Migrant workers face racism in Australia's aged care homes | ABC News

The Christmass Island detention centres and Manus Island detention centres for boat people was in place to deter boat people from attempting to travel to Australia since the mid 1990s. Unlike the post Vietnam War in the 1970s when the Vietnamese boat people arrived onto Australian shores in the thousands, the post Afghanistan, Iraq, and other civil wars, from Sri Lanka, to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and elsewhere, would tempt the displaced peoples from these regions to attempt the long trecherous journey to Australia only to end up in prison for years to follow. Human Rights Groups world over condemned Australia for their offshore detention centres under the Human Rights violation under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Charter and other relevant international humanitarian laws.

Racism in Australia has always existed. As many Ausrralians who had lived through the period of WHITE PRIVILEGE, during the post Wolrd War Two Populate or Perish policy for White British Migrants to Australia as Ten Pound Poms, and their children, as Baby Boomers, disparagingly referred to as Boomers, have now entered the nursing homes, the same migrant labout that were processed in detention centres, and were subjected to STRICT Australian immigration processes, have passed their institutionalised scrutiny, and have become Australian permanent residents, or temporary worker visa holders, and many have become workers within the sectors that many White Australians refuse to work in. These migrant workers have become seasonal orchard fruit pickers, street cleaners, industrial workplace cleaners, and nursing homes workers.

Back in 1981, when I had migrated to Australia from New Zealand, many Samoans from my Church congregation were part of these workers in these unwanted workforce in menial semi skilled work and would become nursing home nurse aid workers. These Samoans were subjected to the racial slurs and abuse of very xenophobic White Australian elderly people from these nursing homes, the racism at the workplace was palpable as the Baby Boomers have aged and their parents, who were even worse still, with their racism and bigotry, have passed away during the 1980s amd 1990s. The Baby Boomers in the 2020s are now in nursing homes and their white Australia attitudes are still very alive and well as their lived experience.

It appears to be a nightmare for these White Australian old people in nursing homes to realise that their xenophobia has come back at them when migrant workers from non Anglo Celtic backgrounds have become their nurse aids changing their bedsheets, changing their bed pans, helping them to shower and to change their clothings as they live out the twilight of their lives.

The Roger Dean nursing home murders exemplifies the culmination racial tensions in many nursing homes throughout Australia when Roger Dean was found guilty of mass murder with starting a nursing home fire killing many residents. Roger Dean

Institutionalised Racism comes to the fore as is revealed in this Australian ABC report.

As a Samoan having lived in Australia for over 42 years, I have always known this part of White Australian society having lived through it, even with the parents of the Baby Boomers, whose attitudes towards people of colour and especially against the Aboriginal people of Australia, was very unashamedly Racist.

I lived through this Australian society as a teenager Samoan migrant during the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games and suddenly the steet level racism had changed overnight!

Tim Brian Tufuga Tim Tufuga Tim Brian Tufuga

Tim Tufuga Brisbane Australia 22nd March, 2023.