The Australian Bureau of Statistics occasionally publishes projections of Australia’s population based on various growth scenarios.

Currently Australia has a population of 21 million.  To put that a little into perspective in 1955 it was 10 million and in 1983 our population was 15 million.

In other words, it took 28 years to grow our population from 10 million to 15 million people, and 21 years to grow from 15 million to 20 million people.  Based on ABS data it will take just 15 years to go from 20 million to 25 million  people.

Population growth can be a little like the snowball effect, starting off slowly but gaining momentum as time goes by.

Below is a graph of Australia’s population over the last 2000 years.  Estimates vary but an estimate of 750,000 was used for Australia’s population before European settlement.  A graph based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data was used for the years from 1788.

As can be seen, there has been a marked increase in Australia’s population in the 200 years since European settlement:

Now let’s use a graph based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data to see what Australia’s population is projected to be under one scenario in the year 2101.  Our population of about 20m now seems quite small compared to what it is projected to be at the turn of the century:

One has to question whether Australian’s really want the population to rise to 62 million, as is projected by the ABS.

Unfortunately for people who are concerned about the growth in Australia’s population, neither major party has a population policy.

What is making things worse is that immigration, even in the face of a global economic crisis, remains at record levels (recent government announcements of immigrant reductions for 2009 still leaves us with more immigrants that the previous record year of 2008).

Australia has one of the highest overseas born populations in the world, and one of the highest per-capita immigration programs in the world.

Are we sleepwalking towards a future, determined by our politicians, that is seldom reported in the media and the general population is scarcely aware of?

There are many opinions about the benefits or otherwise of multiculturalism.  Some people feel one way and will quote one study, others will feel a different way and quote another study, and the cycle goes on ad-nauseam.

But what if there was just one all encompassing indicator that measured the impact of multiculturalism?  What if there was an indicator that reflected all the findings of all the studies that have ever been carried out, that also included factors not previously measured?

I believe there is such an indicator; but before I explain further let me give a brief background on technical analysis - how it applies to shares and how I feel it can also be applied to multiculturalism.

Can technical analysis be applied to multiculturaliam? Photo by psd.

Technical analysis - when applied to shares - says that anything that can possibly affect the price of a share - fundamentally, politically, psychologically, or otherwise, is reflected in the price of the share.

By studying the price, and believing that prices move in trends and that history repeats itself, technical analysts attempt to predict future prices, and thus make money with this knowledge.  Their overriding belief, however, is that profits, balance sheets, management experience etc. is irrelevant because the share price has all this information factored into it by an informed market.

How can this be applied to multiculturalism?

I believe that just as the share price is said to contain all the information known about a company; so there is also an indicator that contains all the information that is known about the benefits or otherwise of multiculturalism.  This indicator cuts through all the debates and arguments and goes to the heart of whether or not multiculturalism benefits communities.

I believe that measuring whether people are moving out of their homes in ethnically diverse areas and choosing to live in areas that are less ethnically diverse can be used as an indicator of whether or not multiculturalism is beneficial.

And of course, this is exactly what is occuring in Australia.

The people that have already fled immigrant suburbs have gathered all the information that affects them, weighed up all the pros and cons and come to the conclusion that the ‘joys of multiculturalism’ are not for them.

The fact that some studies may say that multiculturalism is beneficial becomes just as irrelevant as a having a good management team in a company whose share price keeps falling.  In both situations people have decide to sell and get out.

No amount of announcements by the company stating how good the management team is quite makes up for the fact that the share price keeps falling; just as no amount of studies showing how wonderful multiculturalism is quite makes up for the fact that people are voting with their feet and leaving multicultural areas.

‘White flight’ is occurring in Australia just as it occurs in the Unites States and other developed countries.  People are voting with their feet and leaving ethnically diverse areas for more stable areas.

If this relocation of people was caused by any other factor, such as an airport being built in a built-up area, there would be a public outcry and government action to prevent it.  Unfortunately, the government decides to do nothing.  And everyone loses as our communities become more divided.

