Share the love Peter.

<<The FECCA does not mince its words. "The apparent neglect of the Australian Government to adequately recognise and support multiculturalism...could see Australian society experience difficulties often cited in [Europe]." The FECCA's list of these social ills includes crime, entrenched poverty and extremism>>

WHAT A CROCK!

LOL

It is largely through multiculturalism (and poor immigration practices) that Europe has accrued such "social ills".

The FECCA's concerns derive largely from its bods wanting to protect their seat on the gravy train.

Interesting article, the author has summarised the dysfunctions of institutionalised multiculturalism very well indeed.

"It's a new, 'hard' form of multiculturalism – one that was well intentioned at first."

I'll have to express considerable scepticism in regard to the view that the multiculturalist ideology was always promoted by well-intentioned people from its initiation, for example, it's a useful Trojan Horse for the Islamist agenda.

"Multiculturalism" as an ideology was, most likely, intended as a rationale for immigrants to reject assimilation and Australian society and to cling to, and promote the often inhumane and anti-democratic cultural baggage of their homelands.

SPQR,

"FECCA's concerns derive largely from its bods wanting to protect their seat on the gravy train."

Agreed, liberal democratic societies are intrinsically multicultural, we don't need a self-serving multi-culti industry, multiculturalism is not the business of any democratic government.

Multiculturalism is a mixed bag of good and bad. But Australia is now a highly multicultural society, and that ain’t gonna change any time soon.

What IS likely to happen is that the downsides of multiculturalism will increase their magnitude while the upsides will not increase any further.

This is simply due to the utter absurdity of us living in a massively unsustainable manner, and making it all very steadily less sustainable by way of very high immigration.

We need to reduce immigration to net zero or thereabouts!

This has got nothing to do with the cultural, religious or ethnic makeup of our immigration intake. But it has everything to do with our ability to achieve high-quality sustainable society, which requires a stable or at least very slowly growing population.

If we continue on as we currently are, with very high population growth, due primarily to absurdly high immigration, we won’t be going anywhere near achieving this.

Things will steadily get worse. And as they do, the tensions within a highly diverse multicultural society will increase.

So, if we want to hold on to the good aspects of the multicultural society that we now have and minimise the increase of the bad aspects, the most important thing that we need to do is to STOP rapidly growing our population. And the most significant factor of this is the reduction of immigration to +/- net zero.

Immigration has got everything to do with our multicultural society. But it is not the composition that is important, it is the overall numbers!

Yeah well! The “fair go” is not extended now – to Australians born and bred here, and migrants of Anglo-Saxon background. The much too fair go, is extended to minorities who only come here to form their own tribes, and they do not appreciate the fair go they get; nor do they extend it to people outside their own ethnic or religious group.

Multiculturalism was forced on us by a fiat from Malcolm Fraser, and socially, Australia has been in a downward spiral ever since. Australia is now full of the same mistrusts and hatreds in other countries our stupid politicians didn't learn from.

Multiculturalism is obnoxious, dangerous and undemocratic. It is one of the worst cases of bad politicians buying votes while upsetting and insulting the majority.

And, Ludwig is right on net immigration no matter the origins of immigrants.We cannot afford anything but skilled immigration these downs - and only those skill that are not already here.

Threats to introduce sharia law are already very real.

Ludwig is on the ball. All cultures are a mixture of the good and the bad, and it would be sensible to sift out the better parts of different societies and drop the bad. It is crazy for Australia to drop what has already been achieved in this regard and be almost totally culture-permissive; and carry on with the bizarre practice of fostering the problems we have which are associated with pressures of infrastructure needs from ever-increasing numbers.

We saw an example of 'hard' multiculturalism on OLO last week - the demand that Australia involve itself in the dispute over who has the right to the name Macedonia half a world away. Not our problem.

So Colinsett, what are the best parts of the Afghan, Burmese and Somalian ways of life and how will these unique institutions and cultural practices reward my Australian White children?
Now reverse that sentence and see if the answer is the same.

Like most everything initiated by the WW2 generation multiculturalism has not lived up to it's promises and turned into a millstone for their descendants. I find it amusing that "progressives" accuse their targets of wanting to take society back to the 1950's all the while clinging to the values of old White men whose worldview began to develop in the 1930's. :)

Ludy,
while I agree with your thoughts about high immigration being detrimental to our country, you have lost me in relation to multiculturalism. Al Grazzby's and Whitlm's view of MC was that it would help migrants integrate and yet the opposite has occurred. It divided us into groups each viaing for their handout of funds. That funding also excluded some groups for not being ethnic enough. Fraser further implemented the flawed ideology.

