The Sun-Herald

We've had a lot of the new staff in my workplace who are recent immigrants from India and Sri Lanka. Their English skills help them obtain positions in clerical and technical areas.
Elsewhere, I've noticed a lot of immigrants from South America in recent years too. I wonder if they are arriving in significant numbers too but may not be as noticeable in statistics because they come from so many different countries on the continent such as Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina etc.

• by J Bar on October 25, 2008 at 12:43 PM

Does this have something to do with food? Or are those pictures simply irrelevant? I was expecting old and stupid argument for immigration to be trotted out - look at the wonderful food immigrants brought us. As if we would not have had Italian food without Italian immigrants. Or is the point that Chinese work in Chinese restaurants? I simply can't see the point of this article. Tell us some statistics? Promote a book?

DD replies: Without illustrations, the page would look dull. The point of the column is to tell you some statistics.

• by Sean on October 26, 2008 at 04:53 AM

What I think that causes tensions is when migrants try to change the local values and culture and perpetuate their culture and values for generations. This happened with migrants from the Southern European countries. Muslims, Chinese and Indians may do the same. This will build tensions.
I suggest that instead of spending large amounts of money on multi-cultural programmes, a substantial part of it should be spent on assimilation programmes. After all 100% of the migrants came here because Australia is a better system for which its values and culture are fundamental foundations. We don't need migrants who want to establish here medieval Muslim enclaves, Chinese settlements and Indian feudal systems.
By the way a good number of Chinese and Indians come from other parts of the World also. Where do we include those coming from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? Are they Indians or Chinese?
(the blogger is a migrant)

• by billofsydney on October 26, 2008 at 07:09 AM

Thank goodness we're getting lots of Indians. It will give us a chance to re-build a decent test cricket team.

• by kywong73 on October 26, 2008 at 07:29 AM

Victor H, racism and castism and discrimination are all human nature. We accept them superficially, but we cannot change people's hearts. Your skin does not defend you very much in many situations, mate.

• by Jean on October 26, 2008 at 08:17 AM

Many years ago I left South africa to get away from the Indians. My dad was a shopkeeper, the Indians used to come in distract my dad by saying look a rat is on the counter. While dad is turning his back they would steal stuff and run off. Those were South african Indians, not sure same are comming here now.

• by UMFANN on October 26, 2008 at 08:27 AM

I'd just like to point out to you all too, that when DD is referring to Chinese here, he's talking about those from mainland China. There are heaps of (ethnically) Chinese people from Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc. and if you were to do a poll of all the Chinese I think you'll probably find the "professional" category to be higher.
Being a second generation immigrant though, I hope that one day we won't see Indian or Chinese or South American but just Australian all round :)

• by ABC (Australian Bred Chinese) on October 26, 2008 at 10:24 AM

I think the fact that most migrants come here on a skills basis now is the reason why we hear so little about immigration these days despite record numbers. Most Australians actively support immigration as long as they can see the benefit it has to the country. These benefits can range from little things like having a wider range and better quality of restaurant cuisines to choose from to broader macro-economic issues such as keeping economic growth going by filling skilled workplace positions that there is shortage of Australian workers for.
Unfortunately policies from previous years that saw large numbers of immigrants arrive here in the 70's and 80's on humanitarian and family-reunion grounds gave immigration a bad name in the day as they were percieved to have a negative effect on the country, not a positive one. The problem was that many of these people were either too unskilled or old to find work, thus ending up being a burden on the country by relying on welfare payments for life.
Also, many came from cultural and religious backgrounds too different to allow easy intergration into Australian society, and thus created and continued to flock to ethnic ghettos that permanently segregated themselves from the rest of Australian society. These cultural and religious differences themselves weren't the problem, as people can be educated as to the language, culture, customs and legal systems of their adopted country.
In the US for example, refugees undergo intensive English language training and are given lengthy classes on US politics, history, government and legal institutions, as well as both their rights and responsibilites as citizens PRIOR to their arrival in the US. Unfortunately our approach here has been to remove people from their often tribal and rural third-world surroundings and dump them in the suburbs of Australia's capital cities without any preparation for what they will face here. Yes, they are given support from government and non-government organisations in terms of language training and education once they get here, but by then it's often too late to break the cycle of lifetime welfare dependance; it would be far better if they hit the ground running as they do in the US for example.
I think the only issue regarding that needs to be looked at presently is the ultimate maximum sustainable population Australia can support instead of blindly increasing it year after year. Yes it's a big country, but very little of Australia's landmass is arable (and more of it will be required to grow crops for ethanol productionand not food if we are to stick to our co2 emissions targets) and recent droughts have shown it's water supply to be unreliable at best. Most of the population is crowded along the thin strip of coastline east of the Great Dividing Range.
I remember a uni lecturer I had back in the 80's saying that Australia's sustainable population was about 17 million and anything over this would result in a drop in the standard and quality of living. 200 million was the maximum figure he gave if we were to adopt a Bangladeshi standard of living. Continual water shortages and skyrocketing housing prices due to scarcity of residential land along the coast, combined with increasing housing densities, pollution and traffic congestion in citys whose failing infastructure was designed to cope with far fewer people than now called upon to appears to be testament to this assertion.
And yet we keep bringing more people in without stopping to take a breath and have a good look at the consequences. What's the point of sustaining economic growth if the country itself can't sustain population growth?

