What Does Cultural Diversity Have to offer Contempory Australia?

Cultural diversity has a lot to offer contemporary Australia.

People with different racial backgrounds and people from different ways of life can benefit Australian society as we know it today. Now there are many Australians who believe that when people of different cultural backgrounds step into Australian society, they can bring along with them many things such as different foods, skills, clothing and even knowledge in general. Yet there are also many people who believe that the growing influences of Australian multiculturalism are having a negative impact on our society as a whole. Although there are certain benefits that come along with the asylum seekers and refugees that enter our country, there is much debate as to whether the potential problems they can cause outweigh the positive. This will be explored in this essay.

The skills these people can bring is one of these positives. We can learn a lot from the many different people that come to this country, keeping in mind these are the same people who many consider to be unwelcome. Although similarities between us can be found in mutual values, these people value work and labour more so than us. They bring a strong desire to work to our country, this is clearly shown in the text The Rugmaker of Mazar e Sharif by Robert Hillman where the title character Najaf Mazari says: “All I wanted to do was to stand up on the soil of a land where rockets did not land on my house in the middle of the night and hold my arms wide and say, ‘Here I am. My name is Najaf Mazari. Do you have a use for me in this country?’” This is an example of the work ethic brought to our country by people like Najaf and perhaps we have much to learn from them. These people are also more than open to doing jobs that many of us would like to avoid, but these jobs need to be done nonetheless. These jobs could include employments within the transport industry, the sanitation industry and many other important areas of work. With these points it could be very readily argued that examples like this strengthen the idea that multiculturalism can benefit our modern society.

Many migrants coming to Australia from different parts of the world can bring with them an abundance of different foods, clothes and cultural traditions. Australia was settled by immigrants, since then we have been taking in people from different countries, why should now be any different? What many have failed to realise, Australia has sustained a sense of multiculturalism since the beginning. We have traditions that have been cemented