Ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity has been
a feature of this country's society since the beginning
of British colonisation in the 18th century.

Post settlement migration included Malays, Chinese, Japanese,
Filipinos, and Afghans, as well as Irish, English, Scots and
Germans to name just a few. Prior to this the Malacans and
Melanesians had traded and periodically co-located over
centuries with Indigenous Australians in the far north.

The end of WWII triggered large scale migration across the
globe. While the foundations of the White Australia policy
were laid down in 1901 - principally to prohibit the
importation of Pacific Island sugar workers, Australia's need
for labour and an increased population led to the mass
settlement of displaced victims of Europe's World War.

Since 1945 approximately 7 million people from over 180
countries have migrated to Australia. That is around one
million migrants each decade since 1950.

Australia's economy increased six-fold over that time. Over
the last decade migrants from India, China, the Middle East
and Africa have contributed to Australia's cultural,
linguistic, and religious diversity.

Today over 260 languages are spoken in Australia by people
of 270 different ancestries. The language diversity gives
Australia a competitive edge in an increasing transnational
world.

A commitment to multiculturalism to manage the diversity within
the framework of Australian values and laws, has had the broad
support of Australian governments for over 30 years.

Within the framework of our legal and political system,
cultural and linguistic diversity remains an ever-present
feature of our cultural and national life.

Mhaze

Thanks for that twaddle-busting post. Spot on.

All civilizations started in a tribal state, a fact that Marxists Woke and Banjo Paterson deny. Marxist's always deny nature the truth is both nature and nurture are important.

"twaddle-busting" the words of the number one twaddler himself!

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Dear ttbn,

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You wrote :

1. « … you keep on addressing me … »
.

No, ttbn, I do not. I address the ideas and opinions you express and I direct my response to you because it is you who expresses them.

That’s standard procedure for Open Comment Forums on the internet, such as OLO.

In addition to expressing ideas and opinions on the forum, you are, first and foremost, a prolific poster of topics that you submit assiduously to the participants for discussion.

As you may have noticed, I usually direct my comments to whoever submits the topics for discussion, and to whoever expresses the opinions I wish to comment on.
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2. « … you keep on addressing me as though I am interested in your opinions of my opinions. I am not interested; »
.

I appreciate your frankness, ttbn.

Please be assured that any comments I may consider worth making on your posts and topics for discussion in future will be for the benefit of anonymous recipients.

That way, you will be free to choose to read or ignore them as you wish, just as I am free to choose to read your posts and topics for discussion or ignore them if I wish.

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Here's a brief summation taken from
our national broadcaster on the history of
multiculturalism:

We're told that:

Our history is filled with attempts to shape and
re-shape policies and attitudes towards cultural diversity
and immigration, being both welcoming and unwelcoming to
those beyond our shores.

The White Australia policy formally the Immigration
Restriction Act was introduced in 1901.

It gave British
migrants preferance over others and at the time had wide
community support. This policy after World War II
was gradually dismantled.

Today 30% of Australians were born overseas and since the
arrival of the first Europeans the country has taken in
an estimated 10 million migrants. Historical records tell
us we didn't get here by accident.

It's interesting to note that at the same time as thousands
of refugees arrived the government was searching for ways
to address the severe worker shortage and "populate and
perish," became the catch-cry of a massive recruitment
campaign which saw about 2 million immigrants arrive 1945
- 1965.

We're told that the 1970s were focused on policies and
programs to help new arrivals integrate into society.
The Multicultural Framework Review Statement given
earlier was made in Parliament by Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull in 2017 to ensure that migrants did not suffer
social inequality.

It was under Malcolm Fraser that more than 50,000 Vietnamese
were settled in Australia.

This ongoing trend towards integration continued - with a
series of institutions being created to cater for the
country's increasingly diverse community. Including the
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). To mention just one.

Of course we also had the nay-sayers. When John Howard
became PM in 1996 he removed multicultural funding from
the budget. Then we had Pauline Hanson come on the
political scene spreading fear.

The work of a society is
never done. How to integrate people and how we can
reconcile the past, present, and future are ongoing issues
and still very important today.

How we deal with them is up to us.

"We're all migrants of either today, yesterday, or the
day before. Australia is a migrant country. It will always
be so."