A Tentative Exploration of Multiculturalism of Australia

Though multiculturalism originated in Canada as a government policy, it has been fully developed in Australia. As is known, Australia is a country consisting of immigrants with many different nationalities, and its immigrant policy, with three great immigrant waves in its history, has also experienced dramatic changes from assimilation, mixture to multiculturalism. Tolerance, inclusiveness and cultural diversity have now become a prominent feature of the Australian nation and multiculturalism has been firmly established as the core of Australian value system. This essay, while tracing the origin of multiculturalism, tries to comment on the formation of Australian multiculturalism as well as its features. At the same time it examines the inevitability of Australian multiculturalism from the failure of Australian White Australians policy and also probes into the issue of the nationalism and cosmopolitism.