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Multiculturalism in Australia is today reflected by the multicultural composition of its people, its immigration policies, its prohibition on discrimination, equality before the law of all persons, as well as various cultural policies which promote diversity, such as the formation of the Special Broadcasting Service. [1]
According to the 2011 census, 26% of the population were born overseas and a further 20% had at least one parent born overseas. [2] Aboriginal Australians make up approximately 2.5% of the population. [3] Australia's diverse migrant communities have brought with them food, lifestyle and cultural practices, which have been absorbed into mainstream Australian culture. [4] [5]
From Federation until after the Second World War, Australia adhered to the White Australia policy. The policy was dismantled after the war by various changes to the immigration policy of the Australian government.
Prior to European colonisation, the Australian continent had been inhabited by various Aboriginal peoples for around 60,000 years, and the Torres Strait Islands was inhabited by various groups of Torres Strait Islander peoples. Among them they spoke at least 250 mutually unintelligible languages [6] (linguist Claire Bowern suggests up to 363 [7] ), which included around 800 dialects. An estimated 120 of these were still spoken as of 2016, and several more are being revived through language revival programmes. [8]
Makassan trepangers (along with shipwrecked Dutch sailors) made contact with Indigenous Australians along the northern coast of Australia during the 17th and mid-18th centuries, although this did not lead to permanent settlement. [9] Beginning with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, waves of European settlers began to emigrate to the Australian continent. By 1901, the Australian continent consisted of six British colonies, which in 1901 agreed to federate into one state. [10]
The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 , known informally as the White Australia policy, restricted non-European immigration to Australia from 1901 to 1973. The policy limited the ethnic and cultural diversity of the immigrant population. The policy was an attempt to preserve the "Anglo-Saxon" ethno-cultural identity of the Australian nation, promote European immigration, and to exclude persons who did not fit the European, predominantly Anglo-Celtic, character of Australian society. As the twentieth century progressed and the number of migrants from the United Kingdom became insufficient to meet labour shortages, immigrants came increasingly from other parts of Europe, such as Italy, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, and the former Yugoslavia. [11] The prevailing attitude to migrant settlement up until this time was based on the expectation of assimilation—that is, that migrants should shed their cultures and languages and rapidly become indistinguishable from the host population. [12]
From the mid-1960s until 1973, when the final vestiges of the White Australia policy were removed, policies started to examine assumptions about assimilation. They recognised that many migrants, especially those whose first language was not English, experienced hardships as they settled in Australia, and required more direct assistance. Governments also recognised the importance of ethnic organisations in helping with migrant settlement. Expenditure on migrant assistance and welfare increased in the early 1970s in response to these needs. [12]
Following the initial moves of the Whitlam government in 1973, further official national multicultural policies were implemented by Fraser's conservative Coalition government in 1978. [13] The Labor Government of Bob Hawke continued with these policies during the 1980s and early 1990s, and were further supported by Paul Keating up to his electoral defeat 1996. "CALD" (or Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) policies continue to be implemented at all levels of government and public service, such as medical support systems which cater specifically to non-English speaking residents. [14]
The meaning of multiculturalism has been altered significantly since its formal introduction to Australia. Originally it was understood by the mainstream population as a need for acceptance that many members of the Australian community originally came from different cultures and still had ties to it. [15] However, it came to mean the rights of migrants within mainstream Australia to express their cultural identity. It is now often used to refer to the notion that people in Australia have multiple cultural or ethnic backgrounds.
