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 ?