A multi-cultural reality has existed since the First Fleet so its recognition since Al Grassby's tenure has simply been a turning away from unethical and shameful racism to recognition of our reality as a hybrid people, just like the Poms. Go look at the history books, Mr Right. All those snobs who ued to talk about 'breeding' are actually nice mongrel mixtures - as is the English language - of Briton, Anglo-Saxon, Pict, Jute, Norse, Norman-French contributions plus influences in language and gene pool from every place on Earth the British Empire went marauding.

I have a great interest in my German and Irish roots, I love British and Australian history, I teach and learn the Indonesian language because that quarter of a billion people one hour's flying time from Darwin are undeniably important to the future of this nation, and downright interesting in their own right.

There is no such thing as a national identiuty fixed for all time, as you seem to think. That's a just a social construct and tool of propaganda used by people with nasty, often warlike or just plain commercial motives. You are no doubt quite different to your grandparents. Cultures and languages change and influence each other. It's normal. It also empowers us to be alert to what shapes us and what goes into our minds and comes out of our mouths (and keyboards), don't you think?

Quoting Right:

"You are either Australian, Canadian, or you are a hybrid...People qualifying their nationality...must have their loyalty questioned."

Further to comments by KeriC and Phillip Mahnken, I add that these above comments are falsehoods. To assert Australians' hybridity is a truism of biology if we trace back far enough. Notions of ethnic purity are repulsive, leading to ignorance too dangerous for us all. European preoccupations with such fantasies are especially absurd if we examine the ongoing ethnic flux brought by whirlpools of invasions, migrations and mass evacuations.

If someone inquires about my ethnic identity, I describe for them my own particular hybrid background. I accept that some indigenous ethnicities in central Australia may be harder to trace for their much earlier mixing, but there we can deduce such processes from language similarities between neighboring peoples too.

As an Australian who uses 2nd and 3rd LOTE conversationally I have had my loyalty questioned many times, Right. Each time, such "questioning" was by an "Australian" who did not acknowledge any hybrid identity. However, such people typically had more ethnically mixed background than myself!

As a related aside for general warning, we should lament the modern racism of some extremist Israeli Jews who denigrate "Arab" ethnicity and even Sabra identity: "anti-Semitism" by definition, but apparently spawned from fanatical cults of European supremacy since the 18th century.