Could you tell me the 'good' aspects of MC because I can only see greater variety of eating places and superficial aspects like children in colourful costumes , dragon parades and beer festivals. On the other hand I can see plenty on the downside.

I do not see us as MC, but as multi-racial as our fundamentals are all derived from the Westminster system and without that glue the whole MC thing would simply fall apart. Government needs to get out of sponsoring MC and promote integration. Just what are the practical advantages of MC?

Thank you for the article, Peter.

But a discussion was already started on your original Telegraph article last Thursday (15 pages of comments so far).
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6145&page=1

Yet again the "ills" of multiculturalism are blamed on Whitey's laws and policies, rather than the immigrants themselves.

There was never any need for "hard" multiculturalism.
We live in a liberal society.
People could already wear what they want, eat what they want, worship the God they want.
No need for special laws or policies.
And no need to spend a fortune on "promoting" cultural deviance.

Even if "hard" multiculturalism is officially dropped, the government is still supporting it with its Asian-biased immigration policy.

2 out 3 immigrants these days are Asian, and 3 out of 4 are of non-European ancestry.

Do 84% of Australians support *that*?
I doubt they even know the true figures.

They probably think the "ethnic" types are just a touch of spice, when they are now the meal itself, and Whites are the seasoning.

I agree with Shockadelic. I would love to know where this 84% approval rating actually came from, and which people were actually surveyed and what questions they were asked. We have a massive immigration policy that is really a huge ponzi scheme and most of the new arrivals are asian with the single biggest source chinese. This is madness beyond belief. chinese people maintain a link to mainland china for generations and have zero intention of integrating or reciprocating in any way. china is rapidly becoming an assertive and aggressive world power and is certainly no ally of Australia so why would we ever import large numbers of people with whom one day we may find ourselves in conflict with? On the other hand, perhaps not, as with this present immigration policy Australia will become another province of china by 2050. Why were we not asked if this is what we want? Lower cases are intentional in this post,; I am not in the least bit concerned if 'multi-cultis' are offended.

An excellent essay. "Australia does not need a Multicultural Act. Australia already has a stable and well-developed legal system that governs the behaviour of its citizens. The rule of law is the only acceptable basis for a healthy, descriptively multicultural society.
Once the rule of law determines the extent of permissible behaviours, the state should get out of the business of supporting or maintaining the cultural, ethnic or religious components of identity."
This says it all. What a truly secular democracy should offer is 'pluralism' -- the acceptance of difference within the law.
Cultures have their origins in organised religions, which are the source of social ferment, intimidation, bigotry, intolerance and injustice. Our already precarious democracy has no hope of surviving against the determined onslaught of religious groups determined to further their own beliefs. Look at the harm the Exclusive Brethren have done! No matter how toxic the religion/culture, they'll pay no taxes, rates or anything else that will support others, and will be assisted to start their own schools to breed more narrow-minded warriors for furthering their religion.
Ludwig's correct. Stop migration until we've got our house in order; certainly don't invite people fleeing from religious wars to come here, so they can continue their insane violence.

<< Could you tell me the 'good' aspects of MC >>

Banjo, I guess it is basically the diversity in lifestyle, activities, food, etc, which adds character and dynamism to our society.

We’ve achieved this. I can’t see that we can achieve anything further by way of further multicultural/ethnic/religious immigration.

The upsides of multiculturalism do seem rather superficial and vague and that the potential downsides are quite ominous.

And yes I agree that further immigration of a diverse variety of people will promote enclave development and groups that go against the grain of Australian society.

<< Ludy, while I agree with your thoughts about high immigration being detrimental to our country, you have lost me in relation to multiculturalism >>

High immigration is very strongly detrimental in terms of the need to balance supply and demand, achieve a sustainable resource base, and have a growing economy that can actually lead to average per-capita gains instead of just battling to provide more of the same that the current population has for ever more people.

In short; high immigration stresses the whole economic system and quality of life across the nation. And when stresses increase, discontent increases and fractures appear.

That’s where multiculturalism becomes a real worry. Groups of people who get along reasonably well while things are going reasonably well are likely to come into conflict when things deteriorate. The us-and-them mentality increases, mistrust increases, feelings of inequality increase, etc.

We absolutely need to wind back the ponzi scheme of high immigration to a very low level, at least until we get our house in order.