Immigrant nation

And now the rest.

Wars seem to be followed by waves of people wanting to settle here, and the troubles of the Middle East and Africa are no exception. We've already accepted substantial numbers of legal immigrants from troubled African states like Somalia or Nigeria but we're also prominently in the news now for trying to deal with an illegal trade in people, mainly from Afghanistan or other Indo-Sinai regions. It's a human tragedy and the solutions are not easy but we are a big country with a long history of immigrants, both legal and illegal, so no doubt it's something we'll deal with sensibly and humanely.

For what it's worth, it's my view that the majority of people so desperate to get here today will, just like the waves before them, only make us a better people.

It might, in the midst of this torrid debate we're now having, be worth thinking about the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour, past which literally millions of immigrants sailed on their boat laden arrival to the new world:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

It didn't do America any harm. I think ultimately we'll manage too.

PS: Maybe we already have our own version of the sentiments expressed in the poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. They include this:

"We are one, but we are many

And from all the lands on earth we come

We share a dream and sing with one voice:

I am, you are, we are Australian."

It was written in 1987 by Bruce Woodley of The Seekers and Dobe Newton of The Bushwackers. You can get all patriotic and watch it on line here. For my money, it ought to be our National Anthem. And no mention of being 'girt' by sea either.