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IF ANYTHING IT WAS ANTI-RACIST: The Former PM who dehumanised refugees with made-up stories that they were throwing their children overboard to increase their chances of asylum in Australia, has insisted there is no “underlying racism in this country” during an interview on the ABC’s Australia Talks program last night.
John Howard made the comments while in conversation with hosts Annabel Crabb and Nazeem Hussain, after being presented the results of a survey of 60,000 Australians – of which 76% insisted there is a lot of racism on Australia.
When asked if he agreed with that sentiment Mr Howard replied, “Well, that has not been my experience” – in reference to his own upbringing as a white middle class methodist who grew up in the predominantly white post-war suburbs of Sydney.
“I have to respectfully say to that 76 per cent, I don’t think there is underlying racism in Australia”
Hussain asked, “You don’t think there is underlying racism?”
“No I don’t” Mr Howard insisted, as the PM who militantly refused to apologise to Aboriginal people for the government’s century-long policies that saw Indigenous children kidnapped from their mothers and raised in brutal church institutions.
According to these same surveys, the 81-year-old, who led the country from 1996 to 2007, was named the most popular PM by survey respondents. This perhaps due to a concerted effort by NewsLimited and the Liberals to convince the nation that he would protect them from the refugees and immigrants – who are all terrorists that want to rape them and steal their jobs.
When questioned about perhaps the darkest moment for racial tensions in his political career, Howard insisted that there was no racism at play on that awful weekend when 2GB announcer Alan Jones encouraged every drunken racist in Sydney to catch the train to Cronulla and protect ‘the beach’ from arabs, which basically resulted in anyone with skin that was darker than Bob Katter’s getting brutally bashed.
“After the Cronulla riots, you refused to call it out as racist” Hussain said.
“On reflection, would you characterise the Cronulla riots as racist?”
“No, I don’t alter my view,” Mr Howard said.
