Yes, let’s be honest. The days when the Italians, Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Poms and Chinese all packed up and headed downunder or over yonder bear no resemblance to the current influx of migrants.
The 3 phases of population growth can be loosely tied down to the pre World War II, post WW2 and the here and now.
Society has changed and societal expectation has shifted from what ‘they can do for us ‘ to ‘what we can do for them.’
This, my friends, is a very big shift indeed.
Even our aboriginals came from another place. They were settlers. Thousands of years later, more settlers came across the great unknown and across hostile and treacherous waters armed with axes, energy and attitude. Some were convicts, forced to settle in a far off land as a slave to a government wanting to rid itself of the " dross " and provide a free labour force.
Other brave souls were driven by the desire to better themselves and found a new society that was not ruled by anything other than the will and drive to build a new life.
And we are the fruit of their labours, their efforts and their Patriotism to their new Countries.
The original ‘Founding Fathers’ in America fled Religious persecution when they embarked on that voyage on the now famous Mayflower.
The Mayflower Compact
Those that abandoned Scotland after the Highland Clearances and headed down under and to Canada and to USA were looking for a place to start again and to rebuild their broken lives.
In Australia, the Irish, the Chinese, so many from other backgrounds followed. Gold was discovered and communities were built, Governments elected and homesteads carved out of dust, mud, disease and disorder. Some became rich and some fell to crime and despair. But no one can doubt that each and every one gave it a go.We saw bushrangers and bad guys, philanthropists and fossickers; we saw all manner of folk taking a ticket in a lottery that saw some win big and some lose all.
After WW1, we saw our soldiers return from overseas and they brought with them the architecture that they had seen, the food that they had eaten, the words that they had learned and the wives that they had married.
Australian Voluntary Workers call for assistance with a banner reading 'Come & Help at French's Forest' during World War I, circa 1917. French's Forest was an area of land just outside Sydney, established as a home for soldiers returning from the war. Picture: Paul Thompson/FPG/Getty Images
During the post World War 2 decades when so many were displaced by the horrors that had impacted on towns, villages and cities throughout the continent, a further wave of migrants headed off. Their skills as tunnel builders, wielders of hammers and forgers of iron were desperately needed.
Each family that stepped off a ship and claimed proudly that they were ready to embrace their new life stepped forward with tenacity, true grit and tremendous ability to work.
And work they did. Bloody hard. They grafted.
Restaurants opened, selling food hitherto unknown to the original migrants in some of the destination Nations.
By the 1970’s we saw our Nations embrace the refugees of the Vietnam War and the turmoil in SE Asia. Those folk came and followed the well established blue print: hard work, contribution and blending in with our melting pot societies.
We had Nations that had been forged out of what some would have considered the dregs of Europe and Asia : those that had nothing to lose but everything to gain.
Our Nations are proof that we can prosper as multi cultural havens that recognise a person’s worth by their character.
But something has gone terribly terribly wrong.
Here we are in 2023, in a world of chaos, division and fear.
We now have migrants who come to demand our generosity and expect us to work to pamper them.
Well, our weak kneed and trough fed Politicians may think that it is fine and dandy, but we, the ancestors of those grafters and crofters, those folk that know what hardship is and what reaping what you sow means that you have to earn what you get... we don’t take kindly to being shafted by free loaders swanning in and taking our houses, our welfare and our heritage.
No siree.
When those that worked hard to provide the backbone of a Nation see newcomers arrive and tear down the monuments, the traditions and the hard won values of THEIR society, then see those same newcomers feeding on the public teat... well, it is small wonder that tempers start to flare.
We are the children of our countries. We are siblings. And when our Politicians, our media and our enemies seek to embolden some migrants to destroy everything that we and our ancestors have worked to create, you are going to have a fight on your hands.
As our current government is pushing hard to change our Constitution to make us invaders in our own home; while they actively promote and encourage massive waves of immigration where language, culture, religion are foreign to us; while they flood us with people who have no where to live and no hope of working in non existent industry or civil works. we are doomed to disaster as a nation.
We have a failing electricity grid. We have not built a new dam for decades. Our roading is congested and inadequate for existing population growth.
Our hospitals are overflowing and our welfare system is being crushed by demands for more and more handouts.
We have little manufacturing and our economy is being propped up by exporting natural resources that our government will not allow us to use.
Our children are barely literate and our society is being suffocated by laws that stifle free expression and critical thinking. In fact, new laws that are even more oppressive are on the table and, should legislation pass, we will not be allowed to object to the jackboot on our throats.
When a society is not allowed to flourish based on a united desire to thrive, we will wither and die.
As France burns in a nightmarish reminder of the Storming of the Bastille and America approaches its Independence Day, I cannot help but wonder where we are headed.
