Typical hysterical reaction.
The right-wingers will ban everything!

This isn't about prejudice, it's about practicality.

Every region on Earth has a dominant language among the local population.
In Australia, that happens to be English.
Not formal Queen's English, *Australian* English.

If you move to Japan, the local language is Japanese.
If you move to Turkey, it's Turkish.
Nothing to do with racism, xenophobia or oppression.

You quote a song that laments a patient who can't communicate with the hospital staff.

Try working in a hospital where none of the *staff* can speak the same language with each other!

Without a common language, no community could function.

Immigrants of course feel at ease with their mother tongue and prefer to speak it at home.
But your *child* is going to grow up one day and leave that home.

And they will need to speak, read and write English in that outer world.

and if you move to India one of the official languages is English and millions speak it, further millions speak 'Indglish', which the foreign English speaker can (with a bit of effort) understand.

My eldest daughter nurses in South Australia and she was able recently to bring a little bit of happiness to an old Irishman because, although he was fluent in English, she could talk with him in Irish.

My wife, (not her mother), speaks four languages besides English and can understand a couple more though not speak them, primarily because of the difficult articulation, and as a nurse has found them all useful.
In the home we swap around a bit for practice but usually speak English.

The only fault that I can find with the article is, that in passing, he mentions the myth that Japan intended to invade Australia.

Tony. Why not require competence in English before granting Australian citizenship?

Leslie,

What about those seeking Permanent Residency?

Competency in English might also be sought of those about to leave school.
Sydney University used to run a Remedial English class for 1st year undergraduates; might still so do.

Is Mise

Maith thú, a chara. :)

In a country like Australia, so far from everywhere and with an assimilation-based migrant culture, fluency or even semi-fluency in a foreign language is something very hard to attain. The multi-nationed Europe and Asia have a huge advantage in that regard.

But fluency in a language is not the be-all and end-all. There are few experiences more empathetic than learning a language. I've enrolled in several over the years, enough to get the basics and understand something of the mindset of the target culture. Learning Irish, for example, it was very enlightening to learn that they say 'Happiness is at me' rather than the egocentric English wording of 'I am happy'. The traditional Irish mindset sees itself as existing within the universe, not as its master.

I've always felt that, for a country like Australia, the education curriculum should introduce a subject called Languages. Instead of high school students studying one language in depth, they should study a at least six languages within the one subject, representing the main language groups within the country and/or its neighbours - an Aboriginal language, at least one from India, Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian and a couple from Europe.

Killarney,
You mean taking the focus away from sport & pop music ? Tough ask in this society, good luck !