ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of Australian multiculturalism and its complex relationship with national identity and Indigenous recognition. From the 1970s, governments of both major parties promoted multiculturalism as a marker of modernized and anti-racist national identity, but always within a framework that required primary loyalty to Australia and adherence to shared civic values. Early policies under Whitlam emphasized social justice and anti-racism, while the Fraser government embedded multiculturalism institutionally and celebrated voluntary cultural membership and devolved social services. Later Labor governments, especially under Keating, reframed diversity as an economic asset – ‘productive diversity’ – useful for global trade and projecting an image of a tolerant, cosmopolitan Australia. Indigenous peoples, however, were largely excluded from multicultural policy. Instead, governments approached Indigenous issues through the prisms of historical injustice, national legitimacy, and international reputation. When Indigenous culture was appropriated symbolically – for example, during the 2000 Sydney Olympics – it was done so to legitimize a long historical identity for Australia. Meanwhile, governments struggled to address structural inequalities. Since the 1970s, multiculturalism has been used both to redefine Australia’s identity as open and diverse and to distance the nation from its racist past. Yet tensions remain between celebrating diversity, asserting social cohesion, and confronting the legacy of colonial violence towards Indigenous peoples.
