a multicultural History of Australia

Making multicultural Australia

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Commentary on: Auditing Australian Multiculturalism »

Prof Andrew Jakubowicz.

Text Commentary

Australian Democracy in the New Millenium

- a multicultural society in the making...

Australia at the end of the millenium is in turmoil over its race and ethnic relations - while a majority of the population support multiculturalism as a philosophy and see ethnic diversity as a valuable cultural and economic resource, significant minorities oppose it. The transformation of policy that ended White Australia in the early 1970s now seems to have been a trigger for a growing reflection on the nature of Australian society,what it means to be an Australian, and whether indeed there are many ways to be Australian or only one.

Australian society will be dealing with these questions continually with the new century and the new millenium now upon us...

There will be no simple solution, but the testing of Australian democracy will lie in how effective we are in including all Australians in the process of working it out.