• by Phil on October 26, 2008 at 10:52 AM

Australia is the country of immigrants. The problem occurs when people come from different backgrounds and colour, who face discrimination due to stereotype etc. Indians are highly educated and well integrated and most of them have Australian qualification. It is there fluency in English which is a major advantage compared to other Asians and Chinese.

Sometimes Indian have to face discrimination from Chinese, Greeks, Lebs etc due to stereotypes also as they arrived in Australia before them. Indians are well represented in business, technical and healthcare fields as well as Information Technology. Indians also represents majority of international students studying in Australian institutions and Universities. Unlike America, Australian immigration is quicker and less expensive and offer good opportunities to skilled migrants with reasonable proficiency in English.

I think immigrants should be encouraged to work in the chosen field instead of surviving on menial and labour jobs which means less jobs for the locals. So for example if IT professional is working in a factory it is of little advantage to Australia as a labour work can be done by an unskilled Australian or people on refugee Visa etc. The economy is benifitted if people are filling up the skill shortages instead of surviving on unskilled jobs.

• by Raj Malhotra on October 26, 2008 at 11:43 AM

I totally agree with Phil on the points he raised above.

Being an immigrant myself I'm happy to contribute to the prosperity of the Australian society by offering professional service in the software industry.

Unfortunately some people always take advantage of the immigration system to "smuggle" people in "legally" via fraud overseas marriage , fake divorce to get single parent status etc. These people tend to be always on welfare, unemployed (but actually working) to rip the very last dollar off the government.

The population growth of this kind will result in a boost of manual labourers who will be willing to work for cash so they can avoid tax and still getting paid by Centrelink and the worst thing is they create a fierce, unfair competition for locals. I see and hear stories like this everyday in my own community and I'm pretty sure it happens in a much larger scale else where too. Unfortunately Australia is seen as heaven for these pathetic activities.

So while most of us are working 40+ hours per week, continue to improve ourselves professionally, some just slack off and maneuver around the government's loop hole to cash in easy money.

Is the government just plain stupid?

• by Sick of his community on October 26, 2008 at 01:34 PM

Immigration is an issue related to economics, racial or religious prejudice and quality of life. "Quality of life" covers educational opportunities, welfare safety net, the clean environment (not including climate change) and the ability to live in relative peace.
As social beings, immigration is emotionally challenging for immigrants. To emigrate from the place of birth and to leave friends and family behind is very traumatic. This creates a desire for a new immigrant to live near a person "from back home" for providing mutual support, both emotional and physical, in a foreign land. The repetition of this process in a few years becomes the basis for creating ethnic enclaves. Further, as more and more people from a particular country settle into a suburb, the cuisine and an adapted "style" of that country starts emerging, visible through the shop fronts that would line main streets of that suburb.
When these immigrants are not of the same race as the dominant population, the visible difference creates a sense of unease or fear and it takes considerable effort and education to dissolve this feeling.
As immigrants, and I am a fellow immigrant from India, we need to be sensitive about these issues and use common sense (which is quite uncommon) to adopt what is good in the Australian society and also be confident enough to promote and communicate what is good from the culture we bring with us. The good that is obvious from the Australian society that should be imbibed is the concept of a fair go, a good level of honesty, friendly ease, love of sport and the outdoors. What as migrants we can offer is to invite our Australian neighbours and share with them our food and culture and also actively participate in general community based activities. One thing we could help Australia is to create heroes not only in sport but in the areas of science and arts.
The economic and ecologically sustainable aspect of population and immigration is something that is a debate that has to be held by all living in Australia and has to be as objective as possible, within a frame-work of human rights, population sustainability and laws of the land.
I have this belief that immigration from all over the world, will create for Australia a feeling of good will in all countries, as emigrants from these countries, when visiting their place of birth, will carry the positiveness of being an Australian. This will be good for our economy and our security. Amen.

• by MM on October 26, 2008 at 02:41 PM

A lot of people have accused Australia of racism but have they ever bothered to look at our Asian neighbours? At least we never had a caste system like that in India or the restrictive immigration policies of Singapore and Malaysia. Also in Malaysia, if you're ethnic Chinese or Indian, your chances of getting a job high in the public service is restricted by law.

• by Glasshouses in the East on October 26, 2008 at 03:56 PM

I don't know about the rest of Australia, but Sydney's turning into an Asian slum. I'm all for multi-culturalism, but I don't think there's too many other people coming here apart from Asians.

DD remarks: There are many more people coming from Britain and New Zealand, so perhaps Sydney is turning into a Pommy slum or a Kiwi slum.

