Foxy,
Your reply doesn't alter the fact that Leftists are ruining society !

And I thought this topic was going to be about Australia Post not delivering ttbn's Xmas bon-bons on time.

Well said Foxy, those who think Australia should dwell in the past are kidding themselves. Multiculturalism is here to stay, and there is no going back to some mythical land of "Britishness", as some would have us do. The average Australian does not beat himself up constantly over national identity, too busy with the real issues of life.

As the passions of one culture conflict with another passionate culture we will end up like the Divided States of America. Now it is aboriginal culture, in the future it will be Islam then Chinese Coommunism. The past dominant culture was Western Colonialism that is now looked upon as evil.

Australia was settled by Britain, not by France, Holland or any other power. Of course the "average" Australian is not interested in such things. They just enjoy the way of life they have without knowing how it came about. Unfortunately, the average Australian doesn't know, or care, about very much at all these days.

Nobody so far seems to have twigged that a person definitely not from a British background values Australia’s British heritage more than the 'average' white Australian who does have such a background. Non-British immigrants have been coming here in their thousands since WW2, knowing what sort of country Australia was - well before multiculturalism, and before the insidious knocking of our culture by the Left fifth column.

I won't go into all the morbid details of how
primitive and backward this country was at the
time that my parents were invited to come. That's
well recorded as well as the many contributions that
were made by the "newbies."

In Australia things have changed from the government
policies that existed in the past. Today we view that
cultures, races and ethnicities, particularly those
of minority groups deserve special acknowledgement
of their differences within a dominant political
culture.

In the past many minority groups have experienced
exclusion or the denigration of their contributions
and identities.

Today we seek the inclusion of the views and
contributions of diverse members of society while
maintaining respect for their differences and
withholding the demand for their assimilation into
the dominant culture.

We have the new year just around the corner. With
come new hopes and opportunities. Perhaps this will
be the year that we finally acknowledge the world's
oldest living continuous culture who has cared for
this land for decades. Perhaps we will be able to
acknowledge our shared history of what happened over
time and we shall decide how we choose to confront
and acknowledge the past and the present, and that we
shall indeed strive to do better together.

We need to close many gaps and close them fast as David
Anderson points out so well in his speech.
One can only hope.