Is Australia British? Are most Australians British?

I looked this up on the web:

http://quora.com/Are-Australians-British

The answers came back as - NO!

Australia
is its own sovereign country and what may have existed
prior to 1940s - not longer does.

Australians no longer
travel on British passports. If they want to live in or
travel to Britain - they have to apply like any other
foreigner. The fact that our head of state is still Queen
Elizabeth is an anomaly and I expect this to change within
our lifetime.

We're told that -

"Of course we have a subset of Australians who consider
themselves British by ancestry or birth if they've NEVER
been naturalized or become citizens."

We're also told that -

They are NOT - a) Australians or b) in the majority.

"Some white Australians have ancestry from the British Isles
but would not consider themselves British. Including those
who had parents or grandparents born in England, Scotland,
Wales, or Northern Ireland. Then there's a big proportion
of that group who are of Irish ancestry."

" Other white Australians hail from a huge variety of countries
led by Greece and Italy and then from across Europe in the
post war years we have had immigration from Asia since the
19th century (the gold rush era) and then again from the
1970s onwards."

"And our Indigenous people endured throughout all these waves
of immigration having been here for 60,000 years with few
incomers until the convicts started to arrive."

"On the Australian Census people are asked to state their
ancestry. Most say - "Australian" the rest say all sorts of
things - Italian, Greek, Somali, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and
English."

"After the UK started to place all kinds of restrictions on the
entry of people and good from Australia. Most Australians
began to realize that we are no longer British."

And as stated previously the fact that our head of state is
still Queen Elizabeth is an anomaly and we can expect this to
change. Because someone has British
ancestry - that's ancestry - it does not make them British."

Foxy,

If you look up the demographics roughly 2/3rds have British heritage, climbing to 3/4 if you count the Irish.

shadow minister,

So what? Many have British ancestry.

But that's ancestry and it does not make them British.

On the Australian Census people are asked to state their
ancestry. Most say "Australia." The rest say all sorts
of things - Italian, Greek, Somali, Scottish, Irish,
Welsh, and English.

cont'd ...

shadow minister,

Back to the question of - what percentage of Australians
see themselves as British?

With an exception of a small grouping of British immigrants,
the answer would be NONE. Wee see ourselves as Australians.

A question for you - who do you barrack for when Australia
plays England in the cricket?

And I would bet that when some ignorant, radical conservative
says something ignorant and insulting about Aussies - that
person is going to need surgery to get that Union Jack our
of his rear end along with the flag pole.

shadow minister,

Just to lighten things up a bit ...

Taken from the web:

"We like the Brits. They're kind of like that uncle
that w2as cool at school many years ago and still
acts like he is cool now. We smile and chuckle at
his sarcastic humour but deep down feel a bit sorry
that the sun has set on his glory many years ago.
Despite that he's still a good uncle, just a bit
trashy."

"Our pity is not from arrogance. Aussies accept the
trashy ones that move to our beaches (Bondi). A few
days of vitamin D giving sunshine, loads of
welcoming smiles and you would never know they were
once Brits."

I think that Foxy possibly wants to wipe out British Australian's- yet doesn't see this as genocide.