So the next time someone asks you whether you think multiculturalism is a good thing, tell them you’ve been studying the technical charts, people have voted with their feet, and if you think the global economic crisis is bad, wait until you see how the Australian community has to pay for multiculturalism.

The weather has finally turned warm, Australia have a good chance of winning the Boxing Day Test, and everybody is in a bad mood because they have to return to work.  Australia Day must not be too far away.

Modern Invaders prefer airliners to seafaring vessels. Photo by bcorreira.

In 20 days Australians will celebrate the landing of the First Fleet at Port Jackson on January 26, 1788.  For some it will be a time to relax and reflect on what it means to be Australian.  Others will take the opportunity to take a long-weekend break.  And some will take the opportunity to mourn what they call ‘Invasion Day‘.

Now, ‘Invasion Day’ protesters have a point.  I’m wondering, however, why Invasion Day protesters aren’t protesting 365 days a year.

You see, this year 443,200 foreigners will migrate to Australia.  That’s quite a number.  To be fair, 229,700 people departed Australia, but the difference is pretty big still.  Bringing 443,200  foreigners a year to a country with a population of just 21 million is, well, quite an invasion.

Actually, it’s 1214 foreigners a day entering Australia.  So how many people were on the First Fleet ‘Invasion’?  Best estimates put it at 1373.

I’m starting to come around to the ‘Invasion Day’ way of thinking more and more.

So when you’re sitting back and relaxing on Australia Day, or any day for that matter, give a thought to Kevin Rudd and his immigration minister Chris Evans, who’ve brought history alive and given us Invasion Day, every day in Australia.

Overcrowded trains, skyrocketing rents, increased traffic congestion, record numbers of people coming to Australia.  These things go together like birds and bees, coffee and cream, beer and nuts.

Plenty of room to fit double the number of cars. Photo by wengistein.

Well, not quite.  Articles such as Train crush load limit set to triple, Rents will rise regardless of rates and Sydney’s transport behind Mumbai all fail to mention one of the biggest factors causing this congestion, being record immigration levels.  The media has gone to the fish shop and forgotten the chips.

For some reason the media can’t mention the elephant in the room, nor for that matter the 213,500 net immigrants that Australia receives each year.

Forget about asking Rudd for an 80% carbon cut by 2050, I’m more worried about the 100% population increase by 2050.

Confirming this dire prediction, Immigration Minister Chris Evans has said that he believed Australia would continue to run large migration programs for the next 30 to 40 years.

With such well informed visionaries such as Senator Evans taking the lead on this important matter Australian’s can relax in the knowledge that no matter how bad congestion is now, it’s just going to get worse.

The federal government has gone back to the future and created a multicultural advisory council that will advise on multicultural affairs.

Photo by neokainpakistan.

The council is to advise on ways to promote social cohesion and overcoming racism and intolerance, which is ironic given that these are some of the very aspects that multiculturalism brings to Australian communities.

If the panel really wanted to offer good advice it would advise the government to drop its support for multiculturalism. The panel members could then get about their lives instead of trying to think up creative solutions to problems that its own existence is in part a cause of.

The creation of the council is an attempt by government to influence the way that multiculturalism applies in Australia. Rather than reinforcing that Howard idea that “When you come to this country, you become Australian”, the creation of this council tilts government policy towards recognising separate communities.

Australian communities should not have multiculturalism thrust upon them. The idea that the government can engineer a society that embraces its own ideological bent towards multiculturalism is wrong. Before the term ‘multiculturalism’ existed Australia was integrating immigrants from many different cultures, mostly European.

Our society didn’t need government to tell us which aspects of, say, Italian culture to maintain and foster. Instead, Australian culture adopted the parts of those cultures that we liked and discarded the rest. Instead of becoming separate ‘multi’ cultures, these cultures added to our culture.

If an Australian buys an espresso coffee on the way to work this morning, will they think that they’re being Italian?  Of course not.  Drinking espresso coffee is now a part of what Australians do. Australians adopted it without a multicultural advisory council or government to tell us what to do. The Italian and Greek way of drinking coffee was adopted by Australians, so it added to our single Australian culture, as opposed to being separate from it. We also chose not to adopt aspects of those cultures that we didn’t like. This is a natural process that is hindered when the government gets involved.

