Emperor,
Please state where it is written that English is the official language of Australia, if you are able.

My claim was that Australia has no official language, or official language policy, as do some other countries.

In the 'Recognition' movement, Aboriginal groups were looking to amend the constitution, to have it state English as the official, national language, with other aboriginal languages having recognised minority status. If so, this seems to suggest that English currently has no formally expressed status.

But you're welcome to demonstrate otherwise.

English is our national language in which law is written, administration is conducted and our people speak from coast to coast including in our national anthem. Whether this is stated in some official document I don't much care - if not then maybe it ought to be taken care if in the amendments to our constitution (a document written in English). It's definitely not a race.

All I claimed was that there is no formal, constitutional or legal requirement obliging anyone to speak in English in this nation. Despite a few attempts, no one seems to be able to contradict this claim.

For the definition of the word 'racist', we can easily conceive of the person who prejudges someone negatively based on their skin colour, before getting to know their inner qualities. That's racism. But I'd agree that 'race' is one those malleable words that's hard to define precisely.

People don't easily divided into neat groupings according to physiological characteristics. Japanese and Koreans share certain identifiable features not common to Australian aborigines. Yet Japanese and Koreans will easily note differences amongst themselves, as would those from different aboriginal tribes on opposite sides of the continent. Most genetic traits can be found in varying degrees amongst widely dispersed peoples. And genes are continually being reshuffled in inter-ethnic marriage. Strictly speaking, basing race on physical characteristics alone is a nonsense. There is only one race, the human race, and we're all part of it.

Yet ethnic groupings are often delineated by other factors, such as sharing a common history or culture, with language being one of those key sociological factors.

Mr Opinion,
Thanks, I'll take what you said regarding my capabilities in French and Kriol as a compliment.

Dear Dan S de Merengue

Or you could take it as an attempt at light humour.

Dan S de Merengue: "Yet ethnic groupings are often delineated by other factors, such as sharing a common history or culture, with language being one of those key sociological factors."

Yes this is often done. And when it is done it is an attempt to fool people into accepting that an ideology, or a cult (such as Islam) is a race or an ethnicity meaning a genetic inheritance, and that hence to attack it or deride it is racism. It's done routinely by the ideologues of the ABC and SBS - e.g. "anti-racist demonstrators" vs "anti-Islamic demonstrators" to fool people into recoiling from attacks on an ideology on the ground that such attacks are racism.

The fact that such blatantly dishonest deception is often resorted to does not in any way validate it or make it anything other than what it is - dishonesty.

PS: Probably the most frequent use of this dishonest linguistic trick, often seen on OLO, is to label attacks on Zionism (a racist ideology) as "anti-Semitism".