Yes, Australia is truly a country of immigrants. Recent DNA studies suggest that Aboriginals are not an homogeneous group, arriving in five major waves between 40K-25K years BP. Dot painting started about 3,000 years ago. So, the culture has not been static. Historically, aboriginal socities seem to have been ideologically tethered,deep into the dreamtime and trading rituals between clans.

Technologically, the West led the way through Great Divergence, so, perhaps, the situation encountered by early aboriginals, could not be compared with say the Celts encountering the Romans.The arrival of the British must have been overwhelming.

"As we move into the 21st Century, with globalisation and the effects of global and domestic conflict on cultural grounds, one wonders what future implications will emanate from the impact of cultural transmission."

Indeed - I wait in anticipation to read Patricia's next article on the effect so far of Australia's “intake” in the past 3 decades, particularly the impact of the islamic culture – which as we know is 180 degrees at odds with the conventional "European" category.

Interesting times ahead...for sure.

Football (soccer) is the number one cultural sport in the world. Every migrant has this chronic fever in their blood; a football gene is knitted in their DNA. It is now starting to emerge and finally getting its overdue recognition with the other mega-sports.

The influence of "rugby" and cricket has but filled a temporary gap for the newcomers instead of fully indoctrinate them into the Australian ways.

With the promising “new” interest in soccer - I see a faint light at the end of the islamic cultural blending tunnel - hopefully it will not be an oncoming train...

Gough Whitlam’s claim about Australia being a nation of immigrants and the consequent blind parroting of that claim is misleading. Yes, even the original occupants came here from Asia, but they were never Australian – they were separate tribes of people who spent a lot of their time warring and hating each other. Then, along came white settlers/colonists, immigrants if you like or even ‘invaders’ as the precious left are now calling them.

But how long are people supposed to think of themselves as immigrants or descendants of immigrants?

The entire we- are -a –nation-of- immigrants blah started as a ruse of the multiculturalists to make us feel better about a piece of social engineering they forced on us without consultation. It’s interesting that a social scientist and ‘educator’ uses the myth as an opener here; even though it has little relevance to her very basic thumbnail sketch of Australian immigration history, brought on, no doubt, by the current hysteria about soccer.

But the claim is irritating and wrong in its own right, perpetuating the myth that there was no Australian culture long before modern mass immigration - a unique Australian culture, NOT an immigrant one. That culture is not just one among many, as the politicians would like us to believe. It is the bedrock of civilized Australia and the host culture to later arrivals.

Those of you who look for truth rather than believing something only because it is repeated many times by social engineers might like to read John Hirst’s book of essays, “Sense and Nonsense in Australian History”.

Immigrants are now apart of Australia society,even if some people don't like it.Some Australians have had a hard time dealing with multiculturalism , because these people feel their more superior to immigrants, why?They say the land is theirs, and people who don't fit the bill (immigrants) are not good enough to be in their land.If immigrants come from countries that make their clothes produce products for them to buy,but immigrants still are in their country to live free off of them. Their nervous,insecure power hungry people,well most of them.Deep down it has nothing to due with keeping identity. Anyone with 2 eyes can truly see that. Can't let people like that get to us.

It is a long time since Australians were influenced by Irish or UK attitudes. Perhaps it was WW2 that unravelled the ties. We have evolved into a distinct race that is neither European nor Asian,I hope that "our" culture will never be submerged or dominated by bad immigration mistakes.
If we concentrate on quantity and forget quality, we will go down the path of other failed third worlds.
This is too good a country to mess up through idiotic ideology.

Australia's immigration program needs to be considered as coming in a series of waves. The first major wave was during the gold rush, when the cultural mix was more diverse than at any time since. After the rush was over we settled down to a period of assimilation, and by the 1930's we were essentially back to a monoculture with a few additions, such as (australian) chinese cuisine. The same could well be happening now, with many muslim immigrants keen to blend in to the majority culture as fast as possible. The best example of cultural assimilation I have heard came from a chinese immigrant a few years ago who said:

"When I arrived here 10 years ago I was really shocked to hear people say that the governemnt was the enemy of the people. It's only recently that I realised they were right."

My response was: "you've assimilated"