The division is not “potential” it is real; it exists, and the only idiots to embrace it are Western politicians, without the permission of their employers. Multiculturalism is not about “sharing fundamental values”. Differing values between cultures is the problem.

No culture but Western culture invites alien cultures to their shores.

And, you will never get the problem discussed in a rational way if you are going to chop between ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’. The two are entirely different. Australia had a reasonably successful multiracial, non-discriminatory immigration policy for a long time. Then it was decided that multiculturalism would be a buzz, and most Australians can’t tell the difference.

Too bad we can't tell the Goaf & Grassby 'We told you so' !

Four decades of Multiculturalism (really a pseudonym for Asianisation) has transformed Australia into an Asian nation-state.

We all need to embrace our Asianess.

And since Australia has never had a formal language I am proposing that we choose Mandarin for our national language.

We should all acknowledge that we are a part of Asia and surrender ourselves to the overlordship of China.

Now, smile and give me a big Aussie 'Ni hao cobber!"

A well thought out and well written article covering a difficult subject.

One aspect is disappointing, though, for an author who says he "has an interest in all economic, social and environmental issues," he didn't think there were any environmental issues related to immigration rates. Increases in population put a strain on the environment. Degradation of the environment, hurts the economy, reduces the standard of living and therefore harms our social interactions. Ignoring these facts in articles such as this, tells the reader that the environmental issues are probably all under control and nothing much to worry about compared to how many Aussie homes Chinese buyers are interested in.

There is no doubt that environmental protection is a broad ranging topic and can't be covered in detail in every article written about immigration. Leaving the environment completely out, especially for a guy who's profile states he is interested in the environment, indicates that the author's interest in economic and social issues probably takes up more than 99% of his attention and the environment less than 1%. That means he doesn't really understand the full picture, or isn't interested and that throws doubt on the broad conclusions in the article.

I could only shake my head with pitying wonder at this article, full of contradictions, misrepresentations, half truths, and worse, written by another dreamy academic from the Democratic Socialist Republic of Victoria.

To start with, Chris Lewis, the abandonment of the very successful White Australia Policy, that had created a society free of terrorism, with a low crime rate, was not caused by the Australian people "abandoning" it. It was imposed by the Whitlam Labor government as a means to divide our country and import a new voting constituency, with which the Labor Party could claim ownership. Antipodean Tammany Hall politics.

As for your laughable claim that our immigration department rejects any idea of migrant selection based up race or religion, you got that wrong too. The Australian government has already taken note that people from certain ethnicities and one particular terrorism promoting religion are a pain in the butt and has taken steps to limit immigration of those groups. With the explosion in Beirut, I see that this time the Australian government is not rushing to provide refugee status to the Lebanese after our last bit of misplaced humanity with the Lebanese increased crime rates in every Australian city.

If you "believe" that multiculturalism has proven "largely successful" in Australia, Chris, then it just proves how irrational "belief" in fantasy land ideologies can be. I can easily list at least 50 very serious problems caused by the immigration of groups of people with contradictory and hostile "belief" systems to our own, that is costing Australian lives, and a fantastic amount of money.

If Australia is, in your words, "the most successful multicultural society in the world", Chris, then all I can say is, God help the worst. All European leaders have expressed serious doubts about multiculturalism in their own countries, and the reason being that they allowed themselves to get over run by third world immigrants much earlier than we did, and they are suffering more because of it. The socialists divided their own societies for electoral advantage and now they are contemplating their own societies social self suicide.

Hi ericc,

fair call about leaving out some words on the environment.

TBH, this was a very hard piece for me, and I really wanted to focus on the multi-ethnic nature of Australia's migrant intake.

Lego, I can only call it the way I see it.

I did not say immigration dept; I referred to a poll of public attitudes where most did not discriminate.

I actually support a govt limiting certain groups if the reasons are justified.

This author is a "type". A dangerous "type".

I tried unsuccessfully all through the reading of the article, to find the nob to turn down the violin music.

The title of this article should have been simply "Ho Hum" by Chris Lewis.

Dan

Thanks Dan

I would love to meet you in person.

Let's cut to the chase, Chris. We've had 15 years of LibLab Big Australia, with its fake "congestion busting" and "decentralisation", to the benefit of the rich and the migrants, but bruising the real living standards of ordinary Australians.

When Keneally spoke up in May for Australian workers, she was automatically slammed as a "Hansonite". Albanese said not one word in her defence. Clearly, LibLab will revert to Big Australia, the minute that the virus permits.

Piketty is right. Labor is now the party of the educated or "woke" elite, Liberals the party of the money elite. If only the punters had their own party too.