The overall level of immigration to Australia has grown during the last decades. Net overseas immigrants increased from 30,000 in 1993 [16] to 118,000 in 2003–04, [17] and 262,500 in 2016–17. [18]
According to the 2011 census, 26% of the population were born overseas, with a further 20% having at least one parent born overseas. Of the population born overseas, 82% lived in the capital cities. [2] Aboriginal Australians make up approximately 2.5% of the population. [3] In 2008, Australia was ranked 18th in the world in terms of net migration per capita, ahead of Canada, the US and most of Europe. [19]
According to the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia in 2014, the Australian Government was concerned with three broad policy areas: cultural identity, social justice, and economic efficiency. [20]
Members of a multicultural community who are not of Anglo-Australian background and/or not "assimilated", in that they are born elsewhere and speak another language at home, are sometimes referred to in policy discourse as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), particularly in Australia, where it was introduced in 1996 to replace non-English speaking background (NESB), [21] [22] [23] [24] as it goes beyond linguistic factors. The term is mostly used to "distinguish the mainstream community from those in which English is not the main language and/or cultural norms and values differ", but is not inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to whom a different set of attributes belong. [25] [26]
By 1973, the term "multiculturalism" had been introduced, and migrant groups were forming state and national associations to maintain their cultures, and promote the survival of their languages and heritages within mainstream institutions. Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki pursued multiculturalism as a social policy while chair of the Social Patterns Committee of the Immigration Advisory Council to the Whitlam Labor government. [12]
The following is a timeline of government policies on and various bodies created to support multiculturalism over the years: [12]
As of September 2022 [update] , Multicultural Affairs is part of the Department of Home Affairs. [12]
The Australian Multicultural Council's term runs from 2022 to 2025. It "is a ministerially appointed body representing a broad cross-section of Australian interests that provides independent and robust advice to Government on multicultural affairs, social cohesion and integration policy and programs". [28]
The earliest academic critics of multiculturalism in Australia were the philosophers Lachlan Chipman [29] and Frank Knopfelmacher, [30] sociologist Tanya Birrell [31] and the political scientist Raymond Sestito. [32] [ when? ] Chipman and Knopfelmacher were concerned with threats to social cohesion, while Birrell's concern was that multiculturalism obscures the social costs associated with large scale immigration that fall most heavily on the most recently arrived and unskilled immigrants. Sestito's arguments were based on the role of political parties. He argued that political parties were instrumental in pursuing multicultural policies, and that these policies would put strain on the political system and would not promote better understanding in the Australian community. [33] [34]
Prime Minister John Curtin supported White Australia policy, saying, "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race". [35]
Prime Minister Stanley Bruce was a supporter of the White Australia Policy, and made it an issue in his campaign for the 1925 Australian Federal election. [36]
It is necessary that we should determine what are the ideals towards which every Australian would desire to strive. I think those ideals might well be stated as being to secure our national safety, and to ensure the maintenance of our White Australia Policy to continue as an integral portion of the British Empire. [36] We intend to keep this country white and not allow its people to be faced with the problems that at present are practically insoluble in many parts of the world. [37]
Labor leader H. V. Evatt said in 1945 at the United Nations Conference on International Organization:
You have always insisted on the right to determine the composition of your own people. Australia wants that right now. What you are attempting to do now, Japan attempted after the last war [the First World War] and was prevented by Australia. Had we opened New Guinea and Australia to Japanese immigration then the Pacific War by now might have ended disastrously and we might have had another shambles like that experienced in Malaya. [38]
Historian Geoffrey Blainey achieved mainstream recognition as a critic of multiculturalism when he wrote that multiculturalism threatened to transform Australia into a "cluster of tribes". In his 1984 book All for Australia , Blainey criticised Australian multiculturalism for tending to emphasise the rights of ethnic minorities at the expense of the majority population and for being "anti-British", despite Britons being the largest ethnic group to have migrated to Australia. According to Blainey, such policies created divisions and threatened national cohesion. He argued that "the evidence is clear that many multicultural societies have failed and that the human cost of the failure has been high" and warned that "we should think very carefully about the perils of converting Australia into a giant multicultural laboratory for the assumed benefit of the peoples of the world". [39]
In one of his numerous criticisms of multiculturalism, Blainey wrote:
For the millions of Australians who have no other nation to fall back upon, multiculturalism is almost an insult. It is divisive. It threatens social cohesion. It could, in the long-term, also endanger Australia's military security because it sets up enclaves which in a crisis could appeal to their own homelands for help.
