The Racial Hatred Act: Case study 5

Introduction:

• interpretation of complex research findings, surveys, and polls
  in news stories

Reports:

• 'Federal laws blamed for Sydney's
  welfare ghettos', Paul Sheehan, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1
  July 96
• 'Ethnic ghettos claim 'irresponsible',
  Illawarra Mercury, 2 July 96
• 'Urban Ghettos', Melbourne Yarra
  Leader, 8 July 96

Comment:

• The following journalists/editors comment on their coverage of Ernest
  Healy's report.
• The Sydney Morning Herald's
  Paul Sheehan
• AAP's Margaret McDonald
• The Illawarra Mercury's Peter
  Cullen
• The Melbourne Yarra Leader's Bob
  Osburn
• Ernest Healy, researcher
  and author of 'Welfare benefits and residential concentrations amongst
  recently arrived migrant communities' on how his report was misinterpreted
  by the media.
• The Federation of Ethnic Communities
  Councils of Australia comments on the harm done to communities
  through the use of loaded language and offensive terminology in the media.

Please note that none of the reports in the case studies have been the
subject of complaints or queries under the Racial Hatred Act.

'Urban ghettos'

Jodie Haythorne, 8 July 1996

"Normally a concentration of poverty is associated with crime"
- Ernest Healy

"The majority lead productive lives. The have got jobs" -
Denis Evans

Poverty-stricken migrants were turning inner-city suburbs into urban
ghettos, a Monash University researcher said last week.

Ernest Healy said increasing numbers of ethnic people were settling
in enclaves - namely the Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond public housing
estates - and surviving on welfare benefits.

He said the culture was synonymous with racial tensions and crime -
a recipe for violent slums. he allegation last week sparked an angry reaction
from public housing workers and police. Dight Abbotsford Collingwood Clifton
Hill Tenants' Association worker Denis Evans said it was already difficult
for people to overcome the stigma of living in public housing. Being accused
of turning the area into a ghetto made things worse.

"There are many different ethnic groups who come here, but that
is not their fault" he said.

"They have no choice. The majority lead productive lives. They
have got jobs.

"A lot of them use this as a first stage of getting into the community.
In the meantime, it is decent and affordable housing."

Mr Evans said there were benefits to living in public housing, including
security, free maintenance and the best views of Melbourne.

Mr Healy said his research, which he insisted was not racially motivated,
proved ghettos stemmed from thousands of migrants forming enclaves and
living in poverty on welfare benefits.

"Normally, a concentration of poverty is associated with crime,"
he said. "When it is combined with ethnic and cultural isolation,
it makes these problems normally associated with concentrated poverty particularly
difficult to deal with."

Mr Healy's comments followed the discovery of a body in the Napier St
public housing estate, Fitzroy , on Monday. The pensioner, who had lived
there for eight years, died of multiple stab wounds.

Sen Sgt Geoff Adams, of Fitzroy police, said the murder was not a true
indication of public-housing lifestyle. He said crime rates seemed higher
in commission areas due to the dense concentration of people living there.

"If you spread those crime figures across the same population in
somewhere like Templestowe, you would have similar crime rates," he
said.

"Wherever you put cheap housing, it is going to attract that (criminal)
element, but if anything if has changed for the better."

Sgt Eda Whiting, of Collingwood police, said it was outrageous to blame
innocent public housing residents for creating a ghetto. She said it was
naive to think people could live in a public housing block without the
occasional problem.

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