Great post Marilyn,
Mickjo, being out of your depth in this discussion doesn't mean you always will be. its just means you have to try harder to like your fellow human beings.

'It was only due to an extreme labour shortage in the booming post-war economy that attitudes to the immigration of people from Southern Europe improved after World War II. The 1958 Migration Act introduced a simpler system of entry permits and abolished the Dictation Test.'

This is an extraordinary assertion.

A reading of the activities of people such as Foreign Ministers Spender and Casey, Immigration Minister and PM Holt from '49 onwards, would absolutely refute the spurious inferences of Saaed Khan. A knowledge of the legendary request, to a noted linguist, to translate the Lord's Prayer from Gaelic to English would also refute another of his unlikely assertions.

This is evidence there is a general lack of knowledge of Australian History. When such statements can be made with apparent authority, but little apparent research, the calls for a requirement for new arrivals to have some knowledge of local history doesn't go far enough. All people in Australia should be required to have the same ... especially writers of articles to journals.

An Aussie quip about covers it. We'd say the writer was talking out his ....!

The argument about the need to learn the "Australian Culture" as a condition to live in Australia is flawed.

I believe that all a person needs to adhere to is the law. It is a simple matter: If you don't follow the law, you are charged under the law. There is no choice to anyone regardless of where you were born or what your race is. For a new comer, they need to get a general understanding of the law (not the values) and they can choose to accept it and enter the country or not. For a resident, you have 3 choices: follow the law, don't follow and be charged, seek to change the law through the law.

Values change and so they should. Hopefully to the better through multi-culture contact. One good value in Australia is "System of trust". It applies to many of our everyday activities e.g. fundraiser boxes. It is a good value BUT PROTECTED BY LAW. One bad value (especially in Melbourne) is "do not let the car in the next lane a chance to change lanes infront of me". This is a value that can change by learning from others

Sorry rainier, I am suitably chastised by your superior intellect. Now where is me Playboy magazine? Oh!Bugger! the dog's eaten it!.

I'm coming to a few basic conclusions - correct me if I'm wrong on any of these counts:

1. Yes. Social cohesion is important. Language tests at suitable intervals, and instructing immigrants on Australian ways is not a bad idea. Nor should suggesting these things be labelled xenophobic.

2. The Howard Government is playing a hypocritical double game here - on the one hand, it has singled out muslims when there are many minorities with the same issues. Clear case of vote grabbing. And yeah, you can quote the violence of the koran or whatever, but if the issue is introducing a universal system of integration, you can't make those distinctions unless you are willing to start cataloguing immigrants by their religious beliefs. I'm not willing to go there, and personally, I don't think most Australians are either.

3. While the author made some dubious points, he did make one very good one - the Australian Government is considering more migrant workers.
To be fair, it is a solution to our skills crisis, which doesn't seem to be going away. How can this drive for cheap workers, quite possibly with dubious english skills, be reconciled with the recent comments by both Howard and Beazley?

I'm interested on all your thoughts on these....

Sage, calling contributors “dills” or “intellectual dwarfs” rather than addressing their substantive points suggests you have nothing significant to contribute. What do you mean precisely when you claim that “Under the rules of multiculturalism we have been forced to accept the unacceptable”? What rules? Who do you mean by “we”? What is the “unacceptable” that “we” have been “forced to accept”? Who forced us?

Peter Abelard, the use of the word “ethnic” as a noun is meaningless. We are all “ethnic”, so are you proposing a pecking order of moral worth among “ethnics”? (The same applies to mickijo’s term “ethnic people” –sneering or not.)

Alan Grey, how could you possibly mis-read the article to claim that Saeed Khan “implies that only whites can learn English”? Are you reading what you are predisposed to read?

Country Gal, your views on interpreting and translation services are callous and inhumane. These services are essential even if they simply help people in their transition years.

Angelo, when you say: “The most effective way to undermine a society is through mass immigration” have you forgotten that Australia as we know it today has been developed through successive waves of mass migration? And what do you mean when you claim that the “host population” (define?) finds muticulturalism (define?) “offensive” (evidence?).

BOAZ_David, I agree that to read the various speeches and parliamentary documents of the day would be useful if only to alert you to the irony of your calling people who agree with the writer “Ethnocentric Isolationists” or “a sorry lot of ignoramuses”.

Mickijo, there are many Australian people who genuinely ask: What are Australian values? It’s a reasonable question and reasonable people take it seriously. You don’t have to sneer when you ask it. Nor do you need to be afraid when others ask it.

The equation of immigration with terrorism is simplistic and generates baseless fear.