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Italian consular closures politically motivated, says MP
Natasha Bita July 20, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Natasha Bita July 20, 2009
Article from: The Australian
KEVIN Rudd has weighed into a diplomatic spat over the closure of Italian consulates in Australia, asking Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for a reprieve.
An Italian senator, Nino Randazzo, has accused Mr Berlusconi of a "vendetta" against Italo-Australians who voted against his conservative government in the past two elections.
Senator Randazzo said Mr Berlusconi -- Italy's wealthiest tycoon, whose wife is divorcing him after a sex scandal -- was punishing Italian migrants in Australia by closing the busy consulates in Brisbane and Adelaide.
"There is that element of a vendetta against the Italians abroad," he said from Rome.
"It's a political decision -- part of a wider design to cut services to Italians abroad, which were cut by 60 per cent in the last budget."
A spokesman for Mr Rudd said the Prime Minister had raised the cost-cutting closures at a meeting with Mr Berlusconi after the G8 summit in the earthquake-hit town of L'Aquila on July 10, when the Australian government offered to donate up to $1.5 million to Italy's earthquake appeal.
Mr Rudd "passed on the concerns of the local community", his spokesman said, and Mr Berlusconi had agreed to "examine the issue".
South Australian Premier Mike Rann plans to write to Mr Berlusconi criticising the closure of the Adelaide consulate as a "body blow" to his state's biggest ethnic group.
And 40 Australian politicians of Italian heritage -- among them Anthony Albanese, the federal Minister for Infrastructure, former NSW planning minister Frank Sartor, and NSW Finance Minister Joe Tripodi -- are also lobbying the Italian leader.
"This decision will not only damage Italy's reputation in Australia but across the world at a time when Italy is trying ... (to have) an important and significant role in international affairs," the convenor of the Australia-Italia MP Forum, South Australian MP Tony Piccolo, wroteto Mr Berlusconi. "Italy is one of the great nations alongside Australia. Ironically, as Italy seeks to play an important role internationally, it is reducing its role in those communities like Australia where it has most support."
Italy plans to close 21 of its 119 consulates worldwide, including Adelaide and Brisbane by 2011, in a cost-cutting exercise.
But South America, where Italian expats supported right-wing candidates for the Italian parliament, were spared the cuts, Senator Randazzo noted. Italian government funding for language teaching in South Australian and Queensland schools could be jeopardised by the closures.
The Italian consul in Brisbane, Francesco Capecchi, said he hoped the $1 million a year in funding to 27,000 students in 110 Queensland schools would continue, but there was no guarantee.
Italians are the biggest non-English-speaking ethnic group in Australia, and the third biggest behind the English and Irish, with the last census showing 852,000 Australians, or 4 per cent of the population, claim Italian descent.
About 50,000 dual citizens voted in the recent Italian elections. Italy has an electoral system under which 4 million expatriate voters elect their own 18 senators and MPs to represent them in the Italian parliament.
Marco Fedi, an Adelaide-based union official, has twice been elected to Italy's House of Deputies as a left-wing MP.
He told The Australian from Rome that state-based consulates were vital to help companies do business in Italy and organise funding for Italian language and cultural grants. He said Italy could save money by moving its Australian consulates from their expensive inner-CBD locations to buildings in cheaper areas.
Senator Randazzo, 78, a Sicilian migrant who edited La Fiamma and Il Globo Italian-language newspapers in Australia - has twice been elected for the left-wing Union coalition.
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