is a massive 4.3%
Pericles,
And here I am thinking the conservatives were the denialists ! I happen to think of the chinese as rather fine people after all they don't have fanatical religious agenda & they built my Macs. ( I have yet to see a good australian made laptop.)
The question I want to ask is what is the present chinese population here & how many would 4.3 % be ? You really shouldn't use percentages anyway, they're deceiving. Percentage is used by Government when they give themselves a pay rise i.e. $50,000/year but they revert to actual numbers i.e. Dollars when the workers get a pay rise i.e. $10/week.
Anyway, how do the chinese immigrant numbers stack up to the document-less boat arrival numbers ?

Interesting statistics, Pericles.
As one who has -very deliberately- always lived in the 'bush', I've always felt a bit hamstrung in discussions on multiculturalism. I'm pretty sure the stat concerning speaking English would be considerably higher in country towns; in fact it's quite possibly risen in the last few decades.
I seem to recall meeting many more Italians and Greeks back in the 60's, particularly in the fish shop/ green grocers and milk bar trades, as well as immigrants from all areas in the construction industry.
We do get a number of back packers passing through, but I doubt they'd be listed as “house holders”, would they?
On the rare occasions when I've been forced to the Big Smoke (Sydney or Brisbane) I've been astonished at the number of signs -in some suburbs- that I couldn't read.
It seems our perception of how multicultural we are is largely a matter of locality, as “Mr Opinion” suggests.

Ummm... that's why I provided the links to the ABS web site, individual.

>>The question I want to ask is what is the present chinese population here & how many would 4.3 % be ?<<

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2071.0main+features902012-2013

If you can't be bothered to actually click the link, I have to wonder what your agenda might be.

>>Anyway, how do the chinese immigrant numbers stack up to the document-less boat arrival numbers?<<

Oh, right.

Let's move on.

Grim opines...

>>On the rare occasions when I've been forced to the Big Smoke (Sydney or Brisbane) I've been astonished at the number of signs -in some suburbs- that I couldn't read. It seems our perception of how multicultural we are is largely a matter of locality, as “Mr Opinion” suggests.<<

That would be absolutely correct.

If you landed today from outer space (or from Hobart, say) in the middle of Hurstville, you might be forgiven for thinking that the population of Australia was primarily Chinese. Much as if you had landed in London's Earls Court in the late 1960s, you'd think it was populated entirely by young Australians.

But the numbers tell a different story, do they not.