In July this year I wrote an article Appeals won’t stop gang crime, after the 17th teenager was murdered in London this year.  Since then 11 more teenagers have been murdered, bringing the total to 28 for 2008.  Prominent figures such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair have blamed the spate of murders on black culture.

Well-meaning platitudes, unfortunately, don’t stop gang violence.  How many more teenagers will be murdered before action is taken?

In Adelaide this week a brawl involving 15 Sudanese immigrants left one 14yo dead and another fighting for his life.  The violent murder occurred in broad daylight in a highly populated area.

Since the attacks occurred, there have been the usual calls for calm from community and religious leaders.  The Australian Refugee Association has called for more counselling services to be made available.

The media has reported that the violent brawl was a fight amongst friends, who were from the same Sudanese tribe.  Somewhat reassuringly for non African Australians, the Deputy Police Commissioner Gary Burns has said that “In most instances violent offences are against their own community”.

Australians are told that there is nothing to be concerned about.  However, when the facts are looked at objectively, quite a different picture is painted.

Desmond Cahill, a migration and integration expert from RMIT, has been quoted as saying that it is particularly difficult for the Sudanese to adapt to life in Australia.

In Melbourne, violence within the Sudanese refugee community is well documented and a special task force, codenamed ‘Sarazan’, has been established with its main focus on African youth gangs.

Reports from Adelaide show that over the past 16 months, 450 offences had been committed by 93 members of Adelaide’s 1500-strong Sudanese community, or put another way, a staggering 1 in 16 Sudanese refugees commits on average 1 crime every 3 months.

In light if these figures, is it possible that Australia may be headed down the same path as England, with violence caused by what Tony Blair describes as “a distinctive black culture”?

The question is an explosive one, implying that Africans in one country may be the same as Africans in another country. It implies that there is not a special ‘Australianness’ that will prevent problems that have occurred all around the world from occurring here.

If it is not possible, if it is unimaginable that the problems facing England could ever occur in Australia, then Australians can rest easy and view this violence as initial integration problems.

If, however, there is even the remotest chance that this great country will be left with “a distinctive black culture” of violence, then Australians should look at its policy direction in relation to immigration, particularly the refugee intake.

One question that could be asked is whether resettling Sudanese refugees, many of whom find it difficult to adapt to the Australian way of life, is the best policy outcome that the government can provide us?

Do these refugees, who have difficulty adapting to our way of life, contribute to Enriching Australia through the well managed entry and settlement of people, which is the purpose statement of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship?

If these answers cannot be answered in the affirmative then who is looking into this high-stakes public policy failure?

I have stated previously here that Australia’s Humanitarian Program would be better described as a self-indulgent waste of taxpayers’ money. The costs involved in bringing one person into Australia could be used to support a whole village overseas.

We may not be only saving lives by adopting a more humanitarian aid program where money is spent helping people in the countries that they live in; we could also be saving Australia.

I’m going to make a confession.  I would love it if multiculturalism worked.  I would love it if we could all just get along.  Nothing would be better.  I could take down this website, enrobe myself in the latest ethnic wear and celebrate diversity.  The world would be good.

Sure, there is the little thing about losing the last remnants of our rich and ancient culture and traditions, but hey, that’s old school these days.  Besides, who needs traditional culture when we can have a multiculture?  Multiculturalism is hip; who wants a culture that’s old and daggy?  Multiculturalism is, like, way cool.  All the young kids love it, and like, you know, they’re the future.

The only problem is that no matter how hard I try, I can’t get multiculturalism to work. I try to be hip, I try to be cool, and then another study shows that multiculturalism is having a detrimental affect upon Australian society.  It’s like, take a chill-pill reality; I prefer the delusions of multiculturalism.  But it won’t go away.

