I cannot fathom where Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad got his facts that the Chinese in Australia and England are oppressed because the Chinese are not permitted to learn their mother tongue Mandarin.

Mahathir is about 40 years behind time. The Cold War is over, the Berlin Wall is gone and the white immigration policy of Australia was dismantled in the 1960s.

In his address to the Umno annual general assembly, Mahathir chastised Malays for not learning and mastering English when the language is so important in the Information Technology age. He even said that English is so important because of globalisation that even the French, Chinese (in China) and everyone else are learning English.

Every statement that Mahathir made contradicts with another statement of his made previously.

Some facts for Malaysians to consider about this great country called Australia:

In the late 1980s, Australia under the leadership of Paul Keating embraced one of the biggest changes to its domestic and foreign policies. The policy of engagement with Asia signalled a new beginning to Australia-Asia ties.

Under the new policy direction, Australian adopted multiculturalism in every aspect of its domestic policy. This policy was made possible as over the last decade or so since the discontinuation of the all-white immigration policy Asian migrants intake into Australia formed the largest of all ethnic groups.

Multiculturalism is the official policy of Australia in form and in substance. Translated into practical applications, the new policy is reflected in the new school curriculum, employment and business opportunities, and the growth of media (ethnic radio and television) and the development of migrant arts. The official policy for migrants is integration as opposed to assimilation of the past. A visit to Sydney, Melbourne and Perth would readily confirm the success of the integration of the various ethnic groups in making Australia a great place to live.

Every state school offers students the choice of learning an Asian language fully funded by the government. Today, there are over three million Australian students studying Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Kampuchean and Indian.

All Australian government departments offered services in other languages other than English. If you want to complete a government department form in Mandarin, you could request for one. If you want to have an ethnic government official attend to you, one will be provided.

Compare this with Malaysia. Try speaking in Chinese at the counter of a Malaysian government department and see what happens.

In Australia, tertiary education intake to universities is based solely on merit. Asian students make up 35 percent of medical students when the ethnic population is less than five percent of the country's population.

Information technology and commerce courses are dominated by Asian students and in some universities, they comprise more than 50 percent of the total student intake.

Compare this with Malaysia, where students with 10 straight As cannot even gain acceptance to Malaysian universities because the colour of their skin. Yet these same students who later made it to Australia on a private basis have always graduated with first-class honours. These first-class honours Malaysian graduates are often headhunted by large multinational companies upon their graduation.

Employment in Australia is based on merit without racial quota. As a result most finance departments of large Australian companies and multinational companies are staffed by Asian accountants. Twenty-five percent of IT programmers and programmer analysts are of Asian origin. Without the Asians, the whole IT industry in Australia will grind to a halt.

In business, Asian Australians are able to compete successfully in the open market economy. Small family businesses and trading companies, where historically Asians are good at, compete strongly without government assistance, because the playing field is level.

Seven large public-listed companies are owned by Asians. Everything is above board here in Australia. Singapore Airlines is able to bid for Ansett Airlines like everyone else without political inference, subject to the rules of foreign ownership percentages.

Compare this with the Malaysian Securities Commission's approval for MCA's Huaren Holdings to take over the Nanyang media group before an offer is made - because the top dog in politics has approved the deal. This would never happen in Australia.

There are 59 ethnic newspapers that are published throughout Australia daily. There is no censorship or government interference with its editorial contents except those on pornography and those inciting hatred of other races (a good example would be Mahathir's remarks in the Umno AGM about white Caucasians).

Each year Australia accepts thousand of refugees from all other the world. Australia has resettled 300,000 Vietnamese on her shores. These same Vietnamese, when they first arrived in Malaysia, were greeted with the shoot-on-sight policy of Dr M in the 1970s. These refugees came to Australia with nothing in their hands, but today their children are doctors, engineers, programmers, lawyers and accountants and form part of the larger middle class of Australia.

Australia donates yearly $2.6 billion of overseas aid to third world countries, especially in Africa. How much did Malaysia provide for humanitarian causes in the third world? During the Asian financial crisis, Australia loaned $1.0 billion to assist Indonesia with its financial dilemma.

When the human tragedy occurred in East Timor, Australia takes the lead in alleviating human tragedy wrought by a regime that had no feeling for atrocities committed on thousands of innocent victims. This exercise in East Timor cost the Australian taxpayers in excess of $2 billion.

During the communist threat to Malaysia in the 1960s, Australia was more than willing to commit troops and equipment to the defence of Malaysia through the Five Powers Arrangement. This joint defence arrangement was nearly scuttled by Australia when Mahathir initiated in the early 1990s, the 'buy Australian last' policy, over the famous remark by Paul Keating about Mahathir being a 'recalcitrant'. Only when Australia called Mahathir's bluff and was willing to abrogate the defence treaty did Mahathir come to his senses and called off the policy.

In the Vietnam War, Australia servicemen gave their lives to defend freedom and several hundreds came back in body bags.

Today, the Chinese in particular and Asians in general in Australia are predominantly to be found in the middle- and upper-middle-income group in Australia. Whether we learn Mandarin or not is not the point. The point is the overseas Chinese are prudent to master the English language as this is the international language used all over the world. What is the point of learning an Eskimo language when there are no opportunities for employment or business on an international scale?

The Chinese are definitely better off in Australia than in Malaysia. There is no discrimination in university entrance, and employment and business opportunities. They can learn their own language in state schools fully funded by the government of Australia.