Blainey remained a persistent critic of multiculturalism into the 1990s, denouncing multiculturalism as "morally, intellectually and economically ... a sham."
Historian John Hirst argued that while multiculturalism might serve the needs of ethnic politics and the demands of certain ethnic groups for government funding for the promotion of their separate ethnic identity, it is a perilous concept on which to found national policy. [40] Hirst identified contradictory statements by political leaders that suggested the term was a nonsense concept. These included the policies of Prime Minister Bob Hawke, a proponent of multiculturalism while at the same time promoting a citizenship campaign and stressing the common elements of our culture, [41] and anti-multiculturalism statements by Prime Minister Howard, who aroused the ire of multiculturalists who thought that he was suggesting closing down Italian restaurants and prohibiting the speaking of the Italian language when he proposed no such thing. [40]
According to Hirst, multiculturalism denies the existence of a host Australian culture:
Insofar as multiculturalism makes what it calls 'Anglo-Celts' the equivalent of Italians and Turks, it denies the very notion of a host. [Multiculturalists assert] we are all immigrants of many cultures, contributing to a multicultural society. This may serve the needs of ethnic politics. As a serious historical or sociological analysis it is nonsense. To found policy on it may be perilous. [40]
Critics have argued that multiculturalism was introduced as official policy in Australia without public support or consultation. According to academic Mark Lopez: "Multiculturalism was developed by a small number of academics, social workers and activists, initially located on the fringe of the political arena of immigration, settlement and welfare. The authors responsible for versions of the ideology were also principal actors in the struggle to advance their beliefs and make them government policy". Lopez asserts that through "core groups and activists' sympathisers and contacts ... multiculturalism became government policy ... because the multiculturalists and their supporters were able to influence the ideological content of the Minister's sources of policy ... Contemporary public opinion polls implied ... in the general population, a widespread resentment, or a lack of interest, of the kinds of ideas advanced by multiculturalists. ... The original constituency for multiculturalism was small; popular opinion was an obstacle, not an asset, for the multiculturalists." Furthermore, according to Lopez: "Multiculturalism was not simply picked up and appreciated and implemented by policy makers, government and the major political parties ... [I]n every episode that resulted in the progress of multiculturalism, the effectiveness of the political lobbyists was a decisive factor. ... [Multiculturalism was] tirelessly promoted and manoeuvered forward". [13] However, the above argument have been contested by others, who note that "Government sponsored conferences were in fact held at least once a year from 1950 to discuss immigration issues and to provide information for both government and the Australian public". [42]
Critics associated with the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University argued in 1993 that both right and left factions in the Australian Labor Party have adopted a multicultural stance for the purposes of increasing their support within the party. [43] A manifestation of this embrace of multiculturalism has been the creation of ethnic branches within the Labor Party and ethnic branch stacking. [44]
In 1996, John Howard's Liberal-National Coalition was elected to government. Howard had long been a critic of multiculturalism, releasing his One Australia policy in the late 1980s which called for a reduction in Asian immigration.[ citation needed ] He later retracted the policy, citing his then position as wrong.[ citation needed ] Shortly after the Howard government took office, a new independent member of Parliament, Pauline Hanson, made her maiden speech in which she was highly critical of multiculturalism, saying that a multicultural society could never be strong.[ citation needed ] Hanson went on to form her own political party, One Nation. One Nation campaigned strongly against official multiculturalism, arguing that it represented "a threat to the very basis of the Australian culture, identity and shared values" and that there was "no reason why migrant cultures should be maintained at the expense of our shared, national culture.". [45]
Despite many calls for Howard to censure Hanson,[ citation needed ] his response was to state that her speech indicated a new freedom of expression in Australia on such issues, and that he believed strongly in freedom of speech.[ citation needed ] Rather than official multiculturalism, Howard advocated instead the idea of a "shared national identity", albeit one strongly grounded in certain recognisably Anglo-Celtic Australian themes, such as "mateship" and a "fair go".[ citation needed ] The name of the Department of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Indigenous Affairs was changed to the "Department of Immigration and Citizenship". However, Australia maintained a policy of multiculturalism, and government introduced expanded dual-citizenship rights.[ citation needed ]
