Misleading statistics twisted to attack Multiculturalism

I read with horror when Ernest Healy concluded, in the absence of any known peer review, that “migrants from non-English speaking countries are less likely to be volunteers than Australian born or migrants from English-speaking nations” (SMH 11/2/2008). As such, this type of research can only be published in the “Journal of Irreproducible Results”.

The use of volunteering as an indicator of social cohesion is an extrapolation in the extreme. This simplistic use of statistics on census data and its conclusion is unscientific for two reasons. Firstly, census data is difficult to interpret especially on stand alone data without other supporting data. Secondly, the claim that volunteerism and social cohesion are linked is subjective, therefore unsound.

Mr Healy’s take home message was that altruism directed though formal groups represented a “commitment to the broader social good”. Logically then, if you are not a volunteer in formal groups, you do not contribute to the social cohesion and since you are in a multicultural group, multiculturalism does not contribute to social cohesion. This is a good example of simple logic (a=b; b=c, then a=c) however, it will fail when the first or the second algebraic relation is false. It was a good try Mr Healy, but you cannot fool everybody all the time.

Charity begins at home. Migrants start their voluntary work at home, then in their communities and as they are more settled, they join Red Cross, Lion’s Club and other “formal” clubs. Helping others is important and the name and type of the organization is unimportant. Mr Healy will be disappointed when he comes to Sydney. I strongly recommend he do some real social research work in the local governments of Auburn, Marrickville and other LGAs with a diverse population. Ask Mayor Le Lam and Mr Laurie Ferguson MP in the Auburn area for the real truth.