What is multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism is the policy and lived reality of Australia as a society made up of people from many different cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. As of the 2021 census, 29.1 per cent of Australians were born overseas, almost half had a parent born overseas, and more than 270 ancestries and 300 languages were represented across the population.

Australia's multicultural character is the result of decades of deliberate immigration policy. The end of the White Australia Policy began with the 1958 Migration Act, was accelerated by Liberal Prime Minister Harold Holt and his immigration minister Hubert Opperman in the 1960s, and was completed by the Whitlam Labor government's reforms in 1973. From that point on, immigration was decided on the basis of skills, family ties, and humanitarian need rather than national or racial origin. The official policy of multiculturalism was first articulated by Liberal immigration minister Al Grassby in 1973 and was developed through the Galbally Report of 1978 commissioned by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.

Practical multicultural policy includes settlement services for new migrants, the Adult Migrant English Programme, the Australian Multicultural Council that advises the government, and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), a public broadcaster established in 1980 that produces content in more than 60 languages. State and territory governments operate parallel multicultural agencies, and most local councils run their own harmony programmes, language services, and cultural festivals.

Multiculturalism is now built into the Australian Citizenship Pledge, which commits new citizens to a country whose democratic beliefs and rights are shared by people of every cultural background. National events such as Harmony Week (in March), Diwali, Lunar New Year, Eid, Greek Orthodox Easter, and Multicultural Day in many schools mark the diversity of the modern population. Migration continues to shape the country: the largest country-of-birth groups outside Australia in 2021 were England, India, China, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.