IT amuses me to read and hear the partisan reflections of Australians on the American elections. Well known Labor-supporting commentators like Geoff Kitney at the Financial Review can see signs in the American elections which suggest Labor will win the next election here. But stop and think about it for a moment. Will Julia Gillard win the next election on the back of support from African-Australians and Latinos? Because that is one of the striking characteristics of the American elections. Ethnicity has become a key determinant of voter behaviour. Whites voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney 58 per cent to 40. African-Americans voted 93 per cent for Obama and Latinos a less emphatic 69 per cent. Frankly, the last thing we want is the politics of ethnicity to invade our country. It is divisive in and of itself and, what is more, it encourages political candidates to exploit the divisions that already exist between ethnic groups. I'm very familiar with the politics of ethnicity. I work with it in Cyprus. It's harsh, often chauvinistic and, above all, defies that old but great phrase of Martin Luther King, that people should "not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character". In the past, there have been attempts to exploit ethnicity in Australian politics. It was said for a long time that Greek Australians were Labor voters, as were Italo-Australians. But, as it turned out, socio-economic factors took hold of those communities as much as any