An article describing a study conducted by Ernest Healy, senior research fellow at the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Fewer volunteers in migrant suburbs, shows that “When you create societies from mixed backgrounds it may not lead to overt violence … but to something scarier, a withdrawal from the civic sphere”.  It goes on to say that “ethnic diversity can hasten a withdrawal from ‘collective life’.”

The article concludes by saying that “the assumption multiculturalism would automatically lead to strong cohesive communities without government assistance may have been naive.”

Obviously these people have not set TheRealists as one of their favourite sites, as they wouldn’t find any such assumptions here.

So there you have it, in black and white, multiculturalism amongst other things leads to a withdrawal from community life.

Way to go policy makers, thanks for implementing policies over successive governments that lead to the destruction of community life and withdrawal from the civic sphere.  Yeah, that’s real cool.  I didn’t like my country anyway.  And who needs community?  I’m on facebook.  You can screw your community, I’ve got facebook and multiculturalism.  The destruction of community is like, so lame, get over it. Take that reality.

An article in The Australian earlier this year described how Senior Victorian Police were advising the Immigration Department for the first time about how and where to settle troubled African refugees.

The police were reported as having advised against settling Sudanese refugees in “dysfunctional areas” of Melbourne, and instead urged that they be settled in country towns.

The article, Put Africans out of city, say police, joins a long list of articles about issues that Australians, until very recently, have had little experience of.

Headlines such as Sudan migrant’s ‘rape rampage’, Blood spills in our city of fear, Warning on African refugee gangs and African refugees suffering settlement problems all describe the difficulties that Africans appear to be having in integrating into Australian society.

The issue of black Africans not integrating well into the countries in which that they seek refuge may be a new issue to Australians.  However, in many parts of the world it is an old and well documented problem.

The United States is the best example where black integration into mainstream society is an ongoing issue.  Showing the disparity between the races, Michael Moore in his book ‘Stupid White Men’ describes walking down streets where the only black Africans he encounters are the ones taking his bags or offering to clean his shoes.  Epitomising the situation, Professor Andrew Frasier when interviewed on A Current Affair said that Americans have been trying to integrate black Africans into their society for the past 400 years; without success.

More recently the American elections have been notable for how stratified by race American society is, with 96% of black Americans predicted to vote for Barack Obama.  Barack Obama himself acknowledged the issue during his speech on race where he spoke of the “anger over welfare and affirmative action” and the “chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

The problem is not only confined to America.  All over Europe black Africans appear to be having difficulty integrating with their host countries.  The issue became so prominent in England recently that Tony Blair came out and said that “It is an issue with black youths” after the 17th death of a child due to black gang violence in London.  Even the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality in the UK is concerned that multiculturalism is being promoted at the expense of social cohesion, saying that “We are sleepwalking  our way to segregation” and that “White flight is accelerating, schools are becoming more segregated”.

Discussion of how well host countries settle black African immigrants has raged for years, however most people would feel that it is not taking too many liberties to say that the path towards black African integration is one fraught with difficulties, wrong turns and sometimes with no end in sight.

Is Australia doing enough to ensure that Black Africans, one of the fastest growing population groups in Australia, are able to integrate successfully?  Are steps being taken to prevent the problems outlined above?  The simple answer to this, unfortunately, is “no”.

The purpose statement of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, outlined in its 2007-08 Plan document is ‘Enriching Australia through the well managed entry and settlement of people‘.  It is difficult to see how much ‘Enriching’ of Australia is occurring or how ‘well managed’ the settlement of these black African refugees is, especially given the problems previously described.

Furthermore, it appears that little thought has been given to the prospects of the future integration of black Africans into Australian society, which becomes more critical given the experiences that other countries have encountered in this area.

It’s ironic that Australia has a good record of doing things better than the rest of the world after learning from the mistakes of other countries, but when it comes to such fundamental issues such as social cohesion and the type of society that Australia wants to be, we’re blind to the problems of others.  Australia seems blissfully ignorant of the problems that future generations may face.

In October 2007 the then immigration minister Kevin Andrews said “some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope”.  From all the evidence his carefully chosen words seem very prescient.

