Peter Ross via luv-talk wrote:
How did the world look like in 1900? [...] On our doorsteps we had the world’s second biggest Empire: 415 million were ruled by the Chinese Emperor. Tensions between Chinese and Anglo-Saxons were ripe during the Gold Rush, and stayed for the remainder of the 19th century. Between 1875 and 1888 all colonies legislated against Chinese migration.
For a bit more context there, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion 1899 — 1901 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa 1881 — 1914 Not a great year to be the Qing emperor.
The section 44 of the constitution is written in this context.
If that's the anti-hyphenate clause, the best context is the contemporary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American
They live here and are proud Australians. The links to their old home is of practical nature, the passport means for quite profane reasons.
ITYM "mundane" not "profane", unless they're emigrés from a theocracy like Vatican City, Iran, Tibet, or England :-)
It hampers and prevents a sizable part of the population from equal representation.
+1, the anti-hyphenate clause is obsolete & we should get rid of it. Unfortunately Australian Constitutional reform is notoriously difficult: * house & senate both agree to hold a referendum * majority of people (nation-wide) * majority of people (state-wide) in a majority of states * queen of australia doesn't disagree enough to trigger a civil war Australians have approved only 8 out of 44 referendums (18%) since federation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referenda_in_Australia#The_No_vote To get this reform passed, we've basically got to convince most Australians that racism is bad. What with neo-Nazism trending on twitbook this decade, I don't fancy our chances.