Our World

Recently I learned that Mandarin is the second most widely spoken language in Australia. It made me reflect on how much our world has changed and I would argue for the better. Both Singapore and Australia are truly lands of immigrants. Singapore has just changed so dramatically since I first went there with my father in the early 1970s.

Undisputedly, Australia is a land of immigrants and I am happy to accept that the aborigines of Australia came about 40,000 years ago. My forebears came only in 1843 just prior to the potato famine in Ireland. Carmenza came to study English lesson seven years ago.

As I look into my diary I see my accountant in Singapore was born in Bangladesh and educated in England, my lawyer in Australia was born in Hong Kong and educated locally our bookkeeper was born in Ireland our business partners both in Singapore and in Australia come from many lands. My first appointment this morning was with a Francophone banker born in North Africa who has spent most of his career in the Middle East and in China but had chosen Sydney as the place for his son to grow up . This afternoon I cannot be in Singapore but will be having a Skype conference with an investor who lives in Singapore much of the time but his wife and daughters are in Melbourne receiving a liberal education. We will be talking with an Australian petrochemical engineer who spends much of his life in Singapore that his wife and children living Sydney less than a kilometre from where commence and I live. He commutes back to Sydney most weekends and has done so for more than 20 years! We are blessed both in Singapore and in Australia by the acceptance of many cultures. I remember when SBS was created in Australia my now late uncle was so pleased to be able to hear news just periodically from the land of his birth been Germany. Today we are able to sit in our homes and by the wonder of the Internet watch the latest news from Latin America real-time out of Miami and across Asia real-time out of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Because of our work with migration lawyers and migration advisors we see many aspiring new Australians seeking investment visa opportunities. Most of these people will make wonderful new Australians, they will give more than they take, they will employ, they will pay taxes and contribute to our society. It is delightful to see these people as they are so positive about the decision to come to their new land.

I am prepared to accept that my forebears came to Australia as economic refugees - they sought and were given the promise of land just this land was in a place called Australia. Today we see people wanting to come to Singapore, Australia, Canada, United States… The same reason - they are prepared to risk all and work hard to make a future for they and their families in the new land. We are each the richer for these people. They are the job creators and they work exceptionally hard to make life in new land. Many of them do start by taking the jobs that we don’t want to do that these jobs are necessary as part of our modern society.

Open societies such as Singapore and Australia will continue to be selective as to the people they taking to their home. Having said this these people who seek to live in the new land have to accept that they must live within conventional society as they find it. By and large the majority do. We cannot close our doors or arise because of a minority.

Both Singapore and the large Australian cities are suffering growing pains and the need for more infrastructure. For both this is the price of growth and developing a home market. I will remember the old Anthony Hordern’s motto “whilst I live I grow”. I think this is true of nations to. Our growth is not without challenges and whilst I don’t like my view being affected by more high-rise development, I accept that I wish to live close to the city that this is a cost as others want to live close to the city. 

Paul Raftery