Following the upsurge of support for the One Nation Party in 1996, Lebanese-born Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage published a critique in 1997 of Australian multiculturalism in the book White Nation. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Whiteness studies, Jacques Lacan and Pierre Bourdieu, Hage examined a range of everyday discourses that implicated both anti-multiculturalists and pro-multiculturalists alike. [46]
In exploring the discourse of multiculturalism others have argued that the threat to social cohesion and national identity have been overstated. [47] [48] For instance, Ramakrishan (2013) argues that the "largely European" cultural traditions of the population have been maintained despite greater ethnic diversity. [47] Others have asserted that the emphasis on notions such as 'Identity, citizenship, social cohesion and integration' serves more as a catchphrase rather than pragmatic attempts to address the given issues. [49]
A number of projects by government and non-government entities have been established to facilitate multiculturalism in Australia.
The capital, Canberra, developed a tradition of holding the National Multicultural Festival, held over a week in February. It was officially established in 1996. [50]
Harmony Day was established in 1999 by the Howard government, to promote a singular and unifying notion of Australian-ness within multicultural policy. [51]
The history of Australia is the history of the land and peoples which comprise the Commonwealth of Australia. The modern nation came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a federation of former British colonies. The human history of Australia, however, commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and continues to the present day multicultural democracy.
The White Australia policy was a set of racial policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origins – especially Asians and Pacific Islanders – from immigrating to Australia in order to create a "white/British" ideal focused on but not exclusively Anglo-Celtic peoples. Pre-Federation, the Australian colonies passed many anti-Chinese immigration laws mainly using Poll Taxes, with Federation in 1901 came discrimination based on the Dictation Test, which effectively gave power to immigration officials to racially discriminate without mentioning race. The policy also affected immigrants from Germany, Italy, and other European countries, especially in wartime. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973, when the Whitlam government removed the last racial elements of Australia's immigration laws.
Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ethnic or cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society. It can describe a mixed ethnic community area where multiple cultural traditions exist or a single country. Groups associated with an indigenous, aboriginal or autochthonous ethnic group and settler-descended ethnic groups are often the focus.
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assimilates the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
Cultural conservatism is described as the protection of the cultural heritage of a nation state, or of a culture not defined by state boundaries. It is sometimes associated with criticism of multiculturalism, anti-immigration sentiment, and opposition to illegal immigration. Because their cultural preservationist objectives are in conflict with those of anti-racists, cultural conservatives are often accused of racism. Despite this, however, cultural conservatism can be more nuanced in its approach to minority languages and cultures; it is sometimes focused upon heritage language learning or threatened language revitalization, such as of the distinctive local dialect of French in Quebec, Acadian French, Canadian Gaelic, and the Mi'kmaq language in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, or the Irish language in Newfoundland. Other times cultural conservatism is more focused upon the preservation of an ethnic minority's endangered ancestral culture, such as those of Native Americans.
The Australian continent was first settled when ancestors of Indigenous Australians arrived via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea over 50,000 years ago.
The immigration history of Australia began with the initial human migration to the continent around 80,000 years ago when the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians arrived on the continent via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea. From the early 17th century onwards, the continent experienced the first coastal landings and exploration by European explorers. Permanent European settlement began in 1788 with the establishment of a British penal colony in New South Wales. From early federation in 1901, Australia maintained the White Australia Policy, which was abolished after World War II, heralding the modern era of multiculturalism in Australia. From the late 1970s there was a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries.
