Australia has an immigration policy that is like ours stood on its head. The United States is filling up with unlettered Hispanics, who make every social problem worse, whether it is crime, school failure, illegitimacy, youth gangs, obesity, or drug-taking.

Australia is importing hundreds of thousands of smart, hard-working people who are streaming into the nation’s best universities and working their way to the top. Mass immigration at its best? No. “In 1994 the acerbic Le Kuan Yew, then Prime Minister of Singapore, forecast that Australians were destined to be the poor white trash of Asia,” writes Peter Wilkinson in The Howard Legacy. “Today one can say that white Australians are destined to be the poor trash of Australia.”

These successful immigrants are almost all Asians—mainly Chinese—and white Australians have begun to resent their increasing dominance. As columnist Michael Duffy asked in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Is it perhaps the first time in history that a nation’s elite have invited another group to come in and replace it?”

Peter Wilkinson, a former president of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and now editor of The Independent Australian, has written what is probably the first book-length treatment of this replacement. He has no resentment against Asians, pointing out that they are only exploiting an opportunity, just as the Chinese have done everywhere in Southeast Asia. It is white politicians who have sold out their children’s birthright who are the targets of Dr. Wilkin­son’s anger.

The Nature of Immigration

John Howard was prime minister from 1996 until he left office after a Labor victory on November 24, 2007. During that time, explains Dr. Wilkinson, Asians have accounted for a steady 40 percent of all immigrants. The Chinese percentage has drifted down slightly, from about 20 percent to 15 percent of the total, with Indians taking their places. Whites continue to be a minority of all immigrants, at 20 to 25 percent. Asians are now about 7 percent of the population and the Chinese, who account for half them, have an impact far beyond their numbers.

The Australian immigration system used to be weighted towards family reunification, but during the Howard years, the number of immigrants admitted because of skills rose from 28 to 45 percent. In some cases immigration quotas were even allocated to tradesmen, such as carpenters and electricians. This, says Dr. Wilkinson, is because of the foolish idea that everyone should have an “academic” education, which leaves many men with useless degrees in psychology or sociology and no trade. Whites from Europe and South Africa are the immigrant tradesmen; the engineers, accountants, and currency traders are Asian. Asians tend to be concentrated in the power centers of Sydney and Melbourne, where most of the Chinese movie houses and the 14 Chinese newspapers and magazines are found.

The Australian university system helps explain the Asian influx. Higher education is almost entirely free for Australians—only three percent of citizens pay fees—but the government has reduced the education budget over the years. This means universities have come to depend on foreign students, who pay full tariff. Almost one quarter of students are now fee-paying foreigners, and they supply 15 percent of national universities budget.

Graduation with an Australian degree almost guarantees the right to live in Australia. As Dr. Wilkinson explains, “the universities market themselves as providing education but they know, and certainly their prospective applicants know, that they are marketing permanent residency visas.” “Migration agents” do a brisk business recruiting foreign fee-payers. Some low-level cram schools have become almost entirely dependent on Asians, and they lower admissions and credentialing standards to keep the tuition money rolling in. Dr. Wilkinson notes:

    “At one time in many cases the staff would have probably conceded passes in the knowledge that the students would be out of Australia soon and out of sight and out of mind. Not these days; most likely they will be applying for residency, then appointments to professional positions denied to Australian residents who have to met rigorous standards.”

Many classes are filled with people who hardly speak English, and are not much use to Australians, but anyone who complains is, of course, a “racist.”

Dr. Wilkinson points out that Asians who can afford to move to Australia or send their children to school there are middle class at least, and often wealthy. He says that if the first generation is held back by poor English, the second generation will not be. Their children will be just as diligent as they are, and will keep moving up.

Dr. Wilkinson admires the “firm family discipline” of Asians, and contrasts it to the lax, party atmosphere common among white students. Dr Wilkinson notes with disgust that whites are often so badly educated that “many born and bred locals have such poor English grammar and expression skills that recently arrived NESB [non-English-speaking background] immigrants are not particularly disadvantaged.”

Perhaps we may have to start some affirmative action programs to put aside positions for white people who wish to party hearty, but still get all the opportunities available as well.

Funny, but you don't know what you're talking about. A grade average in itself is not a very accurate measure of one's own intellectual capability by itself because so much of it is under the control of other factors. George W Bush was lazy, not dumb. I can't remember what the test was that George W Bush took that I'm basing this information on; it was either the AFQT composite of the ASVAB or the Military Airforce Test, but his score on it was close to the highest percentile rank. I know what I'm talking about here when I can say that these scores can be used with great certainty to approximate how intelligent a person is.