Debunking Myth of 'White Australia'

Address to the Sydney Institute, August 10, 2005, in debate with Gwenda Tavan of La Trobe University:
The consensus among academic historians today is that the White Australia Policy made this country the moral equivalent of South Africa under apartheid. Some historians label Australia at Federation one of the ‘herrenvolk democracies'. Herrenvolk is German for ‘master race' and historians who use the term, like Andrew Markus of Monash University, are making a direct compari­son with the racist nationalism of the Nazis. According to Richard White of the University of Sydney, the Australian national character projected by both the outback pastoral worker and the sun-bronzed surf lifesaver ‘was uncomfortably close to Nazi ideas about the Aryan master race'.