Obstacles Towards A Real Multicultural Nation

Despite its racist past,multiculturalism has become a reality in Australia.The post-WWII migration to Australia delivered cultural diversity,building one of this country’s most defining contemporary characteristics.Contemporary Australia has been recognized as a "well-functioning" multicultural nation as it claims that Australia’s multicultural society has been a success on the counts of social cohesion,educational attainment,economic participation and civic integration.Immigrants’ integration into a new society is crucial to maintain and sustain social cohesion.The political aspect of social cohesion on immigrants is embodied in political integration,concerning standards(of immigrants’ political integration)such as naturalization,political participation and representation,and parties and policies,etc.,the author conducted the research and found out that there exist various obstacles in immigrants’ political integration.Though Australia has developed the legislations of Australian citizenship since 1945,immigrants find it harder to get naturalized in the new century due to the increasingly strict requirements proposed by Australian governments.In the meantime,in a democratic nation like Australia,all members are assumed to have the access to participate in decision making directly or indirectly.The fact is that due to the political institution,non-citizens,permanent residents,are denied to vote or stand for election,which means their basic political participation cannot be guaranteed.Australians with dual citizenship are excluded to rule in the parliament according to the Australian Constitution.Moreover,the parliamentary and ministerial constituency manifests that ethnic groups and under-represented in Australia.Since the adoption of multiculturalism as a national policy,Australian Labor Party has devoted to promote the its development,while the Liberal Party has acted less positively towards multiculturalism especially under John Howard administration.Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party has been the one which strongly reject immigrants and multiculturalism.Her arguments and proposals pose great pressure and threats to Australian multiculturalism.Mixed methodology is adopted to illustrate the policies and events.The Indigenous people would not be studied in this article as the political integration here limits to immigrants and their descent.Through the examination of immigrants’naturalization,political participation and representation,and policies adopted by party policies,this paper contributes to conclude that multicultural Australia has a long way to go as there are still various obstacles in immigrants’ political integration into Australia.