But please don’t confuse distractions like Republicanism and the Queen with insidious multiculturalism. Multiculturalism doesn’t work. It’s easy for monolingual Anglo-Saxon whites to confuse multiculturalism with diversity of race and color, but although related, they are not the same thing. For example, take Brazil. Brazil arguably has the most miscegenated population in the world; all the three races of man are represented: African, Asian and European. Yet, Brazilians are surprisingly singular in their identity as Brazilians, sharing many, many things in common. Immigrants to Brazil are expected to become Brazilian, to incorporate ‘Brazilianess’ and within a generation most are completely assimilated. True, the Japanese and Arabs have maintained their identity, but they are small minorities.

But Australia is not Brazil and never will be. Portuguese and British colonization took very different paths. Why should Australians be ashamed of their British past? On the contrary, why shouldn’t Australians cherish their past, their British origins? Whilst I accept that the world has changed, immigrants to Australia should be expected to become Australians and fit into the native cultural environment. If an immigrant doesn’t want to become Australian or – at the very least – accept the cultural status quo, then he/she shouldn’t immigrate.

The UK is slowly coming to terms with the fact that the imposition of multiculturalism has been and will continue to be, a deceitful experiment. Deceitful for all parties involved, both the ‘native’ British and the incoming immigrants. Worse off of all are the sons and daughters of those immigrants, who have grown up believing themselves to be de facto British, when in fact they are little more than de jure British. Growing resentment is replacing hope. Whilst Australia would wish to break with silly British institutions, wouldn’t it be wise to avoid the worst excesses of the UK’s multicultural experiment as well?