1. Introduction

Multiculturalism refers to communities containing various attitudes and behaviour that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization.

According to (Immigration and Multiculturalism, n.d.), Australia is a country of migrants, originally from United Kingdom, which more than the path of two hundred years, displaced an original inhabitant and founded a liberal-democratic state. In the early days, Australians were disturbed by the subject of 'ethnicity'.

For over fifty years, part of Australia ‘cultural issue' has been solved by implementing a rule of elimination. Australia changes their approach and at last discarded it in the late 1960s to enlarge its people after World War 2. From this environment, acceptance of a 'cultural diversity' guiding principle in 1970s was a past removal of the preceding procedure. Within the fundamental nature, cultural diversity not only evidenced and showed the growing multiculturalism of the country but as well as to hold and form it.

Therefore, definition of “Multiculturalism promotes the integration of ethnic acceptance and respect for cultural diversity, community harmony and inclusion.” is true.

Skilled labour is any worker who has acquired certain skill in their job or may have attended a college or technical school. An example of a skilled labour job is carpenters.

Unskilled worker is a worker who has not acquired special skill or proficiency.

If there is a shortage of migrant skills, the immigration restores the difference among labour supply and demand with no affect on local pay (Shah & Burke, 2005). The purpose of this report provides the reader a better understanding on the impact of multicultural environment to business communication practices in Australia.

The outlines of this report are the three factors that affect the migrants settling in Australia that is economic, cultural and political factors.

2. Environmental factors in Australia

Figure 1. Australian Demographic Statistics, Jun 2012 [pic] [pic] Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012

Figure 1 illustrates that the projected resident population of Australia at end of 30 June 2012 has increased by 1.6% or 359,600 people growing compared to 30 June 2011. The Net overseas migration population for 30 June 2012 was 208,300 people, who show an increase of 22.3% or 38,100 people compared to 30 June 2011.

Thus, there will be implication to economic, cultural and political factors.

2.1 Economic implication of settler population

People must comprehend how cultural differences work in order to revolve cultural ability into an economical benefit (Egan & Bendick Jr., 2008). Both supply and demand effect is an economic factor of migrants settling in Australia. This is resulted from:

• A good number of situations, settlers will bring in a quantity of funds and also their skills and knowledge to Australia (Williams, 1995).
• Migrant desires to survive will require to purchase for foodstuff, pay rental fee or purchase a residence (Williams, 1995).

Settlers with special skills which could be more or unlike the one that exist in Australia, could share their knowledge with the local staff or may use it themselves to increase the effectiveness of the employment in Australia. Thus, the value of several merchandise and services may be enhanced or created with cheaper cost.

Migrants begin their business by means of diverse and at times extra creative techniques. With the growth in migrants, the demand of various products required for daily life will be increased. This resulted to an economy of scale, whereby goods are produce at a lower cost in bulk.

The demand of goods and services will also increase due to more settlers through domestic spending and expansion of private investment. The supply is affected by skilled worker and migrants who bring in money for investment. This will facilitate the economy during the creation of a series of products and services.

2.2 Cultural implication of settler population

Cultural is classified as a characteristic of the ways of living built up by a group of people.

As English language proficiency is critical in Australia (Burnett, 1998, pp. 20). There are a number of small cultural groups encounter difficulties in English language, mixing around with other society due to inferior complex and may decrease the economic progress.

Therefore, this people will relocate close to their family members or associates for financial, emotional support and able to interact socially. For social and economic support, they wish to stay near people who having the same language, cultural and religious background (Hugo, 1995).

2.3 Political implication of settler population

The definition of political is having a define policy or system of government.

Settlers can participate in the parliament to hold a position and also able to vote during election. With the settler population, there will be increase in votes from the migrant.

3. Impact of Multicultural environment to business communication practices

Australian encouraged people to study the foreign culture to improve their company output and also for adaption to the continuous changing world (Munshi & Mckie, 2001), with the multicultural environment.

Exposure to business communication from different countries could enhance better multicultural awareness and obtain greater thoughts on how their business communication skills could solve the issue in the working place of both countries (Sapp, 2004).

Australian could learn and understand from each different culture the business communication practice. Thereafter, it enables Australia to improve the production skills and help sell products and services to other countries.

If the people in Australia do not learn the different culture in the multicultural environment, there will be a lost in business dealing and trading with other country.

Beside the verbal communication, nonverbal communication is also important as misreading the nonverbal communication may lead to unsuccessful communications and loss of business (Dou & Clark Jr., 1999).

(Dwyer, 2009, pp. 24) mentioned that understanding the diverse cultural expectation, allows people to progress their cultural conditioning to enhance business communication and their understanding of others.

This is true as majority population in Australia are contributed by homogeneous cultural environment (Zubrzycki, 1997), thus recognizing the various culture will help to improve the understanding of each culture’s business communication technique. With this, people will avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding during their business dealing. 4. Conclusion

Australia is multiculturalism environment and encourages or recognizes cultural diversity in order to improve the economy, cultural and political factors.

Therefore, immigrants who are skilled are willing to share their knowledge or use their skill to produce goods and services with efficiency or cost effectiveness. As a result, Australia is able to advance into the international market without any difficulties.

5. References

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Australian Demographic Statistics, cat. No. 3101.0, ABS, Canberra, retrieved on 5th January 2012, from AusStats database.

Burnett, L 1998, Issues In Immigrant Settlement In Australia, Macquarie University, Australia

Dou, WL, Clark Jr., G W 1999, “Appreciating the diversity in multicultural communication styles”, Business Forum, vol. 24, no. 3/4, pp. 54-61

Dwyer, J 2009, the Business Communication Handbook – 8th Edition, Pearson Education, Australia

Egan, ML & Bendick Jr., M 2008, “Combining Multicultural Management And Diversity Into One Course On Cultural Competence”, Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 387 – 393

Hugo, G 1995, Understanding Where Immigrants Live, retrieved on 4th January 2012 from http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/hugo_1.pdf

Immigration and Multiculturalism n.d., retrieved 30th December 2012, from http://www4.gu.edu.au/ext/civics/cv02/mod03/cv02m03t02.htm

Munshi, D & Mckie, D 2001, “Toward A New Cartography Of Intercultural Communication: Mapping Bias, Business, and Diversity, Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 9 – 22

Sapp, DA 2004, “Global Partnerships in Business Communication”, Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 267 – 280

Shah, C & Burke, G, 2005, Skilled Migration: Australia, accessed on 21st December 2012 from http://www.education.monash.edu.au/centres/ceet/docs/workingpapers/wp63dec05shah.pdf

Williams, LS 1995, Understanding The Economics Of Immigration, accessed on 19th December 2012, from http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/williams_1.pdf

Zubrzycki, J 1977, Australia as a Multicultural Society, retrieved on 29th December 2012, from http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/auscouncilpop_2.pdf
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