ABSTRACT
A distinctively Australian perspective on intercultural communication arises from consideration of the nation's history, geography, demography, social policy, and political economy. Australian colonisation of indigenous lands and dispossession of indigenous people was frequently brutal and was widely resisted throughout the frontier. One enduring feature of Australian multiculturalism has been the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). SBS Radio commenced in 1978, and SBS Television in 1980, as a government-funded multicultural broadcaster with a Charter remit to 'provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate, and entertain all Australians, and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society'. Multiculturalism was first proposed as government policy in the 1970s, and was consolidated in the 1980s and early 1990s. Australian multiculturalism has, as J. Pakulski has argued, been relatively pragmatic in its nature, promoting social integration and national cohesion rather than celebrating cultural diversity as an end in itself.
