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The White Australia Policy is the prevailing term used to describe a collection of Australian policies which restricted non-white immigration and promoted white, European immigration from 1830 to 1973 with related policies enduring as late as 1982.

Initially born out of British nationalism and later fuelled by anti-Chinese racism during the gold rush of the 1850's and labour union protests of the 1880's, the key legislative enactment of the White Australia Policy was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. Discriminatory immigration policies were gradually removed between the end of World War 2 and 1982 with racially discriminatory aspects of the Migration Act officially overturned in 1973.

In modern Australian politics and media, the term White Australia Policy is typically used metaphorically to refer to Australia's racist history or to decry policies with a perceived racist slant, in contrast to more recent policies of actively promoting multiculturalism and diversity.

Immigration policy prior to Federation

Pre Gold Rush Immigration

Prior to 1830, the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land had no specific policies on immigration; they were predominantly concerned with the transportation of British convicts and the support of these new settlements. Of the nearly 150,000 convicts transported to Australia, only 4,000 were not Anglo-Celtic and of these only 900 were non-white. These figures do not reflect a deliberate bias in immigration policy, rather they likely reflect the ethnic distribution of persons processed by the British legal system at the time.

From 1830, the two Australian colonies made deliberate efforts to increase the number of Britons in Australia, as part of a program to increase their population. Incentives, including relocation expenses, were offered to British citizens to emigrate to Australia. This was driven by a "new Britannia" policy which aimed to see Australia recreated in Britain's image. Between 1830 and 1940, 1,068,311 Britons accepted this subsidised relocation to Australia.

Gold Rush Era

The discovery of gold in Australia in 1851 led to an influx of immigrants from around the world. Over the next 20 years, 40,000 Chinese (mostly Cantonese) were attracted to the goldfields. Competition on the goldfields led to significant competition between all groups. The Chinese, who kept to themselves for reasons of language and community, were frequently denounced by white prospectors. Chinese were blamed for bad luck and "unfair" competition.

This tension eventually led to a series of protests and riots, including the Lambing Flat Riots between 1860 and 1861. This tension and series of protests led to restrictions being placed on Chinese immigration and residency taxes levied from Chinese residents in Victoria from 1855 with New South Wales following suit in 1861. These restrictions remained in force until the early 1870's.

Pro-white labour movement

The growth of the sugar industry in Queensland in the 1870's led to searching for labourers prepared to work in a tropical environment. During this time, thousands of "Kanakas" (Pacific Islanders) were brought into Australia as indentured workers. This and related practices of bringing in non-white labour to be cheaply exploited was commonly termed "blackbirding". In the 1870's and 1880's, the labour union movement began a series of protests against foreign labour. Their arguments were that Asians and Chinese took jobs away from white men, worked for substandard wages, lowered working conditions and refused unionisation.

Objections to non-white immigration restrictions came largely from wealthy land owners in rural areas. It was argued that without "Asiatics" to work in the tropical areas of the Northern Territory and Queensland, the area would have to be abandoned. Despite these objections to restricting immigration, between 1875-1888 all Australia colonies enacted legislation which excluded all Chinese immigration.

Agreements were made to further increased these restrictions in 1895 following an Intercolonial Premier's Conference where all colonies agreed to extend entry restrictions to all non-white races. However, in attempting to enact this legislation, the Governor refused royal assent due to a treaty with Japan. Instead, the Natal Act of 1897 was introduced, restricting "undesirable persons" rather than any specific race.

From Federation to World War II

Federation Convention and Australia's first government

Immigration was a prominant topic in the leadup to Australian Federation. At the Federation Convention, Western Australian premier and future federal cabinet member, John Forrest, summarised the prevailing feeling:

Australia's first government following Federation in 1901 was formed by the Protectionist Party with the support of the Australian Labor Party. The support of the Labor Party was contingent upon restricting non-white immigration, reflecting the attitudes of the Australian Worker's Union and other labour organisations at the time, upon whose support the Labor Party was founded.

Immigration Restriction Act 1901

The new Federal Parliament, as its first piece of legislation, passed the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 to "place certain restrictions on immigration and... for the removal... of prohibited immigrants". The act drew on similar legislation in South Africa. The Prime Minister argued famously in support of the Bill with the following statement:

Early drafts of the Act explicitly banned non-Europeans from migrating to Australia but objections from the British government, which feared that such a measure would offend British subjects in India and Britain's allies in Japan, caused the Barton government to remove this wording. Instead, a "dictation test" was introduced as a device for excluding unwanted immigrants. Immigration officials were given the power to exclude any person who failed to pass a 50-word dictation test in any European language.

Australia was not the only British Dominion to have such immigration policies. At this time many people believed that there were deep and innate differences between races, and that their own race was superior to all other races. Such views were sometimes accompanied by such policies such as Jim Crow Laws. South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand also had racially restrictive immigration policies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Similar restrictions also existed in the United States of America. In 1905 legislation was introduced to the United Kingdom, principally affecting Jews. (see also Komagata Maru, and the Red Summer of 1919). Australian soldiers were involved in the assaults on the Black British community in Cardiff, Wales in 1919.

In the same year, the government also passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act. The result of this legislation is that 7,500 Pacific Islanders working in Australia were deported.

The Paris Peace Conference

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference following World War I, Japan attended the conference with the explicit intention of having a racial equality clause included in the League of Nations Charter. Japanese policy reflected their desire to remove or to ease the immigration restriction against Chinese and Japanese in America which Japan regarded as a humiliation and affront to its prestige. Emperor Showa (Hirohito) was later to suggest that this was one of the reasons for the Greater East Asian War (Pacific Theatre of World War II).

Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes vehemently opposed the proposition. Hughes recognised that such a clause would be a threat to White Australia and made it clear to Lloyd George that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted. When the proposal failed Hughes