Australian politicians have regularly embraced racism when it has suited their cause.
In 1901 we established the so-called White Australia Policy, which effectively precluded non-white immigration to Australia. We proudly maintained this policy with minor variations until 1973. In addition, until 1967 we restricted our first people’s right to vote in federal and state elections and did not include them in our censuses until the late sixties.
Most of our racially motivated stratagems, including those mentioned above, were introduced at the time of Federation in the beginning of the 20th century and probably reflected the mood of the country. To be fair, they probably reflected worldwide attitudes until the middle to late 1950s.
Menzies (and Caldwell), leaders of the government and opposition during the sixties, were enthusiastic supporters of the White Australia Policy and by today’s standards, were staunch racists. Both Menzies and Caldwell retired in 1966 and Holt and Whitlam became, respectively, leaders of the Coalition and the ALP. Neither was remotely racist and together, and separately, they set about repealing all racially offensive legislation.
Whitlam was followed by Fraser, Hawke, and Keating, all of whom were famously anti-racist and who in less than 15 years transformed Australia from one of the most racist countries on earth to perhaps the least; racism actually became unpopular.
Then along came Honest John Howard.
Howard discovered early on that Australia’s racist rednecks could be his road to electoral success. The trick for him was: ‘how do I appeal to the rednecks without alienating those racist voters with an embryo conscience?’.
His answer: ‘make racism acceptable again’. He successfully achieved this by seizing upon overtly racist incidents including the emergence of Pauline Hanson and the Cronulla riots and providing tacit support for both. He also invented incidents including the Tampa and Children Overboard Affair and the ‘discovery of weapons of mass destruction’ which provided the excuse for the Pacific Solution and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – all acts of extreme racism.
With a little help from Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt et al., Honest John had almost single-handedly re-established racism as a popular pastime in Australia. This is much to the delight of the mean-spirited Peter Dutton who seems to lack the intelligence to embrace reasonable political debate, but is clearly adept at racism and is keen to demonstrate this, probably his only skill.
Dutton paid close attention to the teachings of Howard. He knows that if he opposes the Voice outright he will be accused of racism, so he has devised the ‘provide more detail’ strategy which will convince those who want to believe he is not a racist that he isn’t one and simultaneously convince the rednecks who want him to be a racist that he is one. He must be exposed and deposed.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
