PROPERTY POINT

The holiday period, actually the entire summer, was punctuated by the massacre of 15 people at Bondi Beach.

It created a jolting re-set of the Australian psyche, an event that has shaken up our easy-going nature and long-held belief that we Aussies are somehow immune from such atrocities.

The ramifications will reverberate for many years to come and they are playing out now on the political stage as ISIS brides and immigration levels are debated.

The immigration issue had already been contentious because many people felt the increased levels in recent years had added to the competition for housing and had pushed up prices in that area as well as for goods and services generally.

Many people were already feeling that “mass migration” was out of control and a massacre of Jewish Australians by people alleged to be Muslim extremists has added to the calls for an immigration re-set.

These things should constantly be reassessed and examined to see what benefit or damage is being created in this country by immigration policies.

One thing most of us would agree on is that we expect those who migrate to Australia to be attracted to - and seek to support - our freedoms, democratic traditions, tolerance and, well, the “Australian way”.

What we don’t want is for people to come here and attempt to fundamentally change the nature of a country whose traditions have established a nation that, while not perfect and still a work in progress, can hold its head high as one of the great achievements in the long march of human history.

Around the time of the Bondi massacre and with the immigration reverberations playing out, I sold a house to a husband and wife from a southern city. They were investors and, while I had not met them face to face, their names indicated their ethnicity was sub-continental.

I had only spoken to the husband and throughout the process of buying the property he had been friendly and pleasant but also well-researched on our market.

When their finance and building and pest report had been approved, he told me they wanted to visit the property and asked if they could do a “prayer ceremony” in the house, which was vacant.

I was happy to make the arrangements and a week or so later they arrived in Mackay and I met them at the property. They were a delightfully friendly and pleasant couple and I enjoyed meeting them and showing them the house.

I stepped outside to allow them to conduct their prayer ceremony in private and we caught up later for a coffee.

What felt like a 20-minute catch-up turned out to be a stimulating and absolutely engaging two-and-a-half hour conversation that straddled their lives, my life and various stories about our respective journeys.

It struck me that there are two sides to the immigration debate; on one hand there is the understandable backlash when certain people spread hate and don’t uphold their end of the bargain with the Australian people who have invited them into this country.

On the other hand there are those who peacefully, gently add their traditions to the cultural melting pot without turning against what we stand for.

Post-colonial Australia is the story of the benefits of immigration and it continues a fascinating culinary, fashion, artistic and cultural transformation of modern Australia.

We must fight to defend our borders and our nation from those who would undermine the freedoms, tolerance and democratic traditions that define us as Aussies.

But as this real estate agent can attest, a gentle prayer ceremony in a suburban Mackay house shows that the right immigrants respect and assimilate while continuing to embrace their own beliefs and traditions. And that is a good thing.

‍