Editorial: Selective intake the right recipe
Australia has been a multicultural land since the very first day of settlement. Besides the convicts and sailors of English, Scottish and Irish origin, those aboard the First Fleet came from diverse backgrounds.
Opinion
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AUSTRALIA has been a multicultural land since the very first day of settlement. Besides the convicts and sailors of English, Scottish and Irish origin, those aboard the First Fleet came from diverse backgrounds.
There were a dozen black Africans, Americans or West Indians and nine Jews. According to records, these First Fleeters were joined by others from Sweden, Portugal, Holland, Madagascar, Germany, Norway and France.
Little is known about how this disparate crew got along, although it is likely they had more pressing concerns than maintaining racial tranquillity. Staying alive, for instance.
One of the black sailors, cook George Nelson, drowned in Sydney Cover less than a month after arriving.
Successive waves of immigration have enhanced Australia’s multicultural strength. That is because the emphasis of our multiculturalism has always been on the first two syllables of that word. Australia blends people of many cultures into a usually cohesive whole.
Other nations have not been so successful. The reason is because they have not sought to, or simply been unable to, build a socially harmonious population from their various cultural components. A commonality of outlook is crucial to multicultural success. As Citizenship Minister Alan Tudge puts it in his major London speech: “Where there are conflicts in cultural behaviours, Australian law and values must prevail.”
Tudge is correct, which is why his speech will no doubt cause a certain level of controversy among the usual suspects. Those critics would be wise to consider Tudge’s thoughtful analysis of multiculturalism’s different forms.
He rejects what he describes as a “separatist model” of multiculturalism, “where people have sometimes brought their entire practices, language and culture and planted them into the new land, with little expectation placed upon them to share or mix with the local community”.
Tudge is right to describe this scenario as “actually monoculturalism side-by-side”. And he is also right to point out that such a model is “a bad formula for a nation’s social and economic cohesion”.
A good formula, by contrast, involves immigration strategies such as Australia currently has in place: “Careful immigration selection means that we choose who comes into the nation. We don’t outsource this choice to people smugglers and we don’t leave it to chance.”
We must Bolt him down
Back off Turkey, Hungary and the US.
Football teams from these countries have now joined the hunt for Usain Bolt’s contract signature, following news of the sprint legend’s negotiations with the A-League’s Central Coast Mariners.
Some are so keen to lure Bolt from his rightful Central Coast destination that they are prepared to offer contracts without any exploratory trials.
Well, good luck to them if they think they can provide the world’s most famous track star with a lifestyle equal to anything available just one hour north of Sydney.
Unhealthy influence
Social media can be a trap, drawing the unwary into an online world of deceit and pointless conflict.
Even those with no social media accounts can still end up paying a social media penalty.
Australian taxpayers have unwittingly been financing so-called social media “influencers” to the tune of more than $600,000. Your money was delivered courtesy of the Health Department, which aimed to promote fitness videos posted by prominent Instagram users.
Individual payments for these larks can run as high as $3000.
That’s great if you happen to be an Instagrammer into gyms, but rather less of a good deal for those paying for it.
Among those on the cash-for-videos gravy train are users with booze company sponsorships, some who push unhealthy fasting diets and even one who was forced to apologise in 2017 for publishing racist tweets.
A department spokeswoman said the use of influencers was not “undertaken in isolation” and is part of “a broader communication strategy”.