Steve,

I generally agree with your sentiment.

While I would add that all Western governments are finding it hard to maintain economic prosperity, they do indeed rely on immigration.

And it will only be a public bashlash that can temper such a reliance

Well, Chris, let's look at Australia's "successful" year zero multicultural experiment has gone?

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews stating publically that "terrorism is part of contemporary Australia."

"Diversity bollards" all over our cities to prevent ordinary pedestrians from being mass murdered by "contemporary" Jihadis in heavy vehicles.

Machines in even regional airports which see right through passengers clothing in order to prevent underpants bombers from blowing airliners full of Australians out of the sky.

Armed guards outside of newspaper offices and Jewish schools. The fortification of every vital government department with steel gates and security guards.

70 Australian girls gang raped by Muslim race hate rape gangs in Sydney, at the time of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Demands by Muslims and their leaders for social exclusion in swimming pools, gender segregation, and exemptions from the common law.

The elected head of the "moderate" Australian Islamic Council telling Prime Minister Turnbull at an official social dinner that homosexuals should be executed.

Demands from "moderate" Muslim organisations for Sharia Law in Muslim suburbs, and exemptions for Muslims from voting, as democracy is "against Islam."

Child brides, forced marriages, and "honour" killings.

Specialist medical teams in Canturbury, Bankstown, and Fairfield hospitals to treat the consequences of female genital mutilation.

Attacks on churches and synagogues.

The refusal by Muslim drivers to allow blind people with seeing eye dogs or passengers carrying alcohol to enter their cabs.

Six Sydney schools in the "troubled" (an Education Department euphemism for "Muslim") Southwest of Sydney now have permanent security guards to protect teachers and students from violent students and parents. Relief teachers refusing to work in these "troubled" schools. High turnover rates of new teachers.

Australian soldiers, SES volunteers, ambulance drivers, and Fire Brigade officers advised to not wear their uniforms while not on duty to minimise the risk of being attacked and even beheaded.

Australian citizens being shot down on streets and in coffee shops.

African gangs in Dandenong out of control with the police advising residents to flee them on sight. While simultaneously, the myopic Victorian Premier, certain judges and senior Victorian police claim that there is no African elephant in the room.

Aborigines in North Queensland and NSW declaring their tribal lands to be "sovereign states ". "Aboriginal courts" handing out "aboriginal punishments" to "aboriginals"(including spearings) Aboriginal leaders demanding "aboriginal only" seats in Federal parliament after former Imam Sheik al Hilaly demanded the same thing for Muslims in the NSW State parliament.

Ethnic soccer clubs in Sydney being forced to change their ethnic descriptor names because soccer games in Sydney between ethnic rivals degenerated into full scale race riots.

Ethnic crime so bad that the Australian Bureau of Statistics was ordered not to keep any records on ethnic crime. But ABS statistics on "Incarcerated Prisoners by Country of Birth" clearly displayed that some ethnicities are very disproportionately represented in serious criminal behaviour.

The Australian Administrative Appeal Board Immigration routinely over riding the Immigration Minioster's deportation rulings and opposing the deportation of the worst types of foreign criminals, including murderers, rapists, child molesters, and gang members, apparently so that these boards can give the Australian public, who pay their wages but whom they seemingly despise, a two fingered salute.

The severe curtailment of our most cherished civil liberties through terrorism legislation, including habeas corpus, and search and seizure by police without a judicial warrant of any person's motor vehicle or place of abode. Severe curtailment of freedom of speech through 18C.

Widespread rorting of visas, corruption charges within the Immigration Department, grossly underpaid and exploited workers in ethnic businesses labelled "systemic" by Alan Fels. Slavery and slumlords.

Foreign governments using their ethnic minorities within Australia to manipulate Australian governments and influence elections. The shameless pork barrelling of ethnic communities by Australian politicians in order to secure their collective votes.

State Police with sub machine guns and paratrooper boots looking more like storm troopers than traditional police.

White flight from multiculturalism causing monoculturalism in Australian city suburbs through ethnic ghettoisation

So many illegal immigrants within Australia that advertisements directed at illegal immigrants within Australia being advertised in foreign newspapers.

Fruit suppliers to Coles and Woolworths found to be using illegal foreign workers.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry finding that some ethnic farmers were using raw sewerage as fertiliser.

The alleged corruption of Australian politicians by China which resulted in the sacking of Labor's star ethnic politician, Sam Dastyari, and the investigation by the AFP and ASIO into the dealings of Shaoquett Moselmane.

