Australia’s multicultural society is not a modern experiment or a social crisis. It is the product of shared effort, grounded in First Nations custodianship and strengthened by generations of migrants who have helped build the nation’s economy, culture and community life.

We begin with respect and truth: this is First Nations land, always was, always will be. The world’s oldest continuing cultures cared for this land for tens of thousands of years before Australia became a modern nation state. Everyone who lives here today, whether their family arrived 60,000 years ago, 200 years ago or last year, stands on land that has never been ceded. That recognition must sit at the heart of any honest national conversation about migration.

From that foundation, the story of modern Australia is not one of replacement, but of joining hands. Migrants from every corner of the world, alongside our First Nations peoples, have helped to build one of the most successful, multicultural and prosperous societies on earth. This is Australia, a shared effort where people of diverse backgrounds contribute, innovate and strengthen the nation we all call home.

One in three Australians are foreign-born. As of June 2024, about 31.5 per cent of the population, roughly 8.6 million people, were born overseas. Multiculturalism is not a fringe phenomenon; it is central to who we are.

Yet tired and divisive claims keep resurfacing: that migrants are taking jobs, taking houses, draining resources or somehow changing the country for the worse. These claims are not new. They were made against Irish migrants, Chinese miners, Greek and Italian workers and Vietnamese refugees, and are now directed against Muslims, Africans and South Asians. History has proven them wrong every time.

Migrants are not taking jobs. They are creating them. People who migrate bring labour, skills, ideas, capital and demand. They start businesses, hire workers, expand services and pay taxes. They help grow the economy and keep essential services running. Migrants have long been the backbone of healthcare, construction, education, technology, aged care, transport and agriculture.

The same principle applies to housing. Australia’s housing crisis is the result of decades of policy failure: slow planning approvals, limited land release, underinvestment in social and affordable housing and weak incentives for large-scale construction. Migrants do not “take houses”. In many cases, they are among the very people building them. Real solutions lie in better planning, faster approvals and sustained investment, not blame.

History reminds us how deeply migration is woven into Australia’s success. Afghan cameleers opened the inland, and Malay and Indonesian pearl divers built early export industries. After the Second World War, Italian and Greek migrants powered projects like the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme and later founded businesses shaping suburbs, bridges, railways and public buildings. Sir Frank Lowy, a Hungarian Jewish migrant, co-founded the Westfield Group, transforming retail. More recently, migrants from South Asia, Africa and the Middle East have strengthened the knowledge economy. Entrepreneur Talal Yassine AM, a Lebanese Australian Muslim, founded Crescent Wealth, and people like Samer Almasri has contributed to tech and healthcare. Today, almost two in five doctors and one in three nurses in Australia were born overseas.

Our culture tells the same story. Australia’s coffee culture is a legacy of Italian and Greek migration. Today, Lunar New Year, Diwali, Ramadan nights, Eid celebrations, Chinese Moon Festival, and Greek Orthodox Easter are all part of the national calendar and embraced by Australians of every background. From multicultural food precincts and music festivals to arts, theatre, and community events, migrants have enriched every corner of Australian life.

This is not cultural erosion; it is cultural enrichment.

Against this lived reality, political stunts such as Pauline Hanson’s burqa performance inside Parliament are not harmless theatrics. They are designed to provoke, humiliate and divide.Such acts betray the “fair go” and mateship at the heart of our national ethos. They send a message about who belongs and who does not, reducing complex, hardworking human beings to props for political attention and dishonouring the values that bind us together.

Migrants are not replacing anyone. They have joined hands in the ongoing building of this country. If Australia wants to thrive in an uncertain global future, it must reject fear and double down on what has always made it strong: openness, fairness, hard work, multicultural cooperation and deep respect for the First Peoples of this land.

Migrants are not a burden.

They are builders.

They are carers.

They are innovators.

They are part of the Australian story, grounded in First Nations custodianship and strengthened by migration.