“I do not accept the view, widely held in the Federal Cabinet, that some kind of slow Asian takeover of Australia is inevitable. I do not believe that we are powerless. I do believe that we can with good will and good sense control our destiny.... As a people, we seem to move from extreme to extreme. In the past 30 years the government of Australia has moved from the extreme of wanting a white Australia to the extreme of saying that we will have an Asian Australia and that the quicker we move towards it the better.”

Australian historian, academic, best-selling author and commentator

Geoffrey Blainey is an Australian historian, academic, best-selling author, and commentator. He is known for his work on Australian history and for bringing historical ideas to a wide public audience. Blainey has written extensively on Australia and on the ways history shapes public life. Alongside his academic work, he has built a large readership as an author and public commentator, and his writing is often associated with broad historical interpretation rather than narrow specialist study.