Something momentous is happening to Australian society. It began in about 1992, and it seems we've hardly noticed it. After half a century of sustained migration, we have slowed for the first significant length of time. The result is that our ethnic diversity is now diminishing, recent Bureau of Statistics figures tell us. If current trends continue, the overseas born who are leaving the country will soon outnumber new arrivals.
Some immigrant groups are even in decline.
The silence on this change is eerie, particularly when you consider the importance of migration in our history and identity. The second fact, of course, profoundly influences the meaning of the first. More than fifty years later, that seems prescient indeed. New Zealand and Canada's immigration programs have been around that level in recent years, yet Australia's is now barely a third of this figure. But the number of people born overseas is now declining.