Multiculturalism and white paranoia in Australia

This paper examines the historical emergence of the debates on multiculturanism in Australia by seeing them as part of the evolution of what it defines as Australia’s colonial white paranoia. It examines the way white paranoia has shaped Australian society until its marginalisation in the early seventies. The paper argues that Australia’s multicultural debates are grounded in the economic, social and historical circumstances which made dominant sections of the political class and the media willing from the mid-eighties onward to exploit white colonial paranoia and bring it to the fore as a potent politcal force once again.