Yawn - here we go again. Yet another article using a misrepresentation of the reality of multiculturalism to construct a veneer behind which to launch more attacks on Muslims and migration.

To respond to a couple of points in the article:

"At what point, then, does multiculturalism go from being an inherent 'good' to being problematic?" - when it stops being multiculturalism and turns into the monoculturalism that the author is promoting.

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"Australia can be proud of its liberal, democratic, humanitarian and egalitarian culture. It must not be abandoned".

I couldn't agree more. Which is way the anti-liberal, non-egalitarian mindset of monoculturalism should be resisted.

It took Australia a very long time to develop this aspect of our culture, and multiculturalism is an integral part of it, regardless of those who can't see anything about it other than different skin colours and a wider variety of food choices, or who misrepresent it to mean everyone can do what they want (which is the old monocultural way - except everyone had to act the way those in the dominant class wanted to act.)

I accept that it is rather strange that the leaders of countries like Germany and Britain are saying multiculturalism doesn't work when their countries have never adopted it, but that's just another example which shows that not everything done or said in other cultures or countries is perfect.

Multiculturalism has a pluralist liberal-democratic ethos at its core. The fact that attacks on this core value should be resisted is just another proof of how false the repeated assertions are that multiculturalism somehow means anything goes and all beliefs, practices and actions are equally valid.

Great post Jenny. You sound like a compassionate person - but you’re not naïve. It’s a rare combination

Excellent concise critique of "multiculturalism". So often (even in some of the comments above) multiculturalism is confused with issues of race. It is about culture, not race. Hopefully we have been succesfully integrating people from all over the world for a very long time (me included), and within a generation or two they look, sound and feel like Australians.

What is a problem is a culture which comes here which quite explicitly rejects ours, insists on keeping itself to itself, has precepts such as theocracy and the suppression of all females which is totally anathema to our way of life, and the more extreme among them even dream of imposing their culture and way of life on us.

Let us continue with generous immigration policies welcoming new people from all over the world, but let us ditch "multiculturalism". If you want to come to make your life in Australia, be prepared to become Australian.

What utter rubbish.

Your swimming pool is just an example of the Oz culture evolving, & integration as it should be.

I love the idea, & the fact of "coffee coloured people by the score" I have lived enough of my life in the tropics to find the full European complexion looks unhealthy. Roll on the blending.

However I strongly object to special treatment of ethnics, no matter where they come from.

I object to our taxes being used to buy some ethnic vote, & even more so, for that spending to gravitate to ethnic leaders, who perpetuate difference.

I don't like ethnic restaurants. [Had to say that, as so many give food, for god sake, as a prime reason for the fiasco].

I strongly object to centrelink having a non English phone line.

I even more strongly object to taking 3 days to get through to "THE REIIREMENT LINE" English number, [always engaged], when the non English number is always available, but not to me.

Anyone noticed that I object to the policy, more so than the ethnics themselves.

Drop the policy, & the funding, & most of the objections will melt away, in most of the population.

Andrew Bartlett - in what way has Australia ever really been 'monocultural'?

Good on you Jenny Goldie. My grandkids are of Mozambican, French, probably Chinese and Indian descent (Mauritian Creole), Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish descent (from me), I believe German and Swedish (other grandfather) and (from my wife) Warlpiri descent. They are beautiful and intelligent and an absolute delight. They have to survive in contemporary Australia so my traditional, Irish style Catholic, working class culture and my wife's traditional Australian desert, hunter gatherer cultures aren't all that useful to them. We are teaching them to feel that they are citizens of the world. They are proud and happy to identify as Territory Blackfellas and I am happy that they do that as long as they know what that means. I keep reminding them of their other heritages that I expect them to be proud of as well. But we are not teaching them that you can go to Hell for eternity for eating a sausage roll on Friday, that Protestants are the spawn of the devil, that the Pope is infallible and that using a condom is a sin, as I was. We are also not going to teach them that women are inferior to men and that men have the duty to execute women for trivial cultural reasons, that old men can marry several, much younger women, that death from cancer is actually caused by sorcery and the perpetrator, or a member of his family, should be sought out by magical means and killed, or that you have to undergo genital mutilation to be a man like their grandmother was. They will be taught to respect and honour all of their ancestors and their heritages. They will also be taught not to be trapped by any of these old cultures and to consider themselves damned lucky that they were born in Australia when they were. When a culture no longer does its job it can kill you and others. Multi-culturalism can never work for us unless we recognise that fact.