The division is not “potential” it is real; it exists, and the only idiots to embrace it are Western politicians, without the permission of their employers. Multiculturalism is not about “sharing fundamental values”. Differing values between cultures is the problem.

No culture but Western culture invites alien cultures to their shores.

And, you will never get the problem discussed in a rational way if you are going to chop between ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’. The two are entirely different. Australia had a reasonably successful multiracial, non-discriminatory immigration policy for a long time. Then it was decided that multiculturalism would be a buzz, and most Australians can’t tell the difference.

Too bad we can't tell the Goaf & Grassby 'We told you so' !

Four decades of Multiculturalism (really a pseudonym for Asianisation) has transformed Australia into an Asian nation-state.

We all need to embrace our Asianess.

And since Australia has never had a formal language I am proposing that we choose Mandarin for our national language.

We should all acknowledge that we are a part of Asia and surrender ourselves to the overlordship of China.

Now, smile and give me a big Aussie 'Ni hao cobber!"

A well thought out and well written article covering a difficult subject.

One aspect is disappointing, though, for an author who says he "has an interest in all economic, social and environmental issues," he didn't think there were any environmental issues related to immigration rates. Increases in population put a strain on the environment. Degradation of the environment, hurts the economy, reduces the standard of living and therefore harms our social interactions. Ignoring these facts in articles such as this, tells the reader that the environmental issues are probably all under control and nothing much to worry about compared to how many Aussie homes Chinese buyers are interested in.

There is no doubt that environmental protection is a broad ranging topic and can't be covered in detail in every article written about immigration. Leaving the environment completely out, especially for a guy who's profile states he is interested in the environment, indicates that the author's interest in economic and social issues probably takes up more than 99% of his attention and the environment less than 1%. That means he doesn't really understand the full picture, or isn't interested and that throws doubt on the broad conclusions in the article.

I could only shake my head with pitying wonder at this article, full of contradictions, misrepresentations, half truths, and worse, written by another dreamy academic from the Democratic Socialist Republic of Victoria.

To start with, Chris Lewis, the abandonment of the very successful White Australia Policy, that had created a society free of terrorism, with a low crime rate, was not caused by the Australian people "abandoning" it. It was imposed by the Whitlam Labor government as a means to divide our country and import a new voting constituency, with which the Labor Party could claim ownership. Antipodean Tammany Hall politics.

As for your laughable claim that our immigration department rejects any idea of migrant selection based up race or religion, you got that wrong too. The Australian government has already taken note that people from certain ethnicities and one particular terrorism promoting religion are a pain in the butt and has taken steps to limit immigration of those groups. With the explosion in Beirut, I see that this time the Australian government is not rushing to provide refugee status to the Lebanese after our last bit of misplaced humanity with the Lebanese increased crime rates in every Australian city.

If you "believe" that multiculturalism has proven "largely successful" in Australia, Chris, then it just proves how irrational "belief" in fantasy land ideologies can be. I can easily list at least 50 very serious problems caused by the immigration of groups of people with contradictory and hostile "belief" systems to our own, that is costing Australian lives, and a fantastic amount of money.

If Australia is, in your words, "the most successful multicultural society in the world", Chris, then all I can say is, God help the worst. All European leaders have expressed serious doubts about multiculturalism in their own countries, and the reason being that they allowed themselves to get over run by third world immigrants much earlier than we did, and they are suffering more because of it. The socialists divided their own societies for electoral advantage and now they are contemplating their own societies social self suicide.

Hi ericc,

fair call about leaving out some words on the environment.

TBH, this was a very hard piece for me, and I really wanted to focus on the multi-ethnic nature of Australia's migrant intake.

Lego, I can only call it the way I see it.

I did not say immigration dept; I referred to a poll of public attitudes where most did not discriminate.

I actually support a govt limiting certain groups if the reasons are justified.