Monday, December 08, 2008

Expatriat Italian Politics

At the last census, 852,417 Australians identified themselves as having Italian ancestry. This makes Italy one of the major sources of the current Australian population.

At the 2006 Italian elections expatriat Italians were allowed to vote for the first time in special seats in the Italian Parliament. This received a fair bit of coverage in the Australian press at the time. Now James Panichi has provided a fascinating perspective on the election campaign, including its reach into Australia.

I do love the complexities of Australian life. My thanks to Andrew Bartlett for the story.

2 comments:

Niar said...

dear Jim,
I have a knowledge about Australian history, especially its story about multiculturalism. But, I just known that Australia has Italian heritage from their ancestor. I think Australia is quite rich in culture

Jim Belshaw said...

Quite correct, Niar, although we Australians are not always conscious of it. It just is. I think that every national group that came to Australia has left a contribution.