Don't mention the war! I mentioned the Anzac spirit once but I think I got away with it . . .

IF only people would speak more about Chinese New Year and less about our Anglo history.

Julia Gillard on Tuesday:

In Christchurch the Anzac spirit is on display.

Scott Morrison on Tuesday:

We will be there to do everything we can for them in the true Anzac spirit.

Alison Carrabine on Sydney's ABC702 yesterday:

I'm fed up with hearing that downtown Christchurch resembles a war zone. It's not a war zone, it's an earthquake zone. Earthquakes are bad enough, you don't have to invoke war.

Deborah Cameron: You hate to see these things happen . . .

Carrabine: You do Deborah.

Cameron: But they put another prop into the sort of bond, that just sort of strengthens our ties actually. Out of adversity comes even more strength.

Carrabine: Yeah that's right. The Prime Minister was invoking the Anzac tradition. I don't think that's really necessary to go there.

Proudly anti-Anglo. George Brandis in The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday:

If multicultural Australia has an intellectual architect, it is Petro Georgiou, who as a young adviser to [Malcolm] Fraser wrote: "We as Liberals are committed to encouraging and supporting diversity in our multi-cultural society. We reject the sterile Anglo-conformity of past days."

Anything but Anglo. Malcolm Turnbull on ABC1's Lateline Wednesday:

There was a time, you know, a couple of generations ago when Australians saw themselves as being British, and so if you came to Australia from another country, you were meant to sort of go into the melting pot and come out of it British. But we recognise now that our Australianness is part of that diversity. I mean, you're a Jones, I'm a Turnbull, but we share in a part of and in effect co-own all of the cultures that make up our country. We share in the Chinese New Year, the lunar New Year festival. We share in the Greek and Italian festivals. It is part of our way of life. It is the richness, the diversity of this nation that makes us so strong and we must cherish it, because it is precious and it is almost -- not quite -- but almost unique in the world.

Anybody but Anglos. Adele Horin in the SMH November 6, 2010:

A study of 339 young people aged 14 to 17 who live in Sydney's west and southwest suburbs found only one-third of them called themselves Australian even though two-thirds were born here. Instead they identified themselves by their ethnic background as Tongan, Chinese, Lebanese, and so on, and 16 of the indigenous young people identified themselves as Koori or Aboriginal. Less than half of them also felt "Australian" all the time and one-fifth did not feel "Australian" at all. They feel at home in their neighbourhoods in Bankstown and Lakemba and think the bad press about these areas is misleading. They particularly enjoy the multicultural feel of their suburbs and have friends from many backgrounds. Yet none has close friends from Anglo backgrounds. When they move out of familiar territory they sometimes feel uneasy.

Proud to be Anglo. Jonathan Sacks. Chief Rabbi in Britain:

Many Jews of my parents' generation owed their lives to this country. It took them in when they faced persecution elsewhere. They loved Britain and deeply internalised its values. The inscription on the tombstone of a former president of the United Synagogue summed up the entire Anglo-Jewish experience. It read, "A proud Englishman and a proud Jew". They were not naive. They remembered vividly when [Oswald] Mosley and the British Union of Fascists marched through London's East End. They knew that England was a class-bound society with many faults. But they admired the British for their tolerance and decency, their sense of fair play and their understated but indomitable courage. They were proud to be English because the English were proud to be English. Indeed in the absence of pride there can be no identity at all. They integrated and encouraged us to go further because there was something to integrate into.