One nation, one culture

Since the London bombings several columnists - from Tariq Ali in The Guardian to Phillip Adams in The Australian - have argued that the British brought them on themselves because of Britain's intervention in Iraq. Well, they're half right. The British (more precisely, their ineffectual governments) did bring those bombings on themselves.

The Blair Government's intervention in Iraq is not to blame. Rather, successive British governments have persisted in the multiculturalist folly that a nation can be built on separate but equal cultures. Moreover, under Tony Blair in particular, Britain's immigration policies and border controls against illegal immigrants have become international jokes, and now a national tragedy.

And the lessons?

Debate has begun over a possible Australian identity card. While necessary, that misses the larger issue: can we any longer pretend that our official multiculturalism policies, introduced by Gough Whitlam and assiduously pursued by all his successors, are in our national interest? More pointedly, how are we to handle our growing, self-created Muslim problem?

On both points, incidentally, it has been fascinating to read recent articles in The Age and The Sunday Age in Melbourne (Australia's equivalents of The Guardian in Britain). In the past week, impeccably credentialled spokespeople for the Left such as Pamela Bone and, even more remarkably, Terry Lane have questioned the whole basis of our official multiculturalism policies.

On the identity card, as one principally involved in defeating Labor's 1987 Australia Card, I fully understand the opposing civil liberties arguments. But circumstances alter cases. National security has since become enormously more important. Also, technology has so developed that most of us now possess several forms of personal identification: photo-bearing driver's licenses, tax file numbers, Medicare cards and so on.

I do not argue that national identity cards would help much in foiling London-style attacks. They would help appreciably in subsequently apprehending the culprits when (not if) Australia suffers similarly.

As to that larger issue, consider these thoughtful words of the late former High Court chief justice Harry Gibbs in his 2002 Australia Day message to Samuel Griffith Society members: "While it would be grossly offensive to modern standards for a state to discriminate against any of its own citizens on the grounds of race, a state is entitled to prevent the immigration of persons whose culture is such that they are unlikely readily to integrate into society, or at least to ensure that persons of that kind do not enter the country in such numbers that they will be likely to form a distinct and alien section of society, with the resulting problems that we have seen in the United Kingdom."

Here, then, are six specific proposals for addressing that larger issue.

First, official multiculturalism policies must be abandoned outright. That does not mean we should cease receiving immigrants (albeit more selectively). It does mean all official multiculturalism's appurtenances (for example: SBS, government grants to ethnically based councils) must be abolished.

Second, we must sharply reduce, indeed virtually halt, Muslim immigrant inflow.

Third, the precious gift of Australian citizenship must be harder to obtain. The permanent residence requirement for citizenship is a derisory two years. If we value citizenship so lightly, how can we expect newcomers to do otherwise?