• by James on October 26, 2008 at 04:27 PM

Considering Australia is being predicted to be Majority Asian by around 2035, and a vast amount of false information is being pushed upon the public to cover this fact up,
Deceptive journalism, indeed.
Now provide the stats for the number of people of Asian descent(Born here or oversees), without using the recently falsified racial definition.
Note: To people unaware, Middle easterners, north Africans, Indians, pacific Islanders, and many others, are falsely being described as Caucasians.
This is being done to lower the stats on Asians dramatically(Around 6 or 7% approx in total) , whilst lifting the Caucasian number to around 92% of the population.
The Indigenous number is around 1 or 2% approx.
I did a count on only three of the major Asian Nationalities(Descent) in Australia, and they surpassed the total being provided on the governments official website.
I had not even added the numerous others(Smaller groups), which would have pushed the actual number to over 300% more than the official statistic.
Daniel.

DD replies: My column has nothing to do with all that. I am reporting on immigrants who were born in China and immigrants who were born in India. The Bureau of Statistics does not use labels such as "caucasian" or "asian".

• by Daniel on October 26, 2008 at 07:18 PM

In response to Billofsydney:
"Put simply the difference is this. At least in Australia students are encouraged to THINK. Whereas in many countries the education system encourages to REPRODUCE knowledge."
You are quite mistaken here. I am currently doing an MBA in Australia and most of my subjects unfortunately only encourage me to discuss other people's theories in my own words. This with absolutely no regards of what I THINK or what my experience is in real life. Apparently to me, in the australian education system, the academics only accept opinions of other PhD or published authors. There is hardly any encouragement for the student to generate original ideas or "THINK" or express opinions and apply the newly gained knowledge to practical solutions. For most of my assignments its been mainly REPRODUCE other peoples knowledge in my own words with some critique (again with reference to a published example).
I would recommend doing some research on the state of Current Aussie education before you criticise that of other countries.
As for the workplace - people tend to do more TALKING and much less THINKING. They talk and talk and talk without much thought behind it all. My experience in this country over the past few years is that people don't THINK much at all, they just TALK!

• by Australian Educated on October 26, 2008 at 10:14 PM

Your "stereotype" about the Chinese all getting high marks and going on to do medicine/commerce/law is not completely off the mark given the cultural and social importance within the culture for high academic achievement. The ones achieving this though are 2nd gen, Australian Born Chinese and hence would actually boost up the Australian Born Statistics, not the Chinese Born.
An interesting study was done in the US a few years ago regarding Chinese migrants. The results showed:
1st gen were the hard working, lower class class which ran laundramats, green grocers and did other labour jobs to get by.
2nd gen inherited their parent's work ethic and had the advantage of a strong education system and english language skill on par with the locals. These ones would be the most successful academically and careerwise but were driven entirely to earn money and status in professions such as medicine, law, finance, accounting and engineering.
3rd gen had pretty much entirely assimilated into the culture and were born to comfortable middle class surroundings. Lacking their parents motivation, their academic results dropped back to the same level as their local counterparts. They also were far stronger in areas such as arts and humanities. Areas which their parents had never considered.
The moral of the story is, assimilation occurs like osmosis. You cannot rush it. Forcing people to do so will only alienate them from the community, as the underlying culture will eventually take over in the end.
One thing that is skewing you statistics is the fact that of the "Australian Born" subset, there are a lot of Chinese/Indian/Korean/Vietnamese/UK/Italian/etc 2nd gen migrants.

• by ABC on October 26, 2008 at 11:19 PM

I am not worried to much about where our migrants are coming from, but extremely concerned about the numbers.
What streak of insanity has led the Government to actually increase our migrant intake? Our country has already passed its optimum population, assessed by several scientists as about 12 million. You only have to look around you to see that we have already overstretched our always limited water supplies. And this would be so even if we were not presently in the grip of a record drought. I believe that we should call a halt to all immigration immediately.

• by Tony Spargo on October 27, 2008 at 05:47 PM

Just when I start to think that Australia has become a more tolerant and accepting society, I see some the comments posted here and it seems to me like we still have problems with discrimination in Australia. We have come a long way since the days when my father suffered racism in the workplace as an immigrant from Southern Europe and I suffered racism in high school because I came from a family that had a culture that was something a bit different to what the majority with an Anglo background were familiar with. At my school reunion 20 years later, most of those racist kids had thankfully changed (as the rest of Australia has) to become more tolerant, accepting and supportive of other people's cultures. Many of them had married girls from many different cultures and with their blended families became part of the multicultural experience. Of course, you still had a few blokes who hadn't changed much at all since those day and still displayed their discrimination quite openly.
I try not to despair when I see hatred and discrimination continuing but I suppose there will always be some people who will never change. It may take generations before our society does not have discrimination as such a big part of its culture.

• by Levendis on October 29, 2008 at 12:40 PM

I am glad that Aussies welcome Indians. We are hard working, loyal, non-controversial and with impeccable English which in many ways is even better than most Aussies. Indians also tend to invest more than any other community which is good for Aussie economy. As India itself is a confluence of several cultures, languages and mannerisms, it is easy for the Indian immigrant to absorb the local Aussie culture and social norms. India rules!

• by Sujit on December 15, 2008 at 11:39 PM