The Chinese Communist party using Chinese students in Australia to harrass and threaten anyone in Australia the CCP does not like, including falun Gong supporters and supporters of Hong Kong and Tibet.

Demands by aborigines that the Federal government continue to fund remote and totally dysfunctional aboriginal communities to the tune of 480,000 dollars per person, which would be shut down if they were white communities.

The Minister for Education in Victoria, James Merlino, has just issued a directive to public schools that “praise music”, being “any type of music that glorifies God or a particular religious figure or deity [meaning baby Jesus and perhaps Santa as well]” is now banned. So Christmas carols are not to be played or sung in Victorian Socialist Republic public schools from now on.

Several terrorism incidents and some thwarted terrorism incidents involving "refugees".

Some ethic and religious groups notorious for their very high rates of serious criminal behaviour and welfare dependency.

Serious social strife, race riots and civil wars in every country cursed by multiculturalism including the USA, Lebanon, Fiji, Cyprus, Georgia, Afghanistan, Biafra, Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Liberia, Kashmir, Punjab, Sudan, Nigeria, Bougainville, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, New Zealand, Bhutan, Angola, Burma, Chechnya, Guadalcanal, Aden, Malaya, Oman, Congo, Northern Ireland, Palestine/Israel, Czechoslovakia, Yemen, Mexico, East Timor, Thailand and recently, Ukraine.

Meanwhile Japan does not seem to be handicapped by it's complete lack of "diversity."

I have no doubt you mean well, but you are a type. Your a type similar to politicians, in fact you could make a very smooth transition to one.

All this "stuff" you write about has no soul. It's all so academic don't you think?

Why not write something that has a flavour of consequences to it. A soul and a meaning.
Your article is like it was torn from the " bean counters" Bible. I did read it, but it fails mate.

So your the sort of person who views Chines in terms of bad communists Chinaman, and good Hong Kong Chinaman. Obviously you move in different circles to myself.
I don't think I'd trust your type with the keys to the Crown Jewels any more than I'd trust a commo from China, about the same level.

And this little gem: (this is how your type think),

*...It is precisely the Chinese migration story which now provides Australia with an opportunity to promote leadership through a progressive sense of universal values that is not racist as the real enemy is the CCP and not the Chinese contribution to Australia and humanity...*

There really bad people those commos aren't they Chris. Them and us!
Your not related to that shrunken brained alcoholic Bob Hawke by any chance.
He started this over sensitive garbage towards Chinese, and didn't the Chinese immigrants make a welter of that one.

No mention in your article about their corruption I notice. We'll import that too. The masters of tax evasion. Send Grandma around the multiple property portfolio to collect rent in cash every Saturday morning. See, I live in the real world Chris.

I could be accused of waffling on, God forbid. I'll leave you with this question:

Who is an Australian?
.
And incidentally, the white Australian policy was a political panic against an insurrection from dispossessed workers who were losing their jobs, when politicians imported an over abundance of Chinese to lower wages, in the end the latter day 457 visa look alike back fired.

Dan

Chris, how can you say that "Australians rightly embrace ethnic diversity? I can not think of a single place where ethnic diversity has not ultimately led to conflict ending mostly in civil war.

Bosnia and Herzegovina are a perfect example, where even after centuries of peaceful coexistence, even involving inter mirage ultimately degenerated into very bloody ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic clensing is already happening in Oz. My son was injured by a bunch of 4 "Lebs" who jumped out of a car to attack him as he was walking home from Allawah [Sydney] railway station one evening. His skull was fractured in 4 places by the kicking they gave him after he was down.

This is a new area they are claiming for their no go zone today.

If a couple of real Ozzies had not stopped & put these curs to flight, he may not have survived. He was off work for 5 months, not allowed to drive or fly for 3 of them.

Call me a racist all you like, but I would kick every Lebanese Muslim out of the country tomorrow if I could. Ethnic diversity is nothing but a dirty word to me, & our kids will suffer from the stupidity of the practice in oz.

Hasbeen, tell us the complete story, not the half that suits your bias.

The reality was, your son got mixed up in a liberal party local preselection meeting which attempted to exclude the locals by scamming an implant more suitable to bribing And manipulation by head office.
The locals got wind of it and bingo, you see the hardball political games played by Lebanese accustomed to those rules in the home country.
No surprises there.

As a comparison, what hardball games will the good little Chinese play? The ones you should be worried about?
As you are aware no doubt, Chinese are renowned for high level corruption through manipulation and bribery of politicians, that's one where the kick in the head comes later!

Dan

hasbeen,

you are probably right in picking me up or that.

