"If the authorities fail to act effectively, then it's time to add Australia to the list of countries that talks a good game about democracy but which lacks the guts to put its resources where its mouth is".

Do you mean the people of Australia or only the Government?

I don't ever recall any hype about the ordinary people claiming to be immune from life's realities. Australia has always had problems with its immigrants - when I lived there in the 60s the Greeks and Italians copped for all the prejudice because their standards and culture were different from those of the indigents. The Government's response to those problems was to welcome immigrants from even more differing standards and cultures, such as from Lebanon and other middle eastern countries. Now they are courting the Chinese and Vietnamese. The population of Australia has about doubled in the last 35 years and I'm not really surprised that there would be some sort of backlash.

Why is everybody wondering why this happens? - are we so naive as to not have noticed that wherever in the world people have been forced to co-exist without option there have inevitably been problems.

I don't say it's right, just that it is so.