Rhian - Not sure where you get your information but would you like to quote some reliable stats to support your statements about the average education/skills levels of the Migrant population vs those of the native born Australian?

Also you really need to be born outside of Australia to be termed a Migrant so I guess that precludes Charles Teo and Natalie Imbruglia who are Australian born. George Gregan hardly counts though his pedigree is very interesting. Born in Africa, Dad being an Aussie of New Zealand heritage and George coming to Australia as a babe in arms.

My eldest son was born in NZ as we were in travel mode at that time and did not return to Australia until he was a year old? Does that make him an Migrant? Not really eh! Ah but he's not a bad cook ...

Dear Rhian
do you work for the Dept of Multicultural affairs ? :)

You say

//The chance to meet and talk with people with different backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives. Multiculture is more interesting than monoculture.//

Well..given that I am so rich..I hereby send you a plane ticket to err..Thailand so you can savour the delights of different food and culture.

My only problem with your rather idealistic and one sided version is you are RIGHT....while peace exists.

The more problems in the world between various nations/ethnic groups and religions... the more such conflicts are reflected on our own streets... *because* people keep their own cultural and political identity.

Can you agree with this ?

WAR in Sri Lanka....Tamils and Sinhalise fighting it out on Melbournes streets.

HISTORIC RIVALRY between Serbs and Croats..and they are now competing for 'naming rights' at the Tennis..to make it the "Annual Serb/Croat punchup"

Israel/Palestinians... have you not seen the demonstrations protests?

Ethnic Gangs (leaked police report)

Rise of Middle Eastern Crime. (Priests report and abundant anecdotal evidence.

The worst one of all..will be when the economic *crunch* comes.

When resources are scarce.. do you agree people become 'tribal' ?

Do you have a political vested interest in promoting MC ? (naughty arn't I)

Rhian,
Just as i suspected. You cannot offer any tangible or practical evidence of any benefits, other than food, that the ideology of multiculturalism has provided. This policy has been in force now for 40 years and the object of diversity has certainly been met, so how come there are no practical benefits?

So after all this time and millions spent promoting MC, the only thing you can offer is that "multiculture is more interesting than monoculture".

Do you really not see the alien aspects of some cultures and the impact they have on our community and the cost to our country.

People make their contributions to the country, but that does not mean that diversity has to be promoted for the sake of diversity. We should be getting some real and practical advantages to outweigh the costs and inconvienience.

We do not have to halt all immigration, but the sooner the stupid ideology of multiculturalism is dead and buried, the better.

Some alien cultural aspects are so costly to us that we are better off not to import them at all.

CJ Morgan, you said “My semantic points were not trivial. It's impossible to have an intelligent discussion when some participants use terminology incorrectly, particularly when the errors are critical to their argument.”

If your obstacle to an “intelligent discussion” is that “some participants” use the wrong terminology, why don’t you cover the issues raised by me and divine_msn and use your choice of words to describe the syndrome?

That way we can hear what you have to say and learn from you.