Instead of calling Mr Andrews a “racist” and his words as “a pure form of racism” as the QLD premier Anna Bligh did, we should think rationally about what Mr Andrews said.

Australia has one chance to get this right.  Choices made now about our immigration program will affect Australian Society in the future, and these choices are irrevocable.  If we look back in 10, 50 or 100 years time and realise that we made the same mistake that other countries have made, we won’t have the option of a second chance.  Those future Australians will be living in a new Australia, one with the same issues of race as is currently the case in the UK and the United States.  Will future Australians see this as ‘Enriching’?  Or will they see it as something that they have to tolerate, thanks to the ill-thought-out decisions of those that went before them?

Recently SBS showed a program where Emily, a waiter in a small town, expressed some views regarding multiculturalism. Rather then trying to understand Emily’s point of view, she was presented as being naïve and having a small town mentality. More on Emily later.

To people who support multiculturalism, Australian culture is all about diversity, where different races and cultures come together in a united way to form a wonderful society. When this belief of a multicultural utopia is challenged, the default behaviour is to label the challengers as ignorant, racist and small minded…or perhaps just having a small town mentality.

If multiculturalists want understanding for their radical ideas, however, they should first think about doing some understanding themselves.

Trying to get multiculturalists to open their mind and understand different point of view is a challenging task. Let’s start with three simple points that many multiculturalists either are unaware of, or conveniently ignore.

First of all, Australia by world standards in not very multicultural. About 90 percent of Australians are from White/European heritage. If Australia is looking for a country to aspire to in order to become more multicultural, then the United States of America has a white population of 66 percent (which should fall to 46 percent by 2050). However, Australia is not the United States and few would aspire to replicate aspects of their society.

Whilst parts of our larger cities feel multicultural, there are many towns and communities where multiculturalism is just something you hear about on TV or read about in the newspaper.

So the first point that multiculturalists have to understand is that when they talk about a wonderful multicultural society, many people take it with a grain of salt and continue to go about their lives in their non-multicultural towns and communities, as they have done for generations. They don’t care for multiculturalism and they may feel apprehensive about the whole idea of it.

Second of all, there is a modern view that Australia was built on multiculturalism, which is quite obviously incorrect. This view gains currency in the absence of an alternative view being offered. To see how far the view has gained currency one only has to look at government sponsored so-called educational websites such as multiculturalaustralia, run jointly by the NSW Department of Education and Training and the Office of the Board of Studies NSW. This site clearly states in its purpose that “Australia has always been culturally diverse.”

When falsehoods about multiculturalism are presented to children as fact, it becomes a difficult myth to dispel. The fact is that for most of the history of the Australian nation the ‘White Australia’ policy was in place; and that didn’t exactly have cultural diversity at its core.

The founding fathers of Australia created this policy. Australia’s first prime minister, Edmund Barton, when putting the case forward in parliament for national racial unity said “the Commonwealth of Australia shall mean a ‘white Australia’…this Commonwealth shall be established on the firm foundation of unity of race”.

Statements such as these and the subsequent policies that followed show the folly of stating that “Australia has always been culturally diverse.”

The second point that multiculturalists have to understand then is that multiculturalism is a relatively recent phenomenon. You can say that multiculturalism is wonderful, but don’t fabricate history and say that Australia was built on it. Australia has a long and proud history of democracy, equality and social progressiveness, and multiculturalism played no part in this.

The third point that multiculturalists should understand is that some people have concerns about multiculturalism, and that these concerns are legitimate. It is the ‘legitimate’ part that multiculturalists have a problem with. They feel that anyone that questions multiculturalism is wrong before they start; that any arguments are illegitimate.

The truth is that it is not illegitimate to be concerned when the ethnic composition of your neighbourhood changes so radically that you have barely any connection left to the place that you grew up in. It is not illegitimate to be concerned about the effects that ‘white flight’ is having on your community. Is it not illegitimate to be concerned that schools are becoming segregated by race, and finally, it is not illegitimate to be worried by the studies that show that multiculturalism creates a less caring, less trusting and less tolerant society.

