Today being Legacy Day I purchased my pin and had a thought for the boys and men we have lost in conflicts, and the ones that are left behind. When I arrived home my bride told me of two girls in school uniform selling Legacy badges in a large shopping mall being asked to leave in no uncertain terms by a security guard. The girls beat an embarrassed and hasty retreat but the shopper who they were selling the badge to called the school to report the incident.
The school rang the mall and it seems that the immigrant security guard has a loose grip on English and our customs, so he quite rightly seen it as an obvious breach of mall regulations.

I have always found the "Americanisation process" that the yanks have their migrants go through before citizenship a bit corny, what does it matter to the migrant who George Washington was; they are interested in the here and now. But the long term sense in pushing the star spangled and apple pie aspect of the society is obvious in the way that minority groups readily identify themselves as "American Lebanese, American Armenians, American Italians etc, excepting the African Americans who claim their heritage as first call because they were not immigrants.

Here in Australia it is Greek Australian, Lebanese Australian, or just I'm Vietnamese etc. We should employ a non sectarian, non political indoctrination program on what our society is about, its social idiosyncrasy and the expectations of your fellow Australians rather than the Commonwealth Governments expectation of yourself. Most new chums go onto a benefit of one sort or another and the fulfillment of such a course should be a requisite of getting that benefit and indeed citizenship. But we don't, and we won't, because the politically correct social engineers do not want a national identity as that breeds compatriotism.

Shopping centres are private property with public access and permission needs to be sought from centre management before peddling your wares. Doesn't matter who, or what, the cause. If they didn't need permission you wouldn't make in five feet without someone ELSE trying to flog you something. Then you'd be whinging about that.

I'm sorry, I got lost from there trying to figure out your point.

I bought my pen said thanks to the two ex diggers and moved on.
We can hardly verbally kick your bloke for not knowing.
And bet you, if we in his country got kicked for not understanding you would be upset.

Sonofgloin,
I understand where you are coming from and what you are saying,and it is unfortunate that the girls were prevented from selling the Legacy badges in the mall. It is a pity that the girls did not insist to see the management as Legacy is a cultural tradition in Aus.

While potential migrants receive information about our society and culture, that cannot be expected to cover every aspect and migrants still need to learn a lot by experience.

The biggest problem we have in this area is multiculturalism which infers that people coming here can carry on their way of life as they always have done and that we will accomodate their cultural ways.

Sadly, because of MC, we have failed to keep our patiotism to Australia. We see people supporting many other countries over and above Aus, even some that are born here refer to themselves as nationals of their parents origin. We have seen Kurds and others demonstrating about something in their country of origin, Serbs and Croats born here fighting over some old disputes and now the Sri Lankans and Tamils are doing the same. Third generation Lebanese still refer to themselves as Lebs.

We need to abandon the ideology of MC completely and promote Australian society and nationality. We have much to be proud of, including the tradition of Legacy.

Guys I am not hooking into the guard, as I said he was rightly enforcing policy, but it is his ignorance of it "being a given" in Australia that school kids in uniform selling Legacy badges have free run of the streets and shopping precincts for the day that I address.

Westfield, Lend Lease and the other retail operators allow the sale of Legacy badges as a social and cultural responsibility. I expect that it is such a cultural norm that they do not send out a memo to mall managers reminding them that Legacy badge sellers will be operating on that day, it's "a given".

StG my point is cultural indoctrination. In the USA you can be from Mars and follow your cultural bent within the broader society (within the existing laws), but there is a mandatory Americana historical, cultural, and social course you must complete if you are a legal migrant in the US. Public servants who are posted overseas receive an indoctrination on the culture they are about to move to, but we bring in migrants with no common language and vastly different cultural backgrounds and expect them to look learn understand and integrate without help.

Migrants tend to enclave, they have language issues, they become insular so their ability to comprehend the “flavour” of the society they have moved to is limited, and they misunderstand what is evident to we who were born here. If I were dictator tomorrow I would institute an indoctrination syllabus that would encompass the following subjects”
Indigenous culture and history
Australian history
Arts
Civics and citizenship
Cultural institutions
Events
Film and television
Literature
Recreational activities
Sports

As I said we indoctrinate our public servants before overseas postings but we do nothing for our new chums and wonder why they do not know about Legacy Day.

sonfogloin:" there is a mandatory Americana historical, cultural, and social course you must complete if you are a legal migrant in the US"

Actually there isn't, you can become a permanent resident and get a green card without any sort of 'social course' or even an English language requirement (the US doesn't have an official language).

What you are describing is the study required for the citizenship test. Australia also has a citizenship test.

In any case, I don't think the US is a very good example of your vision of cultural integration through immigration coursework.
Quite the opposite in fact.

Also, what you take a given, in that everyone is aware of Legacy Day and the 'unwritten rules' associated with it is a fantasy. You may be, but I reckon a very good percentage of native born citizens are in fact not.