A REAL Consevative leader

Via Melanie Philips comes the news that Australia's Conservative leader, John Howard, has scrapped Australia's flirtation with multiculturalism.

PRIME Minister John Howard officially scrapped multiculturalism today as he sacked Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone and renamed her old department.

The trouble-plagued Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) will now be known as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, with former Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews the new minister.

“I think the title of the new department expresses the desire and the aspiration, and that is that people who come to this country, who emigrate, immigrants, become Australians,” Mr Howard told reporters.

“That's what the Australian people want."

Quite right, but how refreshing (and odd) to hear a politician actually taking an interest in what his people want. And how refreshing to see a conservative who is committed to the principles of conservatism and not selling out just to get the support of the liberal elite. If I were 10 years younger I think I'd be considering a move to Oz. It certainly looks like it has a brighter future than dear old Blighty at the moment.

It's also interesting to read the response of the Labour opposition.

“This is nothing more than an election year stunt showing up the narrow vision of Mr Howard and his willingness to use shallow nationalism to achieve his fantasy of imposing a mono-cultural vision on the reality of a modern multicultural Australia,” Senator Andrew Bartlett said.

Hmmm? Remarkably familiar rhetoric stuffed full of multiculti mumbo-jumbo. I don't think Mr. Bartlett would know reality if it slapped him in the face. If he considers it an "election year stunt", presumably that means he thinks it's a vote winner. If that's the case then it suggests the majority of Australians like the idea and that, far from having mono-culturalism "imposed" on them, they are determined to retain their culture and resist the real fantasy - multiculturalism - being foisted on them by the likes of Mr Bartlett and the Labour party.