Vibrant and Multicultural Melbourne

The streets of Melbourne are so vibrant and multicultural that it sort of belies the ‘White Australia’ that is portrayed in the Australian media. It may not be officially so now but television in Australia is all about blokes and big haired blondes that speak and behave ‘Stralian’. There is no place for other migrants that may have built the nation. Apparently Melbourne has the highest number of Greeks outside of Greece. But do we see them on the telly? Or so many Italians that live in Melbourne? The culture on television is all ‘Anglo’ and ‘Stralian’. In Auckland, on a daily basis, I see Maori every where. I see them on television too. On the ‘white’ channels and on Maori Television but I saw maybe two aborigines just once on my first trip to Melbourne. Shuffling through the streets, in rags and smelling of alcohol; a defeated attitude to them. This is what Australia has done to her natives. I saw them and was struck with guilt for my middle class, post-colonial existence that allows me an education and mobility across the world. I wonder if third world migrants to Australia ever think of the aborigines or how systematic suppression, racism and colonialism has destroyed one of the oldest peoples in the world?