If we guard the gates of Australian culture to keep only the traditional heterosexual, Anglican who reveres the Westminster system we would have to forget a lot of Australia’s history.

We would have to forget our iconic bush ranger, Irish Ned Kelly, our greatest military commander, Jewish General Monash, our greatest comedian, Jewish Roy Rene, our great Olympian, Yvonne Goolagong, our greatest author, homosexual Patrick White, the only Australian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, along with his male Greek lover, Manoly Lascaris, Chinese Victor Chang, pioneer in heart transplant surgery, and the iconic Simpson and his donkey at Gallipoli if we remember Simpson was a communist. In time there will be Muslims added to the list.

Sure forced marriages and female genital mutilation are horrible abuses which should not be allowed in Australia or anywhere else in the world. Those who want to practice such things in Australia should be severely punished and deported.

However, the influence is two ways. Immigrants influence Australian culture and are influenced by Australian culture. That is also true of Muslims. I know a family of Palestinians in Brisbane. There were attempts to recruit their two sons to fight in the Middle-Eastern Wars. The sons are Australians now and wanted none of it. I gave a paper at a conference held at the University of Queensland. A Malaysian who was there with his wife also gave a paper. The three of us went to the university bar after the session. After a few drinks he told me he was an atheist. If he would be open about that in Malaysia he would lose his job, be alienated from his community and might even have to serve a term in jail. He admired our academic, religious and intellectual freedom to a greater extent than I think many Australians do.

Australia can encourage immigrants to mix with other Australians by separation of religion and state. Stop government funding religious schools. Get rid of the school chaplaincy. Improve the public schools and make them places where children of any ethnic or religious background feel welcome.

Minority within a minority changes nothing.
In our country or any other forced FGM is wrong.
Forced marriage in any country, often of children is wrong.
You you disappoint me, honestly, I am an online campaigner for womens rights,away from this site.
I would think the true left can see, just how much that support is needed.
Rather than defend, automatically as csteele does, all actions of any Muslim we could look at the outside world.
India in the headlines again, why?
That country is not alone, but has seen millions of abortions, of females.
It like one child China, in India's case for cultural reasons, has promoted many more males than females.
A cultural time bomb.
Hence growing hatred for women by men who never will find a bride.
Can the left sustain the thought that defending minority's is worthy but females not?

Belly,
I can tell you why the likes of david f and paul do not like to acknowledge alien practices like forced marriage or FGM. They are so taken with the ideology of multiculturalism that they refuse to see any problems that exist. They go straight into denial and attack the person pointing out a problem. They use terms like racist and xenophobic or islamophobe for anyone that dares to point out problems.

Notice in their last posts they have at last acknowledged that some alien cultural practices are bad, but they accept that as collateral damage. The overiding ideology is more important to them. I asked the previous NSW government health minister why there had been no prosecutions relating to FGM and she replied that there were 'cultural considerations'. So you see culture and ideology comes well before consideration of pain and suffering of little girls. That is the way they think. Obviously david is far more concerned with his access to exotic foods and theatre to be critical of any aspect of MC.

At last there is to be a couple of court cases coming up relating to FGM and I will follow them closely, as they will be firsts. I support the ongoing education of 'at risk' groups that practice FGM and forced marriage but believe it needs to be supported by strong law enforcement.

People need to be made aware of problems associated with cultural practice. Only then can the matters be dealt with.

And this is a good point to interject with a riddle.

Q: What do they call a good looking Arab?

Banjo wrote: “I can tell you why the likes of david f and paul do not like to acknowledge alien practices like forced marriage or FGM. They are so taken with the ideology of multiculturalism that they refuse to see any problems that exist. They go straight into denial and attack the person pointing out a problem. They use terms like racist and xenophobic or islamophobe for anyone that dares to point out problems.

Notice in their last posts they have at last acknowledged that some alien cultural practices are bad, but they accept that as collateral damage. The overiding ideology is more important to them. I asked the previous NSW government health minister why there had been no prosecutions relating to FGM and she replied that there were 'cultural considerations'.

Dear Banjo,

The above is more justification for your xenophobia. If I had been the health minister of NSW I would have prosecuted instances of FGM.
However, you don’t just point that out as a problem.

It is reasonable to be against some practices. However, you seem to be against anything foreign. You also wrote:

“The only way to deal with alien cultural practice is to recognise them and insist they have no place here. All immigrants are informed about our society before coming here, so ignorance is no excuse.

To ignor alien cultural practices is to compromise our own culture.

Policy of integration will promote cohesiveness in the community.”
From the above it is clear that you regard all alien practices as bad. Those are the statements of a xenophobe. I do not accept the practices of forced marriage and female genital mutilation. However, I am not against all alien practices. You apparently are, and that is the attitude of a xenophobe.

Our culture is changing. We should be able to accept alien ideas, practices and attitudes depending on what they are. To reject ideas, practices and attitudes simply because they are alien is xenophobic.

Dear onthebeach,

You asked: “When was that policy [multiculturalism] ever put to a popular vote?”

Never. Australia is neither a direct nor representative democracy. The prime minister can put the country into war without a vote of parliament. If Australia were a representative democracy parliamentary approval would be necessary. If Australia were a direct democracy popular approval would be necessary. Australia is neither.

You asked: “What is the impact of immigration on our population and quality of life?”

On population it's a matter of numbers. The impact on quality of life is bad if the population increase is too great. More infrastructure is needed. Costs for almost anything go up. There is more urban sprawl, increasing pollution and destroying farmland. There is a greater carbon footprint. Species destruction accelerates with loss of habitat. New immigrants may undercut existing employment arrangements and destroy the protections for workers that unions have fought for.

I favour immigration limited to the number of people leaving Australia.

You asked: “Why do we need a higher population, and if there is a consensus a higher population is needed, what is the optimal growth per annum to avoid social problems and what is the optimal population of Australia?”

I don’t think we need a higher population. Real estate interests, Kevin Rudd and others who choose to ignore the fact that Australia is largely semi-arid with a supply of fresh water about 3% of what is available in the US which has a similar area. Possibly Australia is overpopulated now. An optimum population size depends on what people want for a life style. My guess is about 15,000,000. However, the question is unanswerable without defining the life style for that population.

Your questions have nothing to do with the thread, but it is a matter I am interested in. I belong to the Stable Population Association which is promoting a stable population. SPA recognises that if we settled on an optimum population size it would probably be politically impossible to achieve. Therefore we advocate that it should not increase.

www.PopulationParty.org.au is the address of the Stable Population Party.