So the third point that multiculturalists should understand is that the concerns that ordinary Australians have regarding multiculturalisms are indeed legitimate.

Now, getting back to Emily.  Emily was the waiter filmed for an SBS program ‘Inside Australia’ where a girl of Asian descent stops in the country town of Gundagai. There Emily describes playing ’spot the Aussie’ with her boyfriend on a recent trip to Sydney (the waitress and her boyfriend had apparently stayed near an overseas student education institution).

Of course, the girl of Asian descent was Australian and was taken aback by these comments. SBS described the incident as revealing a small town Australian perspective.

And it’s true; it does reveal a small town Australian perspective. Gundagai is a town where cultural events include the ‘Snake Gully’ Horseracing Cup and the ‘Turning Wave’ Festival that celebrates Irish and Celtic migration to Australia.

The 2006 census reveals that over 90 percent of its population was born in Australia with the majority of the remaining from New Zealand, England or Scotland. Gundagai is an iconic Australian town in country NSW where they farm sheep and cattle and grow wheat and maize, and the dog still sits on the tuckerbox. It’s a long way from the big smoke and the problems of Sydney.

When this small town waiter visited Sydney for the first time she went into a totally alien environment. No doubt the editors at SBS headquarters in Sydney felt her comments worthy to show on TV to illustrate just how small minded Australians are.

What it shows me is that SBS is out of touch with the community, and would rather take a cheap shot at a waiter in a small country town than understand where she is coming from.

Emily doesn’t come from a multicultural society. Her town is a place where many years ago indigenous Wiradjuri speaking people lived. It was then settled by British and European settlers.

Its schools would not be promoting ‘cultural diversity and tolerance’ or requiring websites that have a purpose of ‘promoting community harmony’.

There is no need to promote harmony and tolerance when there is no multiculturalism to promote disharmony and intolerance.

If multiculturalists can understand where Emily is coming from, if they can see the great community that she lives in where multiculturalism does not take centre stage and is not held up as the holy grail; then they may be on their way to opening their minds more than they could have imagined.

Over the course of the past few decades the face Australia’s largest cities have changed quite dramatically. For example, from being mostly homogeneous back in the 1970’s (before the word ‘Multiculturalism’ existed), now over 1 in 3 people residing in Sydney today were born somewhere other than Australia.

The speed of the change has been dramatic. The ethnic composition of Australians has not seen such a dramatic change since white people came and initiated the destruction of the Aboriginal people; along with much of their culture and their traditions.

Many people hold Australia up as a shining example of ‘how multiculturalism should be done’ (It’s ironic that the supporters of multiculturalism have to search for places in the world where the effects of multiculturalism haven’t been devastating in order for them to claim that multiculturalism is the panacea to all of societies ills), however It has been quite fortuitous that during the time of historically high levels of immigration Australia’s economy has grown quite strongly.

The Howard government began the large increases in immigration in 1998 (from a level of 82,000 in Paul Keating’s final year in office to 159,000 in Howard’s last year in office). Kevin Rudd has taken the baton and ran with it, increasing immigration to a staggering 190,000, more people coming to this country than the number of children being born in Australia.

During these times economic conditions have been good and there has been little disquiet about the levels of immigration. After all, we were all getting rich, why not share the wealth?

Sure, there were racially motivated gang rapes, sure we had race riots; and so what if some traditional white families were fleeing suburbs where immigrants were settling? Things were going along great, house prices and the share market were rising, everyone had a job; why complain when things are good?

However, when things are good and everyone is ‘comfortable and relaxed’ and we still have race riots, what could occur if unemployment really starts to rise?

How much community spirit would there be in our wonderful multicultural suburbs if, as has occurred in places like Iceland, people are so scared that they start hoarding food?

Will the great spirit of Aussie mateship shine through if people are doing it tough, when communities really have to band together in order to see the tough times through?

If the experience of other countries is anything to go by then nobody can say for certain what will eventuate in Australia.  It’s a gamble that successive governments have chosen to take on behalf of the Australian people.

Hopefully luck will stay with us.