Yet again I’m enraged that such racist and hate-filled debate continues. Liberal MPs are against halal butchers apparently, because they will lead to Australia becoming full of ethnic enclaves.

Does this mean that the way Italians started curing meat in Australia back in the 50s and 60s has destroyed our way of life? I’m quite sure that the Liberal MPs in question, former Howard Minister Kevin Andrews among them, enjoy some delicious prosciutto on a focaccia just like the next person.

When will we learn the lessons of our young nation’s history and the lessons of history more generally, and stop scapegoating the ethnic group du jour? It’s a pattern that a nation state develops. Defining an ‘other’. Right now it is muslims, radical islam, or people of ‘middle eastern appearance’ - whatever that means. It used to be a number of others, our indigenous population, Italians, Greeks, Vietnamese ‘boat people’, the Macedonians that came during different wars.

The only way to prevent the development of ‘ethnic enclaves’ that the Libs are apparently so scared of is to actually form a dialogue with people of diverse cultural backgrounds and have a national multicultural policy that encourages diversity, and essentially, allows people the freedom to pursue religion, cultural interests, their language and heritage within Australian society, not apart from it.

Many of you might think - Luisa, it’s just an article… it’s just a few backbenchers talking crap. It isn’t significant. Well. Though it might not be a significant issue now, it all feeds into it. As long as people hold these views, Australia becomes less of a socially inclusive society. How did the Cronulla riots happen? How did it actually get to the point of people taking to the streets? Consecutive speeches, articles and rhetoric coming from the Government at the time which created a space where people think it is REASONABLE and NORMAL to protest against the mere existence of a ‘group’ of people on their beaches.

It’s a human rights issue. Rant over.

ELSEWHERE: The dirty little secret of assimilationists

I tend to ignore Gerard Henderson and his columns. But this article makes me angry. Whatever David Cameron is saying in the UK, Australia is a multicultural nation and any attempt to make it culturally homogeneous and devoid it of this status are not only irresponsible, they are racist and an affront on our human rights (not that we have any enshrined in law). Rant over.