THERE IS NO 'US', AS MIGRANTS FORM COLONIES

 Another 240,000 foreigners joined us last year alone, not just crowding our cities but changing our culture.

For instance, in 1996, there were 119,000 Chinese-born people living here. Now, there are 526,000.

In 1996, there were 80,000 Indian-born people living here. Now, there are 469,000.

Once we might have assumed that such migrants — just like my own parents — would assimilate into the wider “us”.

We’d still be able to recognise Australia and talk about what “we” wanted and believed.

But something has changed and no longer can we assume Australians share anything but territory.

Immigration is becoming colonisation, turning this country from a home into a hotel.

We are clustering into tribes that live apart from each other and often do not even speak the same language in the street.

Check the new Chinese suburbs such as Melbourne’s Box Hill, where an astonishing two-thirds of residents were born in China or have Chinese ancestry.

(Read the full column here.)