Multicultural Australia: A Successful Example of Diversity and Integration

This essay explores the success of multiculturalism in Australia through demographic, religious, and socio-cultural factors. It highlights how Australia has become a leading example of diversity and integration, despite recent challenges.

Running head: MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA
MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA
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Author Note:

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The word “multiculturism” has been often used to define the minority or the ‘ethnic’
groups and their various colourful customs. The word ‘multicultural’ has huge potential to
show diverse associations, not just about a policy but also the problems of the communities.
Multiculture is generally formed because of the intermingling of the gender, class and
ethnicity. This easy illustrates how the Australians have always taken pride in the fact that
they had a multicultural identify in the global scenario (Clyne and Jupp 2013). The cultural
and linguistic diversity that prevails in the Australian population has been majorly due to
Australia’s unique history. The population was approximately seven million at the end of
World War II, of whom 10% were overseas-born. With the end of the Second World War the
proportion of overseas-born had gradually increased to about 24% (Arthur 2017). The post-
war surge of migration consisted mainly of new arrivals from European continent. Over a
period of ten years after that, the overseas-born population has increased by a significant
number. Various factors have been discussed in this essay like the demographic factors,
religious factors and the socio-cultural factors which clearly provides evidential support to
the fact that standing in the 21st century, Australia is a successful multicultural nation.
Australia has been a multicultural society which has emerged in a way where
diversities in cultures had been tolerated and respected in a significant manner. The
government policies have also helped to keep up the multicultural nature of the country. The
Australian multicultural policy has been spontaneously insistent on respecting the traditional
Australian values. This consisted of liberal democratic values like freedom of individualism,
sex equality, tolerance towards the rule of law and the democracy of the parliament.
Additionally to promote multicultural attitude, English language was considered as the
national language (Larsen 2017). In order to highlight the fact that Australia is a multicultural
success, focus can be given on Australia’s “citizen-based model” and how it helped in
bringing about multicultural diversity. Due to the policy, full rights and benefits were

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awarded to the individuals who are citizens. This was also the same for the migrants who
pledge to take up citizenship of Australia. The multiculturism, which prevails in Australia,
promotes the integration of new arrivals and see to the fact that hindrances towards the
integration among them is removed. Additionally, the success of Australia’s multiclturism
was also credited to the bipartisan support (Pakulski 2014).
Studies based on various recent literature survey has shown that Australia was able to
become an example of multicultural success. Various factors helped to achieve this success.
Firstly, the policies and realities related to multiculturism has wide popular acceptance.
National surveys conducted at a length, from the year 2007 to 2014 which revealed that about
88% of Australian population consider multiculturalism as to be a ‘benefit to Australia’
(Arthur 2017). Another national survey reported that there was an elevated acceptance of
wide religious communities. According to (Ho 2013), it is considered that by accepting the
process of immigration and multiculturalism, Australia has emerged with the highest level of
positive feeling regarding immigration in the world’. Secondly, inspite of the occasional
protests going on regarding the building of various religious shrines, these are not violent and
are usually resolved in ways that enable widely different groups. In this way, Australia has
moved toward ‘deep equality’ beyond mere tolerance and adjustment, including a high level
of acceptance of Muslims (Banting and Kymlicka 2013). This does not mean all groups are
seen as equally wanted. Many people and religions from around the world coming from
different origins have considered Australia their homeland and have been a part into its
socio-economic life (Harris 2013).
Several demographic factors have led to Australia becoming a society of the
immigrants, who mainly bring about the multicultural diversity in the continent. According to
the census reports retrieved, 25% of the Australian population consists of individuals who

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were born over-seas and 50 % of the population hail from parents, among whom either one of
the parent has an overseas origin (Larsen 2017). Australia can be clearly marked as a settler
society and besides the Indigenous people, the situation has been so since 1788. In the 1920s
and through the 1940s, Australia was a settled ‘British’ society, mostly as a result of the
White Australia immigration policy, which only permitted and enabled British migrants and
excluded others (Forrest, Lean and Dunn 2017). Stories related to the migration and the
struggles of settling are cast as living memories in most families. The actual scenario that
most of the native Australians have also gone through similar experiences as that of the
immigrants. This demographical foundation and the wide range of diversity and migration as
such is not shared by many other countries.
Religious diversity, which remains in the Australian continent, plays an important role
in maintaining the multicultural nature. According to the census examinations, there were
more number of Muslims (2.2%) were more than the Lutherans (1.2%), the Buddhists (2.5%)
were larger than Baptists (1.6%). There were more Hindus (1.3%) than Jews (0.4%). The
number of Sikhs (0.3%) had increased from 0.1% in 2006 and there were numerous
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Latter Day Saints and the Salvation Army
(Williams 2017). The ethnic diversity, which exists in Australia, had made its religious
diversity more complex, as most migrant religious groups are quite internally diverse in terms
of national origins. For example, the Australian Muslim population come from over 65
different countries with no single origin comprising more than 30%. In addition to the
Muslims, Buddhists are also ethnically diverse, combining those from western origins with
several Asian countries. The Lebanese in Australia are also nearly divided between Islam
and Christian (Larsen 2017). In fact, both the diversity of other multilingual minority
communities in Australia and their native diversity makes it quite hard to develop a
diversified orientation. The population is too vast in variety to promote a single division.

