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.

The Illawarra
Mercury ran its 'ghetto' report straight off the wire without any alterations.
The report was authored by the AAP news agency and gave the story a different
slant, interviewing the editor of Sydney's Vietnamese newspaper.

Whilst it is difficult to track the research details
of an AAP wire report some time after release, AAP Bureau Chief Margaret
McDonald says it is likely that their report was reacting to the Herald's
front page story and possibly picked up the terms used by the Herald journalist.

 

Ethnic ghettos claim 'irresponsible'

2 July 1996

Claims that "ethnic ghettos" similar to those in American
cities were springing up in Sydney and Melbourne were inaccurate and irresponsible,
the Vietnamese Herald newspaper editor said yesterday.

Editor Son Duong admitted there was a high level of welfare dependency
among Vietnamese immigrants but disputed a report claiming ethnic ghettos
were forming, characterised by high social security fraud and a labour
market based on exploitation of poorly-organised "outworkers"
- or contracted labour.

The report, written be Ernest Healy and published by Monash University's
Forum for Population Studies, calls for an overhaul of Australia's immigration
and settlement policies.

It found almost 40 per cent of Vietnamese immigrants in NSW settled
in Fairfield local government area, with 47.1 per cent of Vietnamese in
the suburb dependent on benefits.

The normal migration pattern, where immigrants arrived, settled in a
suburb then gradually dispersed into the general community was not being
followed in Fairfield or other Sydney areas like Bankstown, Liverpool and
Auburn or Melbourne suburbs like Sunshine, Footscray and Springvale, the
report argued.

The Vietnamese, Lebanese and Turkish communities were found to have
high welfare dependency rates.

It said the situation warranted comparison with the inner city black
ghettos of the US, which were "typically associated with a range of
social ills: family instability, welfare dependency, crime, housing abandonment
and low educational achievement".

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