic Council of Victoria, who stated that the turn against Islam began with 9/11, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

Mr Aykan said his community wants a new purpose-built grand mosque. He wondered why that was controversial, because the original mosque attracted no objections for thirty-five years.

Dunn commented that 25 per cent of his survey respondents opposed mosques being built in their neighbourhood. Martin stated that the opposition to mosques was marked by “hysteria surrounding Muslims” and had a “racial agenda”. “It’s a bit disturbing.” He then referred to increased racial abuse directed at Muslims, citing the statistic that 77 per cent of Muslim women have experienced “racism”.

Remarkably, neither the experts nor Martin noted the obvious difference between a makeshift mosque situated in a nondescript warehouse and a purpose-built grand mosque. Could it be that people knew what the differences would be—minarets, domes and ever more Muslims congregating in their suburb?

Perhaps the change in public attitudes towards Islam reflected experience? Martin himself documented the dramatic rise in Muslim worshippers at the mosque in recent years. A new mosque was needed because demand had grown from a few hundred in the 1980s to several thousand now. Friday evening prayers are crowded, taking up three floors of the building over two separate sessions. The program showed worshippers overflowing onto the footpath.

There was no attempt to understand why so many Australians oppose mosques. Again, there was no discussion of Muslim behaviour, including terrorism.

Then Martin introduced another experiment based around a Muslim woman, Rahila, dressed in a niqab, a headpiece that covers the face but not the eyes. The first person to show attention was a white man who proselytised: “Jesus loves you, because he made you.” Rahila was then criticised by a white man annoyed with her face covering. He told her, “We saved you from persecution. Then you dress like that! Why don’t you become part of our culture?” This incident demonstrated the unpleasant treatment that Muslim women can experience in public, though the criticism was cultural, not racial, and sought inclusion, not exclusion.

Next the actress was seen at a Reclaim Australia rally opposed to Islamic immigration. She was spoken to pleasantly by a white woman supporting the rally, who reassured her that she was safe.

Rahila got into an argument, then someone complained, and the police supervising the rally moved her on. They said she was endangering the peace. During her interaction with the police, another female Reclaim supporter gave loud evidence in her support, telling the police in forceful tones that Rahila had been peaceful. Thus a woman in a niqab received bystander support at an allegedly racist rally.

Martin commented that in opposing “Islamophobia”, there was still a long road ahead. But his own camera had revealed that Rahila was more often shown kindness than aggression, even at a Reclaim rally.

The program’s segment on Muslims stereotyped critics of Islam as racist and “Islamophobic”. There was no attempt to hear opposing sides, no consultation with experts to explain the disapproval of Muslims, no discussion with ordinary citizens critical of Islam. Instead the militant Reclaim rally was featured to represent that point of view.

Aborigines

Alleged racism against indigenous Australians came next. Viewers were informed that indigenous Australians now rank fourth in unpopularity behind Muslims, Middle Easterners and Africans. In the 1980s they were the most vilified group in the country. No explanation was provided. Instead scenes were shown of an Australian “Black Lives Matter” rally, where the speaker made various claims about disadvantage. One was that indigenous Australians suffer racial vilification due to “institutionalised racism”. Another was that they are the most incarcerated people on earth. Again, neither Martin nor his advisers offered an explanation.

One protester carried a placard showing an Aboriginal flag and the words: “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land”, essentially the message delivered by acknowledgment-of-country ceremonies at Australian schools.

Martin stated that his great-great-grandmother was Aboriginal, a Kamilaroi woman, and that his ancestry has helped him feel passionately about Aboriginal disadvantage. This is quite an admission, that ethnic-identity helped motivate concern for indigenous disadvantage. Ray Martin is viewed as part of the ideological Left, but admits that he is partly motivated by ethnic identity, which is typically viewed as a right-wing value.

Professor Dunn reported that Aboriginal Australians experience racism at double the rate of other groups. Fully 65 per cent of Aborigines report being treated disrespectfully because of their race, while 58 per cent report being mistrusted because of their race. No explanation was provided for this invidious treatment, though the program implied that it was gratuitous, based on ignorance and bigotry.

Martin introduced Josh, a young Aboriginal man, who complained about disrespect and suspicion. He reported being followed in supermarkets and shops by security staff.

Instead of providing an explanation, Martin (of all people) was quick to judge the Australian public. He claimed that suspicion of Aboriginal criminality was unfair. He offered no statistics on Aboriginal crime rates, though such evidence would seem necessary to any judgment. In fact, indigenous crime rates, as measured by imprisonment rates, are high. The Australian Bureau of Statistics provides data indicating that in Victoria in 2016 indigenous people were imprisoned at thirteen times the rate of non-indigenous.[20] In Western Australia the ratio is 19.9 times, and for Australia as a whole the ratio is 15.2 times.

