John Hewson: We must continue to call out racism everywhere

John Hewson: We must continue to call out racism everywhere

It has become a most disturbing and unfortunate feature of recent politics, particularly here and in the US and Europe, that many politicians – seeking short-term personal, political advantage – have played the race card. Sometimes it is little better than blatant racism, on other occasions they hide it behind a confected concern for some broader issue, such as immigration, or the activities of “Sudanese Gangs” or the “excesses” of multiculturalism.

In particular, there has been a strong anti-immigration movement evident in most European elections in recent years, gaining significant momentum with the “flood” of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and North Africa.

The Brexit vote in the UK was driven by concerns about the lack of an effective immigration policy, and the exaggerated threat of some 5 million refugees to hit their shores in the next few years.

Trump has made a feast of anti-immigration sentiment, everything from his planned wall to keep out new Mexican illegals, to wanting to “expel” those who had arrived over several decades to establish a home in the US, raise and educate their kids, to his travel bans on arrivals from certain Muslim majority countries, through to outright commitments to ban all Muslim immigration.