India plan

important that Australian leaders spend more time in India, or on India in the future, than we have in the past.

PL: Former Prime Minister John Howard made his first overseas visit to Indonesia, reflecting his particular change in foreign policy. If elected, would India be high on your list of countries to visit?

TA: It would be. I expect Indonesia to be my first significant overseas visit… I’m certainly not getting ahead of myself there, Pawan, but I would be surprised and disappointed if within a matter of months there hadn’t been a trip to India.

PL: On another issue, the changes to the 457 visa program have not only made a deep impact on a number Indian professionals here, they have not played out well in India either. Unfortunately it has added to the perception that Australia is ‘racist,’ triggered by the student attacks in the past. What would you do to counter this perception?

TA: I acknowledge that the violence against Indian students, particularly in Victoria a few years ago, was a real blot on our national copy book and the then Victorian government was far too slow to respond to what was, at the time, racially motivated violence. At the time I deplored these attacks, I think it’s profoundly out of character for Australians to do that. I think Indians in Australia appreciate that Australians are very welcoming people, that we are a very welcoming, free and fair country. Yes, but it happened, it shouldn’t have happened, governments at all levels were slow to respond but eventually we did get on top of it and now it’s not happening. Equally, I deplore the fact that the current national government (at the time of interview: Labor Party) has demonised people coming to Australia on 457 visas. I’ve been saying repeatedly since this campaign began, the people who come to Australia to work and pay taxes from day one, are not stealing Aussie jobs, they are building our country. We should be very welcoming to people who are prepared to come here for a short time, or for a long time, to work and pay taxes and join the Australian team, which is what people on 457 visas abundantly do.

PL: So will you look at making some changes?

TA: Oh absolutely! We want 457 visas not just to be a component of our immigration program, we want them to be very possibly, the mainstay of our immigration program. Because the tradition in this country is that we extend the hand of welcome to everyone who wants to come here and join the team, and come to work and pay taxes from day one.

PL: Your education policy promised to improve the take-up of Hindi in Australian schools. While this is a terrific start, are there any plans to extend this to higher education at University levels?

TA: Thank you. I think we had better take one step at a time, Pawan. Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and it’s appropriate that our study of Hindi be expanded, rather than contracted. This is one of the problems of modern Australia; because so many people speak English we become a bit linguistically lazy and we shouldn’t expect that the world will speak to us in our language. We should be ready to speak to the world in its language. That’s why the study of Hindi, the study of Japanese, Bahasa or Korean, is important. Back in the 1960s about 40% of Australia’s school leavers had studied a foreign language. Now it’s less than 10% and this is an indictment of our system, and it has got to be fixed.

PL: We know you travelled to India as a youth and worked at a Jesuit mission in Bihar, but what are your recent links?

TA: I regret to say I haven’t been to India since this time.

PL: But you’re promising to visit post September 7?

TA: Absolutely! I had hopes to go this year as Opposition Leader, but unfortunately the pressure of the elections intervened. There was a clash between the proposed dates for a visit by me and a visit by an Australian government minister, so in the end the ministerial visit went ahead, not the leader of the opposition’s visit. But this is a mission on which I want to break the ice very, very soon. I spent some fascinating months in India back in 1981, on my way from Australia to England to take up a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford. I spent three fascinating months in India, mostly in the Bihar province, in the company of the Jesuits. I have been fascinated by India ever since. I thought back then, that India was a country with enormous potential. It was in those days a bit of a sleeping giant, but the giant has well and truly awoken and it’s important that Australia makes the most of that potential. And it’s important that Australia acknowledges India’s prospects of future success.

Editorial notE: This interviw is an excerpt from the original interview, which was conducted prior to the election.

I spent three fascinating months in India, mostly in the Bihar province, in the company of the Jesuits. I have been fascinated by India ever since