Dr Who,
If your husband was not born here, he must take out citizeship if he wants to be Aussie. However I was unaware that non-citizens could join our defence forces. I have a step son who had to take out citizenship to join the public service in Canberra.

sneekeepete,
I think you are not facing reality as you have not said what action you would take about those cultural groups that will not reciprocate. What do you propose about those that will not or cannot accept that our laws and social standards are above any cultural practices they may have? I am interested to see your proposals and I am open to suggestions.

Do we simply accept that Lebanese muslim males are rude, abusive and arrogant to females and keep importing them. Most other muslims are not like this nor are non-muslim Lebanese. What people do in other countries is their affair but I will not accept that any young girl in Aus should have to endure the barbaric practice of FGM. Australia is not the place for them. No more of these groups should be accepted.What about the Croats and Serbs do we just accept they will continue to fight each other, after soccer, for x generations to come.

Please do not simply say the law will prevail. I have already shown TRTL how inept our laws are. I have made representations to the NSW Minister for Health about FGM and fobbed off. It will take the death of a young girl or two before anything at all is done. Only then if the media decides to run with it until some other issue comes up.

Our laws cannot even stop our kids from mistreatment and abuse

The original inhabitants of Australia have been experiencing a lot of problems with immigrants for the last few hundred years.
Introduced diseases and the use of guns killed off a lot of the indiginous population. The new arrivals then set about taking over ownership of the country and inviting a whole lot of other immigrants to join them.
If the original immigrants had to satisfy the present requirements to become a resident of Australia then there would not be so many people in the country today.

Pericles..

we fire people on the basis of 'bottom line' in terms of job performance and suitability to the task and the amount of work at hand. YES.. I didn't suggest otherwise.

the POINT (finger required again) is that in a multi ethnic/ multi religious workforce where the groups tend to cling... THEY will be just as likely to do the 'math' *Hmmm he probably fired so and so because he doesn't like Muslims* or the such like.
Just imagine if Cronulla had happened the week b4 you need to let a Lebanese Muslim worker go eh ?
nah..of course they would see your white skippy rear end as 'squeeky clean' :)

Boaz, I must have misunderstood.

>>we fire people on the basis of 'bottom line' in terms of job performance and suitability to the task and the amount of work at hand. YES.. I didn't suggest otherwise.<<

For a moment I thought you were suggesting that you would avoid firing your non-skippies for fear of being seen as racist.

Oh, wait a minute...

>>Just imagine if Cronulla had happened the week b4 you need to let a Lebanese Muslim worker go eh ? nah..of course they would see your white skippy rear end as 'squeeky clean'<<

Hmm, it would appear that's exactly what you were saying.

If your paranoid fear and loathing has reached the level where you cannot bring yourself to manage your workforce efficiently in case you upset someone's ethnic sensibilities, I strongly suggest that you restrict your hiring practices to skippies, thus avoiding any possible discomfort.

Would that solve your problem? I somehow doubt it would be entirely positive to your bottom line, but - as long as it keeps you happy.

Incidentally, you keep harping on about Cronulla. Despite your relentless efforts to fan the flames, there has been remarkably little by way of racial conflagration, following that little beachside skirmish. Continually repeating "remember Cronulla (casualties: nil)" does little for your reputation as a reliable social commentator.

Have a great day.

Dr. Who: I recently took Australian citizenship, though have lived here the majority of my life. Did I feel any different by taken on Australian citizenship? Well I was able to vote (though guessing your husband already is able to do this if he served in the armed forces). I will possibly be called for jury duty? But other than that, the interview process and ceremony were sadly anti climatic. I am not sure if I expected fireworks or similar. Am I more Australian in the past 6-8 weeks than before ... well, legally yes.

Having travelled overseas I've seen the difference in perception to Australians compared to other nationalaties.

The odd thing is that if this thread were being debated in Europe, US, Asia or other areas around the globe, they could tell you what being Australian is. For those that have travelled and showed their Australian passport, even in remote places there is an acceptance of our culture and peoples far beyond many others, certainly Western cultures.

So for those Australians unaware of what being Australian is, I suggest you travel to Vietnam, Mexico, Kenya, Germany, Russia and other places and show your Australian passport - if a dual citizen then show your other one! You'll see a marked change.

Banjo, you say you've shown me how inept the law is, but I haven't actually seen much by way of supporting material there.

I'm aware of the inadequacies of our law, in fact it's something of a pet interest of mine, which is why I advocate the use of the inquisitorial system used in places such as Germany and Japan instead of the british adversarial model.
This can be seen largely because they have higher percentages of successful prosecution. Concerns that this is because offenders aren't given adequate defence aren't legitimate, because they also have lower rates of wrongful imprisonment. It's just a better system, albeit less profitable for barristers and solicitors.

That being said, I think the systemic failures of our legal system go far beyond minor issues of immigration, and I reject the assertion that you've shown the legal system can't be adapted to cope with these issues.

If everybody who was banging on about the side issue of immigration focused their attention on law reform, we'd be far better off.

You haven't actually made any substantial references to the failures of our legal system, and quite frankly, I think the whole immigration thing is a petty side issue to a legal system that's spawning a whole raft of problems, from unaffordable liability insurance squeezing out community groups, through to social inequities in sentencing and a culture of sanctioned corruption.