What I should have said is that Australians don't judge a person by their race.

But they do have some issues with cultural differences. For example, tolerance towards all religious groups is not the same.

I should have been clearer

Hasbeen,

I hope your son is ok.

I agree that some cultures are very aggressive and their hatred of others appears to be a partly cultural thing being handed down from generation to generation.

But, I myself was once kidnapped in the streets of Preston in the late 1970s for about 4-5 hours.

I also very nearly got bashed for no reason by three anglos at a Canberra bus stop around 2010.

But I do agree the degree of danger has increased in recent decades.

Completely wrong, Chris Lewis, "Australians" judge white Australians by our skin colour all the time.

Leftist academics like your good self, never fail to mention how white Australians supposedly stole the continent of Australia from black people, a "crime" for which we must be collectively held accountable for. White people collectively are also baby stealers, who, according to the so called "stolen generations" accusation, "stole" aboriginal children for the purpose of "breeding out the black" and therefore committing "genocide" upon them. Therefore, whites must atone for our supposed collective genocidal inclinations by abasing ourselves and signing the "sorry" book.

White people must not do well in our own societies if non whites are doing badly. This success can be blamed upon so called "white privilege" which somehow suggests that having a white skin gives you an unfair advantage. To counter this supposed white privilege, "affirmative action", which is simply anti white racism by another name, gives preferential treatment to non whites in various ways. Racism in reverse.

The trick that leftist politicians are using is to gain the support of minorities for their socialist dream world by turning non white minorities against white people in the western democracies. The white societies they hate but choose to live in. That is why the Left is so gung ho about immigration and "refugees", as they hope is that they will be more accommodating to the failed promises of socialism than the whites. And the Left can keep pretending that they are the non white's protectors against the disgusting whites who are the real problem.

"Black Lives Matter" is a racist slogan suggesting that blacks are the victims of whites. The truth is that black people are simply very disproportionately represented in violent criminal behaviour. But the Left knows it is easy to convince the non whites that their minority dysfunctions must somehow always be the fault of white guys.

Get over your reflexive cultural cringe about racism, Chris, and realise that not only does everybody do it, your own race is the one copping all the racism now.

Dan my son is about as non political as you can get. He was doing some navy reserve time, & staying with the permanent navy engineer who had asked him to come down to help sort out some problems with our then new assault ships. The mate had lived in the area for 8 years.

He still gets head aches & double vision when over tired, & will do for the rest of his life. Don't ask me to welcome any immigrants, & particularly those brought in labeled "refugee". They seem to be the very worst.

The Oz local ethnic clensing has proved successful, his mate has sold his home & moved out. It was getting too dangerous for a solo man, & far too dangerous for a woman to walk the streets alone.

Nothing could get me to live in Sydney or Melbourne today, & I am not sure about Brisbane either. Some parts are no longer welcoming of real Ozzies, white or black.

Phil,

Forget the past and embrace your Asian identity c/o multiculturalism, which is really just a pseudonym for Asianisation.

My distinct memory of the event you mention hasbeen, revolved around a branch meeting of the Liberal party in that area; or a close suburb.
You've talked of this event before. And it included politics.
You need to be consistent.

My memory of life around this area of Sydney includes a time earlier. In that time it was Turkish thugs cutting a rug.
So I don't know who's side to fall down on. But one thing I agree with is there is more than mounting evidence of the abysmal failure of multiculturalism; especially as you point out, for those on the bottom like your son, who are left to live with the consequences of a politicians decision.

Where the multicultural failure shows up with its huge fault line, is when the local populations are swamped with foreign ethnicities with a totally different way of living.

But me? I focus my hatred on the political class which it is without doubt, where all this stupid is manufactured. We are powerless against idiotic decisions made over our heads, and unable to retaliate against thie evil created by them; and sadly forced to live with it, when obviously they escape!

Dan

Well done responding to all these comments Chris. You're a better man than I.

I understand you wanted to focus on the multi-ethnic component of the immigration debate, but with your concluding sentence not including environment, the indication is that it really doesn't matter.

Part of my frustration in the environment not being included in articles like this, is that it is all too common that environment gets left out. Even in Tim Colebatch's story saying that there is too much immigration, nothing on the environment. The government's reports always say immigration is "balanced" with the needs of infrastructure and the environment, but they never back it up or respond to criticisms about infrastructure falling behind or the environment being degraded.

Interestingly the Scanlon report, you cited, nailed the Greens misunderstanding of "Green" issues in this comment on page 91/97.
Regarding some issues, Greens supporters appear to be in a contradictory position. In their consideration of the most important problems facing Australia they have the highest proportion indicating environmental issues, but they are also the strongest supporters of population growth through immigration.

