Yids Bitching About Bob Carr's Speech on Australian Citizenship & Foreign Policy

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

Bob carr's new tune undermines Australian citizenship and foreign policy

Kim Rubenstein | Canberra Times - Hebe Commentary | 23 July 2015

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/bob-carrs-new-tune-undermines-australian-citizenship-and-foreign-policy-20150723-giing6.html

With federal Labor set to consider a resolution on Israel and the Palestinians at its national conference, former foreign minister Bob Carr's speech at Australian National University last week, co-hosted by the Centre for Arabic and Islamic Studies, was indeed "timely" as it was billed. Or rather it would have been were it not for the breathtakingly distorted presentation Carr gave.

We heard anecdote after anecdote, all demonising Israel and Israelis, as if Israelis are entirely lacking in virtue and the Palestinians entirely lacking in vices. It was far from the high-quality analysis one would expect to encounter at a prestigious university.

More offensive, for me particularly, was the way his talk undermined my understanding of Australian citizenship. As the author of Australian Citizenship Law in Context, and someone who works largely in the area of citizenship in law and in practice, I am acutely aware that there are only a few core principles of Australian citizenship that have been affirmed as constitutionally protected.

Australian citizenship is not even mentioned in our constitution but in looking at questions around our system of representative democracy the High Court of Australia has identified as core to that system, the freedom of political communication associated with it. This is a freedom which citizens exercise not only through the ballot box, but also by expressing their views in the media, and by meeting and lobbying their political representatives, and conveying their opinions on a range of matters, including foreign policy, in the hope that they will be listened to, and that the power of their arguments will convince those listening. We claim this freedom for ourselves and equally for other Australian citizens – hoping that they too rely on the strength of their arguments.

Carr spent a significant proportion of his presentation demeaning and scoffing at members of the Jewish community who are active Australian citizens. His tone, focus and implication was that the activity of those people meeting and lobbying the government of the day was "disproportionate" and improper.