In an effort to help dispel some myths about that strange creature, the 'Australian':
*warning - unusual levels (for me) of factual content within*

Australians are surprisingly diverse in terms of ethnic background. Of a population currently hovering around the 19 million mark, a large number are not the cork hat wearing Anglo-Saxon origin ockers that you might expect. Of course, they are still the majority..sans cork hat naturally. Still, there are more aussies of Vietnamese, Greek, Italian and Chinese origin than you can poke a stick at.

1996 Census results: overseas born, and second generation children of overseas born, Australians.

      Region of Origin                Overseas         Second 
                                      Born             Generation* 
      Oceania and Antarctica          378,100          246,000
	  
      United Kingdom and Ireland    1,124,000        1,523,000

      Other Europe                  1,093,100        1,187,700

      Middle East and North Africa    192,700          158,800	

      Asia**                          856,100          285,900

      North America                    75,000           56,800

      Southern and Central
      America and Caribbean            75,700           33,500
				
      Africa (excluding Nth Africa)   107,200           56,200

      *  Defined as one or both parents born in the region
      ** Asia total obtained by adding the three regions
         North-east Asia, South-east Asia and Southern Asia

Note: these are only the figures for relatively recent immigrants, and do not constitute a breakdown of ethnic origin for the existing Australian population (I'm still looking for a free version of that one). All Australians are of immigrant origin (just as with most of the world's population) of varying residency duration; although the 40 plus thousand years of Aboriginal Australian tenancy has arguably transcended immigrant status. Third and higher generation ethnic ancestry is not included here, so this is likely to be a gross underestimate of absolute ethnic diversity in Australia.

Check out http://www.immi.gov.au/ for more info.
Oh, and we are all still named 'Bruce'.

The 2001 census allowed Australians, approaching twenty million strong, to declare what ancestry they considered themselves to be. This subjective assessment allowed people to define what ethic group they see themselves as belonging - a Malaysian-born Chinese with Australian citizenship might see themselves as Chinese first, Australian second and Malaysian third. Ethnic backgrounds that straddled different countries (eg: Jewish, Kurdish) could be included. People could nominate upto two ancestries.

The most commonly declared ancestries were :
Australian (6.7 million; 99% Australian born)
English (6.4 million; 82% Australian born, 13% English born)
Irish (1.9 million)
Italian (800,000)
German (742,000)
Chinese (557,000; 25% Australian born, 24% PRC born, 11% Hong Kong born)
Scottish (540,000)

Ancestries nominated by 150,000 to 499,999 Australians included:
Greek
Dutch
Lebanese
Indian
Vietnamese
Polish

Ancestries nominated by 50,000 to 149,999 Australians included:
Maltese
Filipino
New Zealander
Croatian
Serbian
Australian Aboriginal
Welsh
Macedonian
French
Spanish
Maori
Hungarian
Russian
Sinhalese
Turkish
South African

Ancestries nominated by 20,000 to 49,999 Australians included:
American
Korean
Danish
Austrian
Portuguese
Ukrainian
Japanese
Indonesian
Samoan
Egyptian
Swedish
Jewish
Swiss
Chilean
Khmer
Thai
Canadian

Ancestries nominated by 10,000 to 19,999 Australians included:
Latvian
Iranian
Assyrian/Chaldean
Malay
Finnish
Bosnian
Mauritian
Norwegian
Czech
Fijian
Romanian
Tongan
Armenian
Slovene
Pakistani
Afghan
Anglo-Indian
Lithuanian
Iraqi
Burmese
Albanian
Syrian
Lao

Ancestries nominated by 5,000 to 9,999 Australians included:
Torres Strait Islander
Bengali
Papua New Guinean
Cook Islander
Tamil
Estonian
Slovak
Palestinian
Salvadoran
Argentinian
Timorese
Uruguayan
Somali

Ancestries nominated by 2,500 to 4,999 Australians included:
Peruvian
Kurdish
Taiwanese
Bulgarian
Sudanese
Brazilian
Colombian
Australian South Sea Islander
Coptic
Ethiopian
Nepalese
Zimbabwean
Jordanian
Hispanic

There were seventy other ancestries that comprised of upto 2,500 respondants. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has not declared if they included Jedis caused by the the campaign to have Jedi registered as a religion through the national census.

Aus*tra"li*an (?), a. [From L. Terra Australis southern land.]

Of or pertaining to Australia.

--

n.

A native or an inhabitant of Australia.

 

© Webster 1913.