Martin’s team conducted an experiment involving Josh. First, a white actor used a hacksaw to cut through the chain securing a parked bicycle in a busy pedestrian area. Some bystanders noticed but no one objected. However, when Josh performed the same actions, police arrived and wrestled him to the ground. The film crew intervened to have him freed.

Martin expressed puzzlement. Why the different responses, when the only difference was race? Dunn was not surprised because his survey found that Aborigines experience more mistrust and disrespect than other citizens.

Because neither Dunn or Martin offered statistics on indigenous crime rates, the impression was given that white attitudes were gratuitous, not based at all on experience. And the context, the examples shown, and the filmed experiments made clear that the culprits were white.

It would have taken but a minute for Martin to put himself in the shoes of shopkeepers and cite some well-known statistics on indigenous crime rates. One of the program’s experts should have been able to explain that indigenous people are overrepresented thirteen-fold in the criminal courts and as a result draw the attention of shop managers. Why assume a racial motive?

Perhaps Australians have reason to fear young Aboriginal men in particular. In Western Australia Aboriginal boys and young men may show higher rates of offending. In that state in 2016, young people suffering from Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder are overrepresented among juvenile offenders. [21] Fully 70 per cent of juveniles suffering from FASD were indigenous, and 90 per cent were boys.

Regarding the police officer’s rough handling of Josh, Martin or one of his experts should have noted Bureau of Statistics data indicating that the most common offences for which indigenous people were imprisoned were acts intended to cause injury (33 per cent), while that type of offence was committed by only 17 per cent of non-indigenous prisoners.[22] Could it be that the officers were protecting themselves based on the reputation of Aboriginal offenders?

How could a responsible program not state facts so relevant to judging motivation? Such omissions were typical of the SBS program.

The next experiment centred on Bec, an Aboriginal woman, who reported that she was unfairly followed and disrespected in stores “all the time”. She claimed to have been subjected to bag searches her whole life. Martin added that research had shown that shopping centres were among the most notorious places for racist conduct, implying white-against-black discrimination.

Bec entered several shops, beginning with an up-market jewellery store. In all she was treated courteously. She was surprised. “This is not normal for me.” Martin and his team repeated the experiment with Bec over several days in different shopping centres. Again, staff were courteous. The program deserves praise for showing this footage. As a result of this positive result, Bec revised her lifelong attitude and declared herself unashamed of her Aboriginality.

Professor Dunn reported surveys indicating that only 9 per cent of Australians are hostile to Aborigines. Martin stated that this is a big improvement since 1967 when 90 per cent of Australians admitted to having prejudiced views towards Aboriginal people. He did not explain how this high rate of prejudice allowed 91 per cent of voters to consent to the 1967 referendum to include indigenous people in the census. If Australians were horribly racist in the 1960s, why did they demand that Aborigines be given equal rights?

Dunn’s comments were contradictory. On the one hand he was not surprised by the police officers’ harsh response to Josh because his research found high levels of mistrust and disrespect towards indigenous people. But neither was he surprised at Bec’s good treatment, claiming that only 9 per cent of Australians express hostility to Aborigines.

Going by the thirteen-fold imprisonment rate, it would have been reasonable for Martin to have explained why well-informed shopkeepers should not feel greater concern about shoppers of Aboriginal appearance, especially in the case of young men.

Changing Australians’ racist behaviour

Next Martin went to the Shannon Company, a specialist communications firm whose services include “Behaviour Change”. Martin wanted to find out how to change racist behaviour.

This looked promising until it became clear that Martin only wanted to change discrimination by Anglos against minorities. Minority behaviour did not interest him. He did not seek to reduce high rates of street crime and drunkenness, carjacking, rioting, home invasions, gang crime, anti-social behaviour, volunteering for overseas terrorist armies, the ethnic stacking of branches of political parties, voting along ethnic or religious lines, or the disparagement of Anzac Day or Australia Day.

The only racial and religious discrimination of interest to Martin and his experts was that shown by the Anglo majority. They did not allow for the fact that inter-group attitudes and behaviours can be based on experience. For them many mainstream Australians, but not minorities, are motivated by blind ignorance and bigotry.

Martin wondered aloud about the factors that might determine Australians’ bad racial attitudes. Ominously, he hinted it had something to do with “manipulation”. Then followed an illuminating lesson on how the media can manipulate beliefs.