Again good effort all around.

Well, you see the problem with using an environmental argument against immigration, Ericc, is that the Green Party, the Party you would think would be the one pushing it, are more Red than Green. And they know that by pushing pro immigrant, pro refugee, pro indigenous, pro Islam, and anti white policies, they can be assured of a growing source of votes from minorities, who will one day be the majority.

The Left's political money is on the need to seek support from minorities, so they race bait the whites. Although, funnily enough, some immigrant communities may be drawn to right wing politics because they themselves are racist towards other ethnicities who have long been their traditional enemies. I know a few Orthodox Christians who are horrified about Islamic immigration into Australia. Getting as far away as possible from Muslims was why they got out of the Middle East in the first place.

It is just so interesting the fix the western world has got itself into with multiculturalism. In almost every western country, the native people are starting to do their sums and are figuring out that in the not too distant future, the minorities will be majorities, and the natives are going to be the minorities. And when that happens, only a complete fool would think that the west's defining cultural values are going to still be the dominant culture.

The degree to which any two cultures can accept each other is driven by how far apart their cultural values (that is, their widely accepted values of what is right and wrong behaviour) differ from each other. History clearly shows that where two vastly different cultures inhabit the same territory, and the minority is increasing through either immigration or birth rate differentials, the result is ALWAYS serious civil strife, call for separatism, and civil war.

In the case of civil war, (ie Yugoslavia) what happens is that the country splits into different countries, each with it's own culture defined by the majority. Which just goes to show that monoculturalism is the best way to prevent civil unrest.

The underlying philosophy of Multiculturalism is Freedom. Everybody who is granted permanent residence or citizenship is guaranteed the same freedoms and the same rights. Nobody regardless of their culture is allowed to break the law. If you want to wear a funny hat, put a wacky picture on your wall or eat some crazy food, you are free to do that and Australia is a better place because of it. Calling it multiculturalism doesn’t change anything. I would rarely eat 50% anglo / white meals in any week so hooray for multiculturalism (or maybe not since I am overweight).

When assessing multiculturalism it’s important to understand:
1) People born to a culture / ideas for the best way for a society to operate are not locked to that culture forever. Often there is a great desire to change and adapt.
The governments of Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria and many countries around the world have very few white / anglo people living in them but operate based on “western” ideas. Many middle eastern / muslim countries have adopted many “western” ideas for government as well as business and culture, in some places even when it seems to go directly against the teachings of Islam. The great majority of immigrants that come to Australia adopt Australian values and an Australian lifestyle after one or two generations. Gladys Berejiklian, Waleed Aly, Frank Lowy, Usman Khawaja, Ahn do, Robert DiPierdomenico, Hazem El-Masri, Penny Wong and many others are Aussies.

2) There aren’t evil cultures where everybody born to that culture is evil.

From Wikipedia:
A 2019 study found no impact of immigration on crime rates in Australia.[250] Foreigners are under-represented in the Australian prison population, according to 2010 figures.[31] A 1987 report by the Australian Institute of Criminology noted that studies had consistently found that migrant populations in Australia had lower crime rates than the Australian-born population.[251]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#Australia

3) White / anglo culture constantly changes and is constantly influenced by other cultures from around the world
Australia was colonised by the British but we aren’t exactly like the British today and the British today are not like the British were in 1788. One of the cornerstones of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, which we all consider a key part of western culture, is that we collect all the information and use reason to find the best course of action. We don’t care where the information came from, we use it and use reason to find the best ways to organise our society.

Multiculturalism works best where the inflow of new cultures is slow so that both the immigrants and the majority have time to adapt. Where cultures like Australia are more used to different kinds of people, we adapt quicker and make bigger efforts to help the new immigrants understand Australian culture. At the same time we still understand that the new immigrants like many of the things they were used to in their previous country. As Chris Lewis notes, though, just having a successful diverse society does not mean that cramming in as many Chinese or Indian immigrants as possible, as the government has been doing recently, is a good idea.

Ericc your naivety is breathtaking.

ericc,
The situation in Britain & here has come about through compassion. It remains to be seen if Nations other than Britain & Australia & indeed all non-wester nations will offer a similar degree of compassion for refugees.
Thus far, it appears most of them have only ever produced refugees rather than safe havens !
Those who were helped are now starting to bite the hands that took them in & in countless cases still feed them !
Ethnic diversity can only ever be seen as successful in theory !

funny how one doesn't get remarks to remarks such as this one ?