A policy on immigration helps to determine the unity as well as the size of the population. Should Australia so select its immigrants that the societ… - Geoffrey Blainey

Anyone who tries to range over the last 200 years of Australia's history, surveying the successes and failures, and trying to understand the obstacles that stood in the way, cannot easily accept the gloomier summaries of that history.

Our immigration policy is increasingly based on an appeal to international precepts that our neighbours sensibly refuse to practise. We are surrendering much of our own independence to a phantom opinion that floats vaguely in the air and rarely exists on this earth. We should think very carefully about the perils of converting Australia into a giant multicultural laboratory for the assumed benefit of the peoples of the world.

I continued to admire him as a distinguished exponent of the craft of history writing. By the mid-1980s, I guess our views on certain current-day topics were moving far apart; while we rode comfortably in the same train we got off at different stations.