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Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs

Al Grassby.

Al Grassby giving a brief dicussion on the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs.

Created:

1994

Date Added:

26 June 2002

Source:

Making Multicultural Affairs

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

--

Length:

13 secs

Transcript

AL GRASSBY
Minister for Immigration 1972-74, and Commissioner for Community Relations, 1975-82

I was always a bit jealous of Malcolm Fraser setting up that Institute because I'd have liked to have done it myself. But once he set it up and once Petro (Georgiou) took over, it didn't do anything. It became an apology - a living continuing apology for government policy.

CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW AS TEXT

When the government changed, the Cabinet of Malcolm Fraser was not particularly interested (in multiculturalism). The only man who had any idea of what it was all about was Malcolm Fraser, mainly because Petro Georgiou was advising him. And Malcolm very quickly grasped that we were talking about millions of people in Australia.

(Georgiou) was Director of the Institute of Multicultural Affairs. He was a very astute and very capable man, very dedicated of course, with his Liberal Party and power and so forth. He also made errors. You know, "I'm going to do so and so and get some of my friends to support it." It seemed to be like that. I'm not categorising everything he did in those terms but that was how the community saw it.

Interview for Making Multicultural Australia, 1994.