Dear Hasbeen,

I think that you're actually pulling my leg
here with your references to "real Australians."
And "Australian values."
As Peter Costello pointed out ages ago,

"Outside Australia's Indigenous People, we are ALL
immigrants or descendents of immigrants -some
earlier than others - but all with an experience of
immigration during the foundation of modern
Australia... Australia's immigration experience is
also a broad one. Originally it was Anglo-Celtic, but
after the war our immigrants came increasingly
from Europe. In more recent times, Vietnamese and
Chinese immigrants have grown considerably in numbers.
And all these immigrant communities have made successful
contributions to Australian life."

As Peter Costello points out "The Australian Citizenship Oath
or Affirmation tries to capture the essence of what it
means to be Australian. It reads as follows:

"From this time forward (under God) I pledge my loyalty
to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect and whose laws I will
uphold and obey."

To be an Australian citizen one pledges loyalty to Australia.
One pledges to share certain beliefs - democratic beliefs -
to respect the rights and liberty of others and to respect the
rule of law.

I think your fears are unwarranted.

Many people in Australia, don't connect enough with their family background - and this is part of the problem - so they don't feel the need to connect with others.

When I first decided to support a family who came out to Australia (from a very poor country), I paid for them to go to a local Royal Show.

I had people say to me personally, it would be easier for the family to stay around people of their own culture or race - as this would place less pressure on the family in question. I disagreed.

The family was taken to the Royal Show (for their first time ever) and they loved it! This is an understatement - I saw the photos and was told about their fantastic day out. The family wanted to go the following year (which they did) - and DEMANDED they pay to go themselves.

People should be more willing to realise that connecting with people of all backgrounds is not always bad - despite what some people will tell you (as a scare campaign) - and the end results are worth the effort - and you can have a lot of fun at the same time with others.

We have plenty of multicultural events all year round, along with fantastic food, stories and people (all in Australia being of a multicultural background) and are adding to our society - and this includes ALL people!

To the (negatives) out there - find out about your family history and re-evaluate your life.

Natham J,
Sure we can go to ethnic folk days, like the highland games, Irish music and german beer festivals and dragon parades, etc and have a great time. But like most multiculturalists you ignore the baggage that comes with some alien cultures. You only see the nice things and kids in colourful costumes.

You ignore the cultural aspects of honour killing, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, female oppression. The consumption of dog and cat meat, eating of maggots and spiders and other obnoxious foods. There are hundreds of alien cultural practices in the world. Would you like to see dog fights or bull fights introduced here? What about the stoning of a young girl for falling in love with a boy of different caste?

The ideology of multiculturalists is to introduce as much diversity in people as possible without any consideration to whether or not they will integrate into our society.

People,such as myself, do not fear multiculturalism but we believe community harmony is far more important than diversity, therefore immigration should not be allowed for those that have shown they cannot integrate. Multiculturalisn is in itself nothing to celebrate.

In fact MC is a misnomer, we are multi-racial but not multicultural. We expect all to obey our laws and social standards.

Banjo, "We expect all to obey our laws and social standards"

However the migrants themselves demand change to accord with their political traditions and values, even where their expectations are diametrically opposed to Australian law, values and culture (although the self-flagellating leftists deny that Australia has any culture worth keeping).

To take an example, Australian farmers and Australian society have always been revulsed by the ritual killing of food animals, rightly perceiving such practices as cruel, unnecessary and rooted in medieval, religious fundamentalist ignorance.

However the political parties and the governments they form have cooperated to allow and turn a blind eye to ritual slaughter occurring in our own backyard, even while pointing the finger elsewhere. The media, including the 'fact-checking' ABC have been complicit in keeping ritual slaughter in Australia under wraps.

It was Australia that had to concede to the demand for ritual killing and compromise its own Australian Standards. Even so, the amended allowance of stunning now NOT to instant death is not always applied.

Now it is argued that the general application of the medieval protocols of fundamentalists is 'good' for Australia. It should be added that the so-called 'moderates' of those creeds are willing, voluntary supporters of ritual killing. So much for 'moderates'.

It was only when concerned farmers kept raising the rug on ritual slaughter in Australia that the animal welfare and rights crew (and the 'fact-checking ABC) 'discovered'(sic) what was under their noses all along and for decades. As if they didn't know, or ought to have known.

As was made abundantly obvious by the experience of the UK regarding the child sex trafficking in Rotherham and other centres, the political correctness of multiculturalism can easily be protecting and even promoting shabby political pragmatism and deals to shore up votes in marginal seats.

The public should be treating with a great deal of suspicion the spruikers who demand that the public suspend their critical judgement and simply go along with political correct mantras that are never subjected to independent critical analysis.

Dear Banjo,

I understand your concerns.
However, I'm going to sound like a broken record
here but as Peter Costello pointed out -
we have laws that everyone is expected
to abide by. The laws are enacted by our Parliament
under the Australian Constitution. People who cannot
accept those laws then don't accept the
fundamentals of what Australia is and what it stand for.
Therefore is a person wants to live shall we say -
under sharia law
there are countries where they will feel at ease.
But not Australia.

And our citizen pledge should be as Costello says -
a big flashing warning sign to those who want to live
under sharia law. Any person who does not acknowledge
the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic
processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance.
As such they do not merit the pre-condition for
citizenship.

In order to live in this country we are asking all our
citizens to subscribe to a framework that can protect the
rights and liberties of all. These are Australian values.
And they are not optional. We expect all those
who call themselves Australians to subscribe to them.
Loyalty, democracy, tolerance,
the rule of law, values worth promoting, values worth
defending. The values of Australia and its citizens.

Dear Foxy,

Nobody could hold, let alone follow, hard as they may try, those "Australian values" you just mentioned, because they contradict each other - Tolerance conflicts with the other three: Loyalty, Democracy and the Rule of Law (I won't go now into the conflicts among the other three, but they also exist).

It seems that some in this forum prefer to therefore discard tolerance in favour of the others - I prefer to keep tolerance and discard the others.