Politics is a funny business; very often politicians cause the problems and then get kudos and gratitude for attempting to fix them. The Hawke-Keating Government dramatically reduced the waiting period necessary to apply for Australian citizenship. There were several reasons for this decision and the national interest was never one of them.

The Labor Party, or more specifically the NSW Right saw the electoral advantage of enrolling the mass of ethnics in the major cities as a captive vote. Many of these people saw citizenship as a personal advantage in such matters as helping to get relations into the country. (Take note Kate Ellis, Labor MP for Adelaide. Your naive and misleading piece in today's Sunday Mail does not tell the whole story, does it?- Ed). In some cases providing a bolthole for them if they returned to their country of origin. (remember the taxpayer funded evacuation of "Lebanese Australians" during Israel's water grab for the Litani River under the guise of hunting for terrorists?- Ed.)

The communist element that had permeated the left of the Labor Party saw the issue in ideological terms. They realised that making citizenship very easy in fact devalued it and diluted the sense of national solidarity, thereby paving the way for the socialist international. What we got instead was an upsurge in tribalism. The government is now talking about inculcating Australian values and there is much conjecture and ridicule about what these values are.

If you look at Canberra, there are clubs for just about very nation under the sun that has immigrated here. There is no English club despite the fact that British migrants outnumber every other category of migrant in that area. The reason is that the culture is so similar that they just assimilate. The reality is that the culture across Europe is compatible and there has been a large degree of assimilation.

It is when the politicians became captive to the immigration lobby we began to source people from cultures that were substantially different, we imported them in such large numbers that they had critical mass and did not need to even learn the language, never mind consider assimilating. We then compounded the problem when both the parties became captives of the immigration lobby and the policy of Multiculturalism was forced upon us against the overwhelming wishes of the people.

Under the Howard Government Islamic immigration has dramatically increased. It is time for a change in direction and a policy of sourcing migrants predominantly from people who understand the value of western liberal democracy. All migrants should be made to sign a declaration that they acknowledge that in this country our law is supreme. It should be made very clear to them that old enmities are not welcome here and cultural practices that are at odds with our law are illegal.

In terms of determining Australian values the only things that really matter are the recognition of the importance of freedom of speech and the rule of law (clearly under threat from the current crop of social engineers and Global Village Idiots-Ed).

Mr. Campbell went on to indicate the working holiday visa scheme be widened to give prospective migrants the opportunity to be introduced to the true Australian culture and value system in order to educate them before making a decision possibly damaging to their own circumstances and the national interest as a whole.

Many thanks to Graeme for supplying this article.