Over in Sydney it's very common once you cross any suburb west of Ashfield and Marrickville, I hear the whole wog accent even when I'm in Asian suburbs such as Strathfield, Lidcombe, and Cabramatta. Heck I've even came across many Islanders, Anglos who speak like Superwog. I wonder if the same translated to Melbourne the way it did in Sydney.
Australia is currently seeing a rise of a far right politician that is unfortunately more popular than even the current Prime Minister. This person dare I say, has a more hardline view towards multiculturalism and diversity than even Donald Trump. One Nation has explicitly put anti-multiculturalism as the forefront of their political ideology, and no matter what you think about the state of the current Republican Party, it has still yet to have straight up done that. Even conservatives in the US know that straight up saying 'diversity and multiculturalism is cancer for society' would be electoral suicide, but in Australia a supposed multicultural country is now embracing a far right politician who says that. Australians would really hate me for saying this, but I absolutely cringe when I hear Australians blame 'American influence' for the rise of Islamophobia and anti-immigration into Australian culture... What the fuck?
As a recent USYD graduate and grandchild of refugees from the Lebanese Civil War, the culture shock I’ve experienced from 'progressive' activists is mind-boggling. I see a weird trend where people campaign for justice for boat arrivals, but then turn around and label suburbs like Bankstown or Fairfield, hubs for Vietnamese, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Syrian refugees, as 'lowlife' areas behind closed doors.
A few jarring contradictions I’ve noticed:
It feels like refugees are a cause to champion when they're a headline, but a 'threat' to property prestige when they're neighbors.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-13/italy-wins-first-t20-cricket-world-cup-match/106339406
Interesting how half of a cricket team in another country has Australian roots and even more suprising is most of them are from Western Sydney
I typed this when I finished an internship after university overseas away from Australia.
I grew up across three different countries. I’ve travelled to 20 countries, meeting people from every corner of the world. By all accounts, I probably should feel like the typical ‘third culture kid’. Someone a little bit from everywhere, and nowhere at the same time.
But somehow the longer I’m away from Australia, everything in my life makes the most sense in multicultural suburban Sydney, especially in Western Sydney, but also the Northern Suburbs, and the Inner West. Doesn’t matter if it’s Earlwood, Five Dock, Burwood, Bankstown, Lidcombe, Merrylands, Rhodes, Eastwood, Granville, or anywhere in between. Because here, cultural differences isn’t unusual, it’s just everyday life.
Nowhere else in Australia, and arguably nowhere else in the world, will you hear fifty languages spoken within a ten-kilometre radius. Or even an accent shaped by Mediterranean, Slavic, Arabic, Asian, Pasifika, Māori, and British influences, all blending into one.
And somehow, in the middle of all the noise around the world, this is home, this is where I belong, this is where my heart and my loyalty lies.
I am a proud Westie through and through, and there is so much that I love about it. But let's see what my other fellow Westies think.
It feels like the media and political discourse focus 99% of their energy on offshore processing (Manus/Nauru) or hotel detention when the topic of refugees come. While those are important human rights issues, they represent a tiny minority of refugees in Australia.
Most refugees who settled in places like Fairfield or Liverpool (especially the large Syrian and Iraqi cohorts) arrived by plane with valid visas through family reunion and the Special Humanitarian Program. They didn't arrive by boat, yet the "boat arrival" narrative seems to be the only thing the average person thinks of when they hear the word "refugee' when I discuss the topic of refugees to both my liberal and conservative friends in USYD.
Do you think the focus on "border protection" has made us lose sight of how the actual settlement system works? And I'm asking this as someone who is a grandchild of refugees from the Lebanese Civil War from Western Sydney.
