Multiculturalism in Australia: It’s Past, Present and Future

This essay explores the history, current state and future of multiculturalism in Australia. It discusses policies, social changes and future objectives. The success of multiculturalism in Australia is evidenced by social cohesion, economic participation, civic integration and educational achievements.

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Multiculturalism in Australia: It’s Past, Present and Future.
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Multiculturalism in Australia: It’s past, present and future.
Multiculturalism is a situation where a society or country accepts and tolerates
individuals from different backgrounds and cultures. Therefore these individuals get support
from the local people without the risk of getting discriminated against due to their beliefs and
norms. Australia is an example of a country which is very multicultural. The country has policies
in place that embrace the different cultures in the country plus the shared beliefs and values
(Murphy, 2013). Multiculturalism in Australia has a past where it came from, a present the level
it is as now and a future which is the direction it will take in future and it will be discussed in this
essay.
Multiculturalism in Australia has a past not only in terms of policies put in place but also
in the social sense. Before World War Two, the country was not so accepting of multiculturalism
since the indigenous people were fighting against the white settlers who they felt had come to
control them and take their land. However, after the war, these conflicts and differences
according to cultural and religious lines started to wane. Since there was a need for labor in the
growing manufacturing industry, the country needed a different source of migrants from their
normal source which was Britain. With this growing need, this leads to a diversified society who
immigrated to Australia to work. In addition to this those enemies interned in war camps settled
in Australia (Soutphommasane, 2012). Thus, the country saw a need to develop policies to
support multiculturalism or get rid of policies which did not support it. They got rid of Anglo-
conformity which was the pillar of the homogenous society in Australia and also in 1973 the
“White Australia” policy was formally removed by the Whitlam Government. After this, the
Whitlam government developed policies in the 1970s which supported the accommodation of the
diverse socially and culturally. These changes were implemented by the minister of Immigration,
Al Grassby through the notion on “family of nations” which encouraged people not to view
immigrants as aliens but as citizens and get all the benefits of citizenship while the immigrants
would start embracing the different cultures and get assimilated (Koleth, 2010).
Currently, multiculturalism in Australia has changed for the better in many ways. Almost
a quarter of Australian citizens now were born overseas showing how diverse the society has
now gotten. The culture is now as diverse as its landscape and it is going the direction that it was
meant to showing how successful it is. They live it every day in their cities, at work and even in

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school where individuals get to mix with people from different backgrounds (Ozdowski, 2013).
Multiculturalism is quite successful in Australia since they even have a day, Harmony day on 21st
March, meant to appreciate cultural diversity in the country. In a current census, it was
discovered that there are almost 260 languages spoken in the country with major cities like
Sydney having over 80% of its population being born overseas. The Australian multicultural
society has been a success in many aspects such as social cohesion, economic participation, civic
integration and educational achievements (Colic‐Peisker, 2011, pp. 580). It is evidenced by the
success seen in these aspects of life by the immigrants in the country today.
The future of multiculturalism in Australia has the aim to grow and get more successful.
Even though there has been a lot of success of a pluralistic society in Australia, there are still
issues which face it. The minorities in the different aspects such as religion still are side-lined
and face some sort of prejudice. The objective in future now is to ensure that the society moves
away from cultural pluralism which has this issues but towards a democratic pluralism which
deals with such issues (Moran, 2011, pp. 2180). Policies have to be formulated to ensure that
such issues have been dealt with and that there is no such loophole to be exploited in future and
as well as dealing with emerging issues such as terrorism thus ensuring the success of
multiculturalism in future.
In conclusion, Australia has grown in terms of having a pluralistic society. From a past
where the society was made up of mostly white settlers and aboriginals and where “white
Australia” was the goal to now where the country is considered one of the most multicultural
societies in the world and then to a future where this aspect has gotten better. Thus for this to
happen in the future, there need to be studies carried out to find out what needs to be done to
make multiculturalism better.

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References
Colic‐Peisker, V., 2011. A New Era in Australian Multiculturalism? From Working‐Class
“Ethnics” To a “Multicultural Middle‐Class”. International migration review, 45(3), pp.562-587.
Koleth, E., 2010. Multiculturalism: a review of Australian policy statements and recent debates
in Australia and overseas. Canberra, ACT: Department of Parliamentary Services.
Moran, A., 2011. Multiculturalism as nation-building in Australia: Inclusive national identity and
the embrace of diversity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(12), pp.2153-2172.
Murphy, M., 2013. Multiculturalism: A critical introduction. Routledge.
Ozdowski, S., 2013. Australian multiculturalism. The roots of its success. Promoting changes in
times of transition and crisis: Reflections on human rights education. Krakow: Ksiegarnia
Akademicka. Retrieved from: http://www. akademicka. pl.
Soutphommasane, T., 2012. Don't Go Back to where You Came from: Why Multiculturalism
Works. UNSW Press.