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Apart from these factors, the fact that the Australian native and religious diversities have
been living together in mixed urban environment, which are characterised by churning
housing markets (Johns, Mansouri and Lobo 2015). The sole focus of religious groups occur
around religiously specific institutions and religion-specific services, such as the the
availability of their native foods like halal or kosher foods.
In addition to the differences in demography, there are various social and cultural
differences persistent which has contributed in Australian multicultural success. First,
Australia has little amount of unemployment in comparison to others and has been in need of
more and more workers particularly after the Second World War ended (Clyne and Jupp
2013). The industrial growth in Australia has welcomed high rates of immigration. There
were programs designed to bring in migrants from around the globe to Australia (Banting and
Kymlicka 2013). While these programs started with attempts to attract the British manpower,
many northern European refugees were aloso welcomed immediately after the end of the war.
After this, migration programs went a long way to southern Europe and other nations,
including Turkey and Egypt. In most of the cases of migration, the migrants has not been
viewed as taking away the jobs of those who are already here, henceforth reducing the
pressure on the new arriving migrants (Johns, Mansouri and Lobo 2015). Secondly, it can be
put forward that most times the migrants have been welcomed. It can be sated that it had been
a smooth sailing, but no group has been given the feeling of rejection or unwelcome. In fact
on the other hand, each surge of migration has had their quota of hardship stories and reports
of success, which gradually led to the path of finding acceptance (Ozdowski 2013).
Australia’s gesture of making these migrants feel welcome consisted of the fact that migrants
have been granted several social services and health benefits shortly after they have arrived
and citizenship one year until recently when it was raised to two years. Thirdly, the cultural
support received for mutual respect towards multiculturism. Australians have a basic allergy

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to intense, high-demanding religion or politics (Hassan and Martin 2015). Apart from these,
there are various ways in which people from different religious communities are brought
together to interact. There are many organisations present in Australia, which promote
healthy inter-religious relations environment such as the Council for Christians and Jews,
Religions for Peace, the Jewish Christian Muslim Association and the Inter-faith Youth
Corps (Louis, Esses and Lalonde 2013). Lastly, there has been no proof from history
regarding occurrence of any sort of violent conflict between groups except the wars against
Indigenous populations like the ones which took place in the European countries between the
French catholic and the English Protestants (Forrest, Lean and Dunn 2017).
However recently, the faith they had in the multicultural attitude had been severely
degraded due to the attacks which took place coming from their foes and the crisis felt
coming from their friends. A number of recent studies has shown that apart from being an
example of multicultural success, Australia has a disadvantage of growing cultural
subpopulation with regards to Muslim population (Pakulski 2014). There has been a focus on
the perceptions of Muslims with reference to Islamophobia and the social distance occurring
due to it. The term Islamophobia illustrates a negative attitude held towards the individuals
who prevail from Islamic or Muslim background. This had paved way to the feelings of
hostility, discrimination, suspicion and anxiety among the Australian population, which is
directed, to the Muslim sub-population (Schuurman and Eijkman 2013). Although they are
very much part of Australia’s religious and ethnic diversity, there have been incidents where
intolerance have been shown towards them majorly due to the events of terrorism occurring
in various parts of the world. Even the Australian media have come up with stories revealing
fear of terrorism and islamophobia. This has influenced the attitudes of the Australians to
transform towards the existing peaceful multiculturism. The terrorist attacks taken place in
Paris spearheaded the debate as to whether the Muslims should be an integral part of the

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Australian society or not (Louis, Esses and Lalonde 2013). Some have even put forward
notions like the Muslim community do not assimilate in the Australian society and that their
religion is incompatible. Based on such notions, asylum is being refused to the individuals
hailing from Muslim background and are now alienated (Ozdowski 2013). The Australian
Muslims are being held responsible for the acts of terrorism going on across the world,
resulting in the decline of Australia’ religious tolerance and ethnic diversity, the characteristic
of the nation in which the Australian’s took pride (Markus 2014).
To conclude it can be stated that immigration and the concept of ethnic, religious and
cultural heterogeneity are the major fundamentals of the modern Australian society of the 21st
century. The democratic political system of Australia has been able to provide the vital
framework for the development of a prospering and a politically inclusive society which
projects a leading face in the global scenario with respect to social development. The
democratic system followed by the Australian government stays committed to the freedom of
membership of religious, ethnic and cultural groups. The concept of cross-national
comparison within the religiously diverse groups has shown the roles of demographical
differences and of socio-cultural factors in producing successful diverse societies. Australia
has been thriving hard for a very long tenure trying to implement its multicultural policy. The
particular demographic was not casually planned. The reason behind Australia’s successful
implementation of multicultural polices is partly the result of demographic and socio-cultural
factors particular to Australia. Due to all of these factors individuals hailing from various
different backgrounds living together in a peaceful and harmonious way.

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