I'm from a Maronite Catholic family in Western Sydney; my grandparents and granduncles/aunties escaped the Lebanese Civil War in the 70/80s to settle down in the Inner West and Western Sydney. In my opinion, most of the national debate around immigration and social cohesion feels like it's being held in a vacuum by people who wouldn't know their way around Parramatta or Fairfield if their lives depended on it. The reality is that Western Sydney isn't just a 'multicultural hub', it's a massive, complex engine room that consists of 10-15% of Australia's population, and where the old labels of 'progressive' and 'conservative' make less sense.
Given the Cronulla Riots that were hugely amplified by the shock jocks like Alan Jones, you'd assume that many of that cohort would never vote for the LNP, but the opposite is true. You see it clearly in the voting booths in 2013 and 2019, where many families who built their own wealth voted for Abbott and Morrison. There is also a massive elephant in the room that politicians are too scared to touch: some of the strongest anti-immigrant and refugee sentiment actually comes from within those who were descended from refugees themselves.
It's a 'pull up the drawbridge' effect. You have people whose parents arrived with nothing, worked three jobs, and finally 'made it,' and now they look at the massive new waves of migration, like the recent surge from India, with a lot of scepticism. It's not uncommon to hear a second-generation Lebanese or Assyrian Australian complain about overcrowding, infrastructure strain, or 'cultural fit' even more loudly than a stereotypical ignorant bogan would. They feel they've earned their spot and feel rather insecure about their own children's livelihoods.
It's also incredibly frustrating to watch the 'progressive' elite defend multiculturalism in theory while avoiding it in practice. It's easy to tweet support for refugees and immigrants from a terrace house in an inner city leafy suburb, but when it came down to actually putting Syrian or Iraqi refugees in public housing in the Inner West, we saw local councillors, even from the Greens, find excuses to block them from living in the same houses many of my extended family first lived in before moving out to the suburbs, and Western Sydney ends up doing all the heavy lifting for Australia's migration program while the people making the rules stay insulated.
None of this justifies discrimination or hostility toward any group. But it does highlight the need for more grounded, honest conversations, led by people who actually live in and understand the communities being discussed. Western Sydney makes up a significant portion of Australia's population and covers a huge part of Sydney geographically. It is one of the most multicultural and working-class regions in the country, and its cultural influence - through sport, music, food, and small business- continues to grow. Yet when national debates about immigration or social cohesion take place, voices from Western Sydney are often underrepresented.
Western Sydney is not a fringe region. It represents a substantial and growing part of Australia's social and cultural fabric. Its residents across all political spectrums deserve a meaningful voice in national conversations about immigration, integration, and social cohesion. If we want constructive dialogue, it needs to include the lived experiences of those who grew up there.
From what I hear, it's because Harrington Park has alot of boomers who used to grow up in Bankstown etc around the 70/80s
I'm starting to wonder if they did the right thing or not, I have rather mixed feelings about it but do discuss
I once heard an ethnic comedian named Anthony Locash said:
"You don't need to be a Lebanese to be a Lebo, do you know of how many Greek Lebos I know?"
And there was one time a food truck business owner that sells Italian ice cream, he even calls himself a Lebo despite being full Italian.
Apparently all you need to be called a 'Lebo' these days is just wear a bumbag, TNs, and get an AMG + Acai and you're already a Lebo despite what background you are.
I've often heard that diaspora Italians and Lebanese are often more 'traditional' than the ones back in Italy and Lebanon, having two sides of the ethnic family. Probably because of the Tayta's and Nonna's migrated with a culture that was in a 'time freeze' if that makes sense and a lot of things in the Mediterranean have evolved.
Ideally around Strathfield, Auburn, Granville, Bankstown, Belmore, Earlwood, Merrylands, Lakemba, Burwood, etc.
A functional fitness gym that is also pretty social and age group ideally around mid 20s to early 30s.
I went to St Patrick's College in Strathfield, which is one of the most multicultural private schools in the entire country. Plenty of Arab, Islander, Slavic, and Mediterranean lads. In this environment we learnt how to change up words, around the Lebs and Assyrians we call them habibs, and around our Islander mates we call them 'uso' and 'toko'. I love this.