It is tue, walking around Melbourne is vastly different to 20 years ago. There are a lot of East and South Asians.

We are becoming more like New York where the city is much less dominated by Europeans.

When i went to watch the NFL at Metlife stadium, the crowd was the opposiite of NY, mostly anglo celtic in terms of origin.

I spoke to a friendly American on train about the difference, and he explained that many Europeans had moved out to areas like Long Island.

For example, LIttle Italy in NY has shrunk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/nyregion/little-italy-manhattan-fire.html

Our major cities are also beconomg like NY, but NY is much more diverse than Melbourne given its many nationalities, at leaast in terms of racial appearance

I see like most debates on the forum this one has also split along party lines. With the forever optimists on one side, and the eternal pessimists on the other. Before we can look forward to the future we need to recognise the past. As some would have it the past is that idealistic image of a people made up of mostly Banjo Patterson characters, swaggies and stockmen, which is comfortable and reassuring but untrue. The past was made up firstly of the indigenous people of the land, who have been hardy recognised and then grossly mistreated by later arrivals. Then there were the colonists from all over the world, some arriving by choice, some given no choice. Most new arrivals, earlier British, later European and now from all parts of the world, along with the old hands of several generations, have made a reasonably good success of life in Australia, but not always without some of the pain that goes with battling along. Describing Australia simply as "the lucky country" is also in part a fabrication. Australians have endured their share of natural disasters, fires, floods and droughts, along with man made catastrophes, wars and depressions, and a few other things as well.

The pessimists, with their doom and gloom are wrong to think Australians only has a bleak future to look forward to. We will have setbacks again, that's to be expected, but given the mix of young and old, new and not so new people, with multiculturalism playing its part, I think Australia will continue on a path of success well into the future.

Australian needs more news stories like this to test our immigration patterns.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/british-muslims-ipsos-mori-liberal-imams-islam-a8334196.html

Foxy,

I know a great title for the world's shortest book:

Mighty Australian Figures of History

Mighty Australian Figures of History
Mr Opinion,
With "Mighty" including monumental failures !

Dear Hasbeen,

A large proportion of Chinese immigration comes through the business skills pathway.

There requirements are;

A net value of at least AUD1.5 million, an annual business turnover of at least AUD3 million for at least 2 of the 4 fiscal years, and total net assets of at least AUD400,000 as the ownership interest in one or more qualifying businesses for least 2 of the 4 fiscal years.

These are like expat Australians a group of which I have been part of in the past. They are congregating in the wealthier suburbs of our capital cities and bringing about changes in the ambience of those communities.

This initiative was pushed hard by the coalition government and supported by LNP voters over the years because these migrants weren't 'freeloaders' or 'boat arrivals'. But given the corrupt nature of business in China one suspects that this class of business migrant may well have a corrupting influence on our political systems which will need close scrutiny. I don't know about you but I feel more comfortable aobut those coming to this country with out a hell of a lot and working their way up will end up being a lot more invested in keeping this country fair and egalitarian.