Professor Dunn reported his research finding that attitudes can change surprisingly easily. One third of Australians are subject to sudden change in attitudes, “depending on the political discourse and the debates at the time”. No one noted that a willingness to change racial attitude is consistent with openness to evidence and reason.

Martin discussed the framing effect, by which the media and politicians can shape reports of the same events to create positive or negative attitudes. He introduced a marketing expert, Bill Shannon, who explained how framing works. The same event can be framed to yield different attitudes.

Martin asked him if selection of words and pictures influenced public attitudes towards asylum seekers? Shannon replied, no doubt about that. Viewers were then shown excerpts of an experiment at Shannon Company which changed participants’ attitudes towards asylum seekers by altering the framing of news reports. In the study, 78 per cent of participants changed their attitude towards the asylum seekers due to framing. Presumably such manipulation could be facilitated by systematic censorship of facts by individuals presented as experts.

Martin then implied that talkback radio and the commercial media often frame news stories to put immigrants and asylum seekers in a bad light. He did not name SBS or the ABC or the public education establishment but urged viewers to also question his show, and check its assertions. Good advice.

Program ending

Martin and the experts made concluding assessments about the state of racism in Australia. Martin thought not all was gloomy. Three quarters of those answering the survey thought that racism is a problem and that something should be done to fix it.

Professor Dunn concluded that Australia is and isn’t racist. Yes, we have a history of racism and some groups have bad experiences. But lots of Australians recognise that racism is a problem, which means there is also a lot of anti-racism. Professor Markus concluded that Australia has done better than the rest of the world, because integration is successful, and the economy is prosperous. Professor Jakubowicz, who helped research the program, thought that compared to other countries Australia rates fairly well. Nevertheless, he thought Australians should not be happy with that result.

Dunn stated that younger people are better than older, such that 86 per cent of eighteen-to-twenty-five-year-olds support racial diversity, compared to only 77 per cent of those over sixty-five. One reason for this is that schools have become effective in teaching anti-racism. Markus thought we might be seeing generational change. He stated that more people are tolerant, and many young people don’t see skin colour any more. Jakubowicz was careful not to let Australia off the hook, concluding that we are a country with a racist past trying not to have a racist future.

Martin was in a generous mood, concluding that Australia is not a racist country. He noted that Australians despise racism. They want to do something about it. “It is up to us how tolerant we are.”

Conclusion

This review of “Is Australia Racist?” reveals frequent shoddy scholarship and ideological bias. Programs of this low quality have been a hallmark of public broadcasting’s treatment of immigration and ethnic themes for almost half a century, mirrored by politicisation of the social sciences.

This program represents a betrayal of public broadcasting standards. It is acceptable for a program to take the perspective of an ethnic or religious group, so long as this does not degenerate into vilification, as this program did. It is unacceptable to break with basic standards of truth-telling at any point in any program. There should be balance across programs or channels, but balance has been missing from public broadcasting for decades, in violation of the ABC and SBS charters.

The appalling standard of the program must be sheeted home in large part to the four academics who collaborated in its making. They are part of the systemic politicisation of academia that originated in the 1960s.

Evidence of the intellectual corruption of the humanities and social science is widespread. Commenting on the leftist, pro-Obama, anti-Trump lean of the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University, Gerard Henderson attributed it to the fact that “the social science areas of most Australian—and most American—tertiary institutions are similar to the ABC. Namely, they are conservative-free zones where academics tend to agree with one another in a leftist kind of way. Any conservatives are reluctant to state their views in the public debate.” Leftist dominance has been too powerful for Liberal governments to oppose.[23]

The SBS program did not lean only to the Left. There is reason to doubt that multiculturalism is really a leftist phenomenon. The SBS program’s attack on Anglo-Australians reveals that, despite its rhetoric, it can be seen as coming not from the Left but from individuals motivated by ethnic loyalty. Multiculturalists mobilise ethnic constituents, their tribes, by alleging threats from another tribe, Anglo Australia. Such appeals to tribal loyalty are not modern or progressive.

An audit of free speech in Australian universities conducted by Matthew Lesh of the Institute of Public Affairs in 2016 found censorship being practised in 98 per cent of institutions.[24] Censorship was substantial in 80 per cent, moderate in 18 per cent, and absent from only one university, the University of New England.

While the multicultural Left holds on to its taxpayer-funded citadels in public broadcasting and education, citizens and students will continue to be indoctrinated with hateful lies about their nation and its history.