Geoffrey Norman Blainey, is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator.
James Jupp AM was a British-Australian political scientist and author. He was Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University and an adjunct professor of the RMIT University in Melbourne. He was an Australian citizen and resident of Canberra.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. Australia has a total area of 7,688,287 km2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest country by area in Oceania. It is the world's oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with some of the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates including deserts in the interior and tropical rainforests along the coast.
All for Australia is a 1984 book by Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey. It criticises Australian immigration policy and the direction in which it is pushing the country. The book examines the way policy developed in the 1970s and 1980s and explores what Blainey views as the disproportionately high levels of Asian immigration to Australia since the mid-1970s.
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for a racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on citizenship as a legal status, though the Constitutional framers considered the Commonwealth to be "a home for Australians and the British race alone", as well as a "Christian Commonwealth". Since the postwar period, Australia has pursued an official policy of multiculturalism and has the world's eighth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 30 percent of the population in 2019.
Australian studies forms part of the academic field of cultural studies. It involves an examination of what constructs Australia's national identity. This area of scholarship traditionally involves the study of Australian history, society and culture but can be extended to the study of Australian politics and economics. This area of scholarship also includes the study of Australia's Indigenous population, Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.
One Australia was the immigration and ethnic affairs policy of the Liberal-National Opposition in Australia, released in 1988. The One Australia policy proclaimed a vision of "one nation and one future". It called for an end to multiculturalism and opposed a treaty with Aboriginal Australians.
Criticism of multiculturalism questions the ideal of the maintenance of distinct ethnic cultures within a country. Multiculturalism is a particular subject of debate in certain European nations that are associated with the idea of a nation state. Critics of multiculturalism may argue against cultural integration of different ethnic and cultural groups to the existing laws and values of the country. Alternatively critics may argue for assimilation of different ethnic and cultural groups to a single national identity.
Multiculturalism in Canada was officially adopted by the government during the 1970s and 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The 1960s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origin of modern political awareness of multiculturalism, resulting in Canada being one of the most multicultural nations in the world. The official state policy of multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments, and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity and Canadian values.
The Department of Social Security was a government department in Australia, which administered the Social Security system between 1972 and 1998. The department was one of several new departments established by the Whitlam government and was managed by the Minister for Social Security.
Joseph Assaf is a Lebanese-born Australian businessman and founder of the Ethnic Business Awards.
Asian Australian history is the history of Asian ethnic and racial groups in Australia who trace their ancestry to Asia. The term Asian Australian, was first used in the 1950s by European Australians who wanted to strengthen diplomatic and trade ties with Asia for the benefit of the Australian community. The term was not originally used to describe or recognise the experiences of people of Asian descent living in Australia. It was only in the late 1980s and 1990s that the term "Asian Australian" was adopted and used by Asian Australians themselves to discuss issues related to racial vilification and discrimination. Today, the term "Asian Australian" is widely accepted and used to refer to people of Asian descent who are citizens or residents of Australia, though its usage and meaning may vary within the Asian Australian community.
Asian immigration to Australia refers to immigration to Australia from part of the continent of Asia, which includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.The first major wave of Asian immigration to Australia occurred in the late 19th century, but the exclusionary White Australia policy, which was implemented to restrict non-European immigration, made it difficult for many Asian immigrants to migrate to the country. However, with the passage of the Migration Act 1958, the White Australia policy began to be phased out and Asian immigration to Australia increased significantly. Today, Asian immigrants from a wide range of countries play an important role in the cultural and economic landscape of Australia.
The Multicultural NSW Legislation Amendment Act 2014 amends the Community Relations Commission and Principles of Multiculturalism Act 2000, and renames it The Multicultural NSW Act 2000 (the Act). The Act establishes Multicultural NSW as the government agency in NSW responsible for promoting and monitoring the multicultural principles set out in the Act...