sticking the boot into multiculturalism...again!

Following on from British Prime Minister David Cameron's recent cynical Muslim bashing exercise see here , the Australian tabloids decided to get in their two cents worth as well. The Melbourne Herald Sun's editorial read it here was especially disappointing, considering it originates from a city that is probably world's best practice in interracial harmony. Both sides of state politics have always been supportive of multiculturalism, yet this hasn't stopped the Herald Sun dog whistling to some of its less than enlightened readership with comments like; "what needs to be asked with some urgency in this country is not what Australia is doing to accommodate ethnic minorities, but what these groups are doing to assimilate with the Australian community" and that some "do not embrace the Australian way of life and remain apart". This of course is a thinly veiled jibe at the Muslims, the great ogre of western civilisation. And in case you didn't get the point, the former Immigration Minister, the badly tainted Kevin Andrews came out with a bizarre rant about not wanting to eat meat that's been slaughtered "in the name of Allah" see here .
Of course what the underlying issue really is, is that mono cultural, monolingual Protestant Anglo Australians like Andrews cannot adjust to the fact that Australia is no longer a British colony of Anglo-Celtic stock (who like to eat fish n chips on Fridays). While these conservatives promote freedom and liberalism, they just can't seem to accept people with a slightly different view of the world are Australians too. They constantly talk about acceptance of "Australian values", but what exactly are they? Values change over time, they're not written down, just as at one time slavery what an intrinsic British "value".
In a free society people can associate with whoever they want, speak whatever language they want, hate cricket if they want, and wear a veil in public if they want. We have a proud multicultural pedigree in Victoria, and history has shown that by embracing tolerance rather than demonising minorities, we've managed to build a pretty decent society. Lets not allow the Kevin Andrews' of this world to talk down what we've achieved.