‘There’s no reason Afghans shouldn’t be able to integrate as well’

Ian Macphee served as Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs under Malcolm Fraser between 1979 and 1983. By 1982, Australia had taken 55,000 Vietnamese refugees. He looks back at the process and contrasts it with the approach of the Morrison government. As told to Crikey‘s Charlie Lewis:

I was aware of the Vietnamese crisis from the beginning. I was studying South-East Asia at University and I actually visited Saigon just after the Tet Offensive — people thought that was very foolish, but it gave me a good sense of how things were on the ground. 

The United States should never have gone into that war, and we should never have followed them. It came from the stupid idea that communism is a monolith — it’s not. Like Christianity and Islam, it’s influenced by local cultures. The Vietnamese brand of communism was not the same as Chinese communism, and Ho Chi Minh was quite a fine man.

And the Vietnam veterans I spent so much time with over the years, they were suffering because they had often had to kill and inflict pain on people who had nothing to do with extreme communism. I think there will be a similar situation in Afghanistan, with returned soldiers suffering because of what they’ve done.

Malcolm Fraser and I were discussing the situation regarding Vietnamese refugees back when we were in opposition, before he was even party leader. We had many things in common, and one of the strongest was an abhorrence of racism. We opposed the White Australia Policy. So we agreed, privately, that Australia should take Vietnamese refugees.

He had wanted me for the immigration portfolio when we assumed government, but due to various internal party issues I took on the new productivity portfolio. Then in 1979 I assumed the role. My predecessor Michael Mackellar had already started the process of taking in Vietnamese refugees, but it accelerated a great deal under my watch. 

We set up resettlement camps in every state in Australia. We provided them with training and education, in English and practical skills — if they needed it; many of them already had skills — so they were able to get jobs, pay rent and move out of the camps, and be replaced with more refugees.

We would travel through cities and rural areas having town halls with locals about the bipartisan policy — it was bipartisan, which is an important point. And the Vietnamese integrated better than any other group after World War II — better than the Greeks, better than the Italians.

I think this is important to remember about the Australian people — there will always be a racist element, but Australians are, deep down, decent and accepting people when they have the facts.

The second generation of Vietnamese immigrants to Australia, 75% of them married non-Vietnamese — the integration was astonishing. There’s no reason Afghans shouldn’t be able to integrate as well. Indeed last night’s Foreign Correspondent illustrated it wonderfully — there are more Afghans here than we realise, and there’s no indication that they just live in separate groups and don’t integrate. It shows what a wonderful contribution they can make over here. 

It could be now what it was back then — we could work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and neighbouring countries and set up pathways to integration. We should never have gone to Afghanistan. But having gone, we owe a duty to our allies. We have a moral obligation to the people who helped us — not only the people who worked in the embassy and worked as translators but the people who were determined to reform life in Afghanistan, particularly for women.

I feel very strongly about that and I think most Australians — not all, but most — will feel the same way, if they get the facts.