I believe you are correct. If Australia has values and culture, it is what we are and believe in today, not what we were 10, 100 or 200 years ago.

Our history is important. We need to know what made Australia we live in today.

My background is 4 or more generation Australia on all sides. I have inherited French, Irish and English blood. My religious background is both Catholic and Protestant.

Most of my ancestors where free settlers.

From nearly the beginning, Australia was enriched by many cultures, especially after WWW2.

It is this wonderful mixture that makes us an unique country in the world, not how we were originally settled.

Multiculturalism is a ‘dirty word’, and would have been whether or not 9/11 occurred. There is no connection between that event and the deliberate, undemocratic act of an official policy nobody except a few wanted – one which I clearly remember hearing about early one morning on the radio. It was going to be, and that was it. No consultation with ordinary citizens.

If multiculturalism were so good, we wouldn’t still be arguing about it 40 years later. Of course the people who forced it on us will say that they were right to commit such an outrageously undemocratic act, and that those who still oppose it are dinosaurs. Be that as it may, anyone who doesn’t see that multiculturalism is the most divisive issue in Australia has to be naturally or deliberately obtuse.

Yes, Australians were British subjects until 1948. But, the suggestion that we ‘only became “Australia” about 58 years ago’ shows appalling ignorance. Australians became Australians a very short time after arriving here. They had to, or the three, main, very different groups, English, Irish and Scottish would have started killing each other. The Celts were barely though of as ‘British’ by the English, which makes the early and successful creation of our Australianess something to be admired, not disparaged.

Only some of us ‘struggle … to articulate a national identity’, Ms. Tay. And, plese,do not tell us that we should not ‘hark back’ to our pioneers and folk heroes and think of our heritage.

You and your heritage are welcome here. But do not try to deny that this country was settled by the British government, and that our version of British laws and beliefs will always be part of Australia’s history and psyche, regardless of multicultural waffle.

'Australia's cultural diversity policy promotes acceptance of, and respect for, our cultural diversity. Our culture embraces Australian-grown customs and the heritage of Indigenous Australians, early European settlers and more recent migrants who have all contributed to making ours the diverse society it is today.

The freedom of all Australians to express and share their cultural values is dependent on maintaining balance between unity as well as diversity, and responsibility as well as rights. All Australians are expected to have an overriding loyalty to Australia and its people, and to respect the basic structures and principles underwriting our democratic society.

These principles are:

The Constitution
Parliamentary democracy
Freedom of speech and religion
English as the national language
The rule of law
Acceptance and equality. '

'...tautological humour...' Hardly. The above quote is from the Federal Government's Policy on Multiculturaliam.

The author and her family are an example of what that policy has given Australia. We should celebrate that.

The author should understand the people of the times of Paterson, the Lawsons (Both Louisa and Henry) and McKellar regarded themselves as Australians, not British. They also revelled in their diversity, even though by comparison to today it was limited. However, over the years, from those origins, we learned and changed those things we found wanting. The most notable change from that time is our newly aquired tolerance. Our acceptance and inclusion of the best of cultures without the total rejection of the British heritage.

From personal experience, today's children are probably better off learning Latin. Yep, it will require a huge measure of cultural diversity and acceptance to understand that point of view.

As Leigh has pointed out, after 40 years of multiculturalism we’re still being told how good it is. Are there any reports of Australians demonstrating in the streets demanding more multiculturalism? Have any federal ministers been kidnapped with a promise of their being set free contingent on more of this madness known as multiculturalism?

If our multiculturalism is so hot why hasn’t Peru asked us for the blueprints? Hands up all Africans who seek eudaemonia! I see many hands. What is stopping Ghana from implementing multiculturalism and ending the anomie that grips the African continent?

What concerns me is the motivations behind multiculturalism. To be apparently enriched by diversity sounds a lot like white Australians are really quite boring and dull, which I find quite offensive.

The other motivation behind the M.C sham is the supposed benefits to the economy. So where is my millions? I don't feel at all obligated to SUPPORT a social policy that doesn't really benefit MEEEE.

Hi Leigh,

You and your heritage are also welcome here in Australia. But please, don't try to foist your foreign "British beliefs" on the rest of us. We Australians can make up our own minds about how we want to live and we don't need the likes of you to decide for us.