Australian Multiculturalism: successes, problems and risks

Asian groups have a high uptake of citizenship – for Chinese and Vietnamese it is about 80 per cent. People born in the United Kingdom, Northern Europe and New Zealand, have much lower uptakes of citizenship. Citizenship is the legal glue that holds us together. It should be more actively promoted as was proposed by the FitzGerald Committee in the mid-1980s. I remain very skeptical about dual citizenship – with the dual loyalty it implies.

It is often implied in our media that crime rates are high among new migrants. Taking migrants as a whole, there is no evidence of this.

It is also suggested that multicultural societies collapse. New settlers are inclined to stick together for mutual support and become ‘a community of communities’. Over time however, they move out into the wider Australian community.

We also hear concerns about ghettos in the United States and the necessity to learn from the current European experience. I suggest that US and European experiences are quite different from our own. In contrast to Australia's planned immigration, the US waves of immigration in the late 19th Century and 20th Century were largely unplanned. We don’t have a common border with a large and populous country like Mexico and America’s problems have also been exacerbated by an historical slave class.

Europe’s problems have also been magnified by mistaken guest-worker policies, a phenomenon Australia has always rejected. Moreover, the United Kingdom and Europe felt morally and perhaps legally obligated to take in millions from former colonies. When Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975, Australia refused similar rights for Papua and New Guinea residents who claimed long associations with Australia.

Through migration, Australia is much more dynamic and outward looking. Although our early history was dogged by insularity, there has been a significant transformation and we are now more tolerant of people with diverse origins. A 1997 ANOP poll indicated that 78 per cent of Australians felt that multiculturalism had been good for Australia.

New settlers have a strong commitment to succeed and have made outstanding contributions to Australia. They are invariably industrious, entrepreneurial and risk-taking. As Geoffrey Blainey said, referring to Hitler: "when tyrants shake the trees, Australia harvests the fruit".

Newcomers have high educational aspirations for their children. In New South Wales high schools, 25 per cent of students are of non-English speaking background, but in selective schools where students are chosen on merit, 46 per cent are of NESB. In NSW, the Higher School Certificate results, which determine university entry, are dominated each year by NESB students. First it was Greeks and Eastern Europeans, now it is students from China, Indo-China and Korea.

The same trends are shown in university entrance scores. The Australian Council for Educational Research has pointed out that for university entrance scores, for Australian students, the average is 70. For Asian students it is 79, other Europe 72, English-speaking 69 and NESB 72.

Integration into the global market is helped by 17 per cent of our population fluently speaking a language other than English. This is essential with Asia now taking 57 per cent of our exports. Our tourism industry has also benefited from new people with new skills.