AUSSIES living overseas are often assumed to be aligned with their government's decisions back home. Our columnist knows the deal, he's defended national values till he's green and gold in the face.

At a time when the Aussie dollar has never gone so far abroad, neither has an Aussie foreign minister.

Kevin Rudd spent $1 million on overseas travel in his first nine months in the job. Ruddy heck! I’ve heard of going on a long trip after being dumped but this takes the biscuit – and it seems that biscuit was a Custard Cream rather than a Milk Arrowroot.

Since the jury is out as to whether the countries Rudd visited are of strategic interest to Australia or not, and while I’m still deciding if I’ll see a perceptible difference to my nation’s security or prosperity as a result of these jaunts, as a taxpayer who chipped in for his $2696 single-night-stay in a Berlin suite, I reckon I should at least get a bathrobe.

Or a miniature bottle of Baileys. I’m not fussy.

Though I was travelling on a slightly tighter budget, during my 10 years overseas I reckon I, too, should have been on the ambassadorial payroll.

Whether in Europe, the UK or the US of A, I defended Australia from scorn and stereotype until I was green and gold in the face.

What a diplomatic decade it has been.

Just as Americans became unpopular abroad during the eight-year Bush balls-up, vagabond Aussies are automatically assumed to be aligned with their government’s decisions back home.

As a result, I often found myself defending my national image from politicians I didn’t esteem just because they happened to be in power at the time I was travelling.

National values go beyond the politics of the day.

One Mediterranean morning back in 2001, I was racing to an Italian post office before it closed for the day when a resident of the village signalled for me to stop.

From the window of his Fiat 500, a patriotic choice of car, Antonio launched a diatribe regarding how Australians were razzisti – racist.

He’d seen a news report about the Howard government’s refusal to allow the MV Tampa, the infamous freighter carrying 400 rescued asylum seekers, into Australian waters. It was a regrettable incident but one for which I wasn't personally responsible and with which I didn’t agree.

That didn’t seem to matter to Antonio, however, who was waving his arms so frantically he risked putting the nearby wind farm out
of business.

To him I was Australian.

To him, by association, I was in favour of the offshore processing of hapless hopefuls in search of a
better life.

To him I was racist.

When I managed to get a word in – easier said than done – I told Antonio that, although I didn’t know all the details, compared with Italy Australia welcomes vastly greater numbers of foreign nationals to its shores, including hundreds of thousands of Italians, but that we do it in a controlled manner and that I certainly didn’t consider myself racist; unless you count the time I complained that Australia only lost the 2005 Ashes series
because of England’s quota of bastard South Africans!

After decades of net emigration, the concept of immigration is in its infancy in Italy and there have been teething problems to say the least, including violent clashes with African labourers and, more sensationally, a senator calling for a ‘‘Pig-Day-Protest’’ on the site of a proposed mosque.

When I rented a Milan apartment, many of the property files
I saw on estate agents’ desks were marked NIENTE STRANIERI – NO
FOREIGNERS.

And when I sat with Juventus supporters for a Champions League match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s Ivory Coast striker scored in the 12th minute and most of the travelling Juve faithful spent the remaining 78 minutes chanting ‘‘the black man’s goal doesn’t count!’’.

So to be branded racist by Antonio was, to my mind, a bit rich.

Ten years later, 10 years older and 10 years (supposedly) wiser,
I am wondering how I would react to Antonio if he waylaid me today and, amid all the arm swinging, mentioned the words ‘‘Malaysia swap deal’’.

Would I be as quick to defend my country this time round?

Do I still believe national values go beyond the politics of the day?

Are we racist if we put up with the current protracted political process?

Antonio would think so.

I don’t envy Australians overseas at the moment. Wherever they are, be it in a budget backpackers or a five-star Berlin suite, I am sure – by association – they are suffering the ill-effects of the ongoing debate regarding where we process asylum seekers.

But such inconvenience pales in comparison to that of the desperate souls boarding rudimentary vessels in search of a better life, or just the chance of a better life.

Their situations are so dire they will take a punt on these boats regardless of where we direct them.

To them the horizon offers hope.

Australia has the space, the facilities, the money, the heart and, above all, the humanity to process asylum seekers on home soil.

They don’t want Custard Creams. They don’t even want Milk Arrowroots. They just want to escape their crummy governments.

And they’ve heard ours is better.

Comment on The Write Stuff by emailing harrisonc@tcp.newsltd.com.au

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