Month / April 2017

by crmayes

Small ‘l’ liberals, White Australia & Citizenship

Last Thursday Leigh Sales “grilled” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over proposed changes to Australia’s citizenship laws. Changes include a more stringent English language test, proof of integration into Australian society, and a four-year waiting period for permanent residents to apply for citizenship.

Sales considered these proposed changes to be an aberration of Australian liberalism and out of step with Turnbull’s own political philosophy.

Towards the end of the interview she asked:

LEIGH SALES: Before you became Prime Minister, your image was that your values put you in the small ‘l’ liberal tradition of Alfred Deakin and Malcolm Fraser.

Can you today name one policy position that you hold that aligns with that tradition rather than with the conservative wing of your party?

Ironically, the policy that Turnbull could name is the very policy under discussion. The tightening of citizenship laws, especially using racialised notions of cultural values, English-proficiency, and religious belief is deeply entwined with the legacy of Deakin.

Historian Joanna Cruickshank, quoted Alfred Deakin in an article on the enduring power of white supremacy in Australia. Speaking in 1903, Deakin said:

“A white Australia is not a surface, but it is a reasoned policy which goes down to the roots of national life, and by which the whole of our social, industrial, and political organisations is governed.”

Another Australian historian, Stuart Macintyre, quotes Deakin during a debate on the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) saying:

The unity of Australia is nothing, if that does not imply a united race. A united race means not only that its members can intermix, intermarry and associate without degradation on either side, but implies one inspired by the same ideas, an aspiration towards the same ideals, of a people possessing the same general cast of character, tone of thought…

Turnbull is careful to avoid explicit appeals to race in the ethno-biological sense. However, his emphasis on the “unique” Australian values – “freedom, equality of men and women, mutual respect, the rule of law, democracy, a fair go” – serve as markers, shibboleths and “tone of thought” for indicating who is “in” and who is “out”.

The subtly of these dynamics was demonstrated when asked about who can integrate into Australian society. Turnbull gives a quick – “of course they are” – in response to Sales’ question “Are Jews who celebrate Hanukkah integrated into Australian cultures and values?” In contrast, he gives a bumbling non-response to the question about whether a woman who wears a headscarf is also integrated.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, people are free to wear whatever item of clothing they like. I mean, bear in mind, I say again and again, whenever I talk about Australian citizenship and Australian values, I say that the foundation of our success, our extraordinary success, is mutual respect.

And that means… It’s a two-way thing. You respect others in their diversity and they respect you. It’s also about respecting the equal rights of men and women. And that is vitally important.

This and other tortured debates about the right and wrong way of applying Australia values of a “fair go” and “mutual respect” reveals the implicit way some forms of life are accepted and others are rejected.

Turnbull’s proposed changes to the citizenship laws do not stray far from those who went before him. From Deakin to Abbott, Australian liberalism (spelled with a small or large ‘l’) has tied itself in knots to restrict the entry and freedom of racialised others. Despite his progressive shtick and love of public transport, Turnbull is no different.

by crmayes

Pete Evans may sneer at medical science, but sneering back is a bad idea.

Writing in The Saturday Paper, Martin McKenzie-Murray describes celebrity chef Pete Evans as “sneering” at the importance of medical qualifications and that the “medical industry is corrupt”. Evans continues,

What do you need a qualification for to talk common sense? Why do you have to study something that is outdated, that is industry-backed, that is biased, that is not getting the results? That would be insane to study something that you’re gonna waste your time with? That’s just crazy.

McKenzie-Murray is quick to dismiss Evans and describes his interview as “a pathetic performance”. There is much to criticise Evans for. But these are good questions.

What gives someone authority to tell others what to do in relation to their body and health? How is medical and nutrition science produced? What are we to make of the way this knowledge and advice seems to shift over time? Do scandals of corruption and bias in one area of scientific research taint other areas?

These are the kinds of questions philosophy of science and science and technology studies deals with. In fact, Ray Moynihan, research fellow at Bond University, has addressed similar questions in his occasional health column for The Saturday Paper.

As I was writing this I received an email for a conference at Georgetown University that is exploring the question “Does Industry Influence Medical Discourse?” Presenters are asking some of the very questions Evans is asking about the basis of authority, knowledge production, and different conceptions of evidence.

One presenter, philosopher and bioethicist Carl Elliott has spent much of his career critiquing the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medical practice and research. To be sure, Elliott and other scholars are not drawing the same conclusions as Evans, but nor do they conclude that “everything is ok” in the world of modern medicine.

One only needs to glance at the newspapers (or Retraction Watch) to realise that medicine and scientific research is not a straight-forward or innocent enterprise. Recent examples include a “fake doctor” practicing in NSW with fraudulent qualifications, sugar industry influence on dietary recommendations, or Dr Anna O. Szust – the scientist who doesn’t exist but was able to get appointed as an editor to over 50 academic journals.

These examples of fraud and misconduct are extreme. The point is not that these examples discredit medicine or science, but that they raise questions about the social and commercial contexts in which science is produced and medicine is practiced.

Yet, even when there is no misconduct, there are questions about the results of science when it is “done right”. As I’ve addressed elsewhere, STS and philosophy of science shows that the “inside” of science is a messy, value-laden, emergent, trialled-and-eroded, accidentally-collective network enterprise that bears little resemblance to the smooth, authoritative discursive claims on the “outside.” This is not to say that science is a hoax and one opinion is as good as another. But there are questions about science worth asking.

Evans draws the wrong conclusion that medical and scientific knowledge is fake and can’t be trusted. But he is asking the right questions about how it is produced, who counts as an authority and what does it mean to be qualified. There aren’t always straight-forward answers to these questions. To double-down by saying “trust the experts, you’re a fool like Trump” only serves to entrench polarised and isolated camps.

As Rachel Ankeny said in an interview about Evans and the critical response from the Australian Medical Association and others

“They need to engage with the community — not just those who are pro-science — but the whole community,”

“It’s not about saying you’re a ‘whack job’ and shouldn’t be listened to,”

Instead of sneering back at people who question science – vaccinations, climate change or nutrition – it would be more productive to acknowledge the significance of their questions and provide ways of thinking that avoid the Scylla of scientism and Charybdis of pseudo or anti-science.