I didn't mean to suggest that it was all sweetness and light for all migrants coming to Australia. Those who came after the War, up to the late sixties, came at a time when there were many infrastructure projects - delayed by the Depression and the War - in urgent need of labour - the Snowy Scheme, dams, roads, railways, electrification, schools.

A simultaneous process, and need, provided employment for many Aboriginal families who left the missions and settlements after the War to find work, any work, usually unskilled and semi-skilled work, on those massive and long-term projects. Like so many of the ten-pound immigrants, they usually had to find work on projects in rural areas for a few years before they, one way or another, could move to the cities and find work there. The sixties were good times for that.

But migrants coming later, especially from the eighties, faced different problems. The Vietnamese seemed to cope with this by grabbing what work they could AND setting up their own businesses, family businesses. Other groups may have done it tougher. And as labouring and factory jobs disappeared, to be computerised or transferred overseas, groups coming later found the going even harder.

Skilled migrants may have little difficulty finding work but others, in today's economic situation, may find it much more difficult to get regular, long-term work. Just as many Aboriginal people 'missed the boat' on employment fifty and sixty years ago, they are in danger of becoming alienated from the economy, yet dependent on it.

It's a different ball-game now from fifty and sixty years ago. Everybody needs far more education and training even before they can get into work. So the pathways to becoming embedded in Australian society are longer, more complicated, diverse and expensive. With all my heart, I wish them well.

Joe

SteeleRedux, your pathetic "standard issue" response is not wanted or respected.

I am no fan of the Nazis. They have ruined any possibility for White people to ever defend their own interests.

I thought this country stood for individualism, free speech, scoffing at orthodoxy and authority and tactless honesty.

"The vast majority of Australians are proud of our inclusiveness"

Their proud of their easygoing nature.
Which is being exploited by political and financial powers that couldn't give a toss about us.

Is Mise, I've always known we're mongrels.
But we are mongrels primarily of related peoples (Europeans), none of whom have features typical of Mongoloid or Negroid people, and whose cultures are unrelated to them (with the exception of Indic/Iranian, but that connection was severed 6000 years ago).

"Pure" race is a myth. Observably different types of people is not.
You can't tell a Tibetan from a Zulu?
Get your eyes checked.

"we can all breed together."

That's a species, not a "race".
The term "human race" is a nonsensical misnomer.

All domestic dogs can "breed together".
So can all domestic cats.
Sometimes they can even breed with wild varieties.

But you can tell the different types apart, can't you?
You can see with your naked eyes that a Dachshund is not an Alsatian.

If dogs could speak, would they not demand each breed has a right to exist, to perpetuate its own particular nature?

Would they not object to any attempt to mix everything together, creating a generic "dog"?
Yes, the "species" would survive, but look at what you'd lose.

That is the irony of the "diversity" proponents.
Mixing everyone together will actually diminish diversity!

I don't know what you've got against 'tactless honesty' Shockadelic. I try to make it a rule :)

There are (at least) two sorts of 'Diversity' proponents, as you call them:

* individuals who don't want any mixing of phenotypically differing groups at all, and for 'members' of all groups to stick with their own, and in that way to build walls around 'diversity'; somehow;

* those of us who get a buzz out of diversity and have no trouble with the notion of mixing it all up, not all that worried about any blurring of 'diversity'.

But it's really all out of our hands (as it perhaps always has been) - young people will pair up with whoever takes their fancy, now and into the future. Down the track, their offspring may define themselves, if they feel any need to, in terms of multiple backgrounds, and socialise with and marry other people from multiple backgrounds, and so it will go.

After all, most of us Anglos have no trouble, when the situation calls for it, to describe ourselves as Irish, Scottish, English, French, German, whatever. We can be all those simultaneously, in the one person. Even differentiate our ancestry as Geordie or Scouse or Cornish, Northern Irish, West Coast, Corkmen, Glaswegians, Highlanders, Borderlanders.

While it's going to be a much more difficult economic world for our children and grandchildren to find a comfortable place in, it's also - unavoidably - going to be more like a sort of smorgasbord society.

Fantastic ! Fascinating ! Go for it !

Joe

Dear Shockadelic,

Sorry mate, I was channelling you lot. 'Don't want them, don't need them, don't respect them, they are not us'. Gets a bit unpleasant doesn't it?

You wrote;

"Banjo "The best time in Aus was between 1950 and 1970" ... when native-born Australians peaked as a proportion of the population."

Kids who were born and grew up during this period represent a group whose suicide rates drove this country's statistics through the roof. Like a pig in a boa constrictor it has remained consistently high, well above average as they move through the demographics. Leading insular and inward looking lives it appears does take its toll, especially in times of peace.

Some of the posts present a pretty sad reflection of that group. Depression, despair, fears, anger, all combining in a toxic mix.

A strong case can be made that opening up our country to migration from all parts of the world has lead to young Australians with a far more rounded and grounded outlook, who now travel overseas in their hundreds of thousands, far more open to experiencing other peoples and cultures, and who are far less likely to top themselves than those of the 1950-70 cohort.

The fact that we are now seeing some of the lowest suicide rates among our young indicates a pretty forward looking bunch, far more comfortable about their place in the world and what it means to be an Australian. If you lot want to crap all over that with your depressing, bigoted and poisonous perspectives, in a thread that was celebrating our diverse land, that is your right, but ugly and sad.

I suspect you guys are come here to have your bile ducts squeezed. You get to vomit up all your nastiness but also to hear some positive messages from the likes of Foxy and Joe etc. Well if you are in that high risk group I suppose there is a public service being performed.

If that's the case then go for it lads. Stay safe. But if you get a chance do try to grow past it.

Thank you SteeleRuddex, I'm honoured to be placed in the company of Foxy :)

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth, I was defending tactless honesty, actually.
I'm so sick of everyone tiptoeing and pussyfooting, lest they "offend" someone.

"But it's really all out of our hands"

No, immigration policy is decided by the government (should be by "the people").
You can only "pair up" with someone who's *here*.

A bit difficult to canoodle with someone on the other side of the planet.
You can have phone sex, but not phone babies.

I doubt many Australians describe themselves with such minute ancestral details.
Most probably don't even know the specifics.
They do know they're some sort of "White" though.

"like a sort of smorgasbord society"

Get ready for some serious sociological indigestion.

SteeleRedux, does it occur to you that your policy is one the *causes* of suicide?

When the social reality people grow up with is yanked out from under them, that can indeed be depressing.

"I was channelling you lot. 'Don't want them, don't need them, don't respect them, they are not us'."

I thought you were channelling the faceless Muslim placard-wavers: "Behead Those Who Insult Utopianism".