Pelican's post was excellent and I particularly liked this section,

"Australia is a multicultural nation - there is no need to spruik it from the hilltops and immigration in Australia is not exclusive of any race.

It is just more of the same organisations who think they might miss out on government funding. There is also support for new immigrants in the way of English classes and information sessions to understand our laws, system of taxation etc. There is no need for a multicultural department per se as multicultural Australia is firmly entrenched."

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11040&page=2

The electorate is fed up to the back teeth with the plethora of advisory committees and forums that government relies on in lieu of consulting with the whole electorate as it should do in a democracy. Isn't that what elected members are for? Worse, these advisory committees are duplicated at State level, resulting in further hijacking of democratic representation and wastage of taxes.

Is it not possible for the hundreds of elected politicians and the thousands of public servants in federal departments to ascertain what needs exist and how to best satisfy those needs?

I note that the Australian Multicultural Advisory Committee was given a new term prior to the election. The government must have money to burn. Pity about homeless youth and the lack of money for education and hospitals though.

http://www.immi.gov.au/about/stakeholder-engagement/national/advisory/amac/

I agree with other comments here, that there are some religious/ cultural practices by ethnic groups that are both repugnant to Western morality and a violation of our human rights principles. The 'multiculturalists' never seem to set clear parameters as to the limits of cultural relativism, without these limits 'multiculturalism' is a rather pernicious doctrine.
Those of us who are not cultural relativists and who regard liberal, pluralist, democratic societies as superior to others are naturally sceptical as to the need for a multicultural industry.

I also agree with stevenlmeyer's doubts as to the value of the concept of 'race' as a technique to describe genetic differences, as far as I understand, the trend is for scientists to reject the idea.

However 'racism' is a useful card to play by those who want to silence criticism of their favorite ideologies.

Steven L Meyer.
You say tomato I say tomato.
I'm putting forward the Heresy in the interests of a creating a debate or a dialectic because I don't have a fixed point of view, it's junk science at this point, but so was "Global warming" now it's the new orthodoxy
Then again what if what I'm saying is all true, yeah it's weird that certain "Demes" appear to have different capabilities but all that means is that we have to look at Race Relations instead of the "Human Race" and judge our various compatibilities on that basis.
The ideal would be to keep searching for our truths but not be so inflexible as to keep imposing standards on ourselves every time we have an in sight into the way the world works, take a "wide sky" approach to all possibilities.

Further to what Banjo wrote, I would like to promote the concept of multiracialism rather than multiculturalism. I say this as the adoptive mother of a couple of Asian and a couple of 'black' children. My grandchildren range from blue-eyed blondes to dark-eyed, brown-skinned. They all want to 'fit in' to Australian society and not be preoccupied with the cultures from which they or their birth parents/grandparents have come though they are not without interest in their cultural backgrounds. As far as immigrants are concerned, while the retention of some cultural characteristics like food and music is clearly desirable, the retention of illiberal, misogynist and undemocratic characteristics is clearly undesirable. I'm happy to have anyone of any race come to this country (within a smaller program though) as long as they comply with our democratic, egalitarian, humanitarian and liberal culture.

popnperish,
I agree with you, but how to acheive that is the difficult part.

I don't know how many times i have been called racist or Xenophobic for putting forward those views. I critisize aspects of cultures but that is not racism.

fiandra,
I advocate selective immigration because our politicians do not have the guts to simply say to prospective migrants and refugees that certain things are not acceptable here and if you are found doing these alien things you will be deported.

I think it more likely to get a selective immigration policy in, based on our experience of which cultures cannot/will not forgo certain alien cultural practices. For example, Serbs and Croats still hate each other after 3 generations here and it is the newcomers that keep that hatreds alive, so better not to bring anymore in.

Our health authorities know which cultures practice FGM and after 16 years of education, and being unlawfull, it is on the increase. The answer is to stop people of those cultures coming here. There is not that many cultural issues that we find alien.

The more we turn a blind eye to alien practice, the more we compromise our own culture.

As I said before most immigrants do integrate but we have to be strong and reject those cultures that do not.

Does anyone keep tabs on how much we actually spend, as a nation, on the practice of multiculturalism?

I'm assuming that by now we are agreed that it is to do with policies that actively support and maintain cultural differences, as opposed to those which encourage togetherness and assimilation.

I just get the impression that it has become a term predominantly used to stoke prejudice rather than create clarity.

So, anyone prepared to take a stab at the dollars involved? Or is it just the opportunity to rant about the principle itself? Which, by the way, I tend to disagree with.

But I suspect we are actually looking at the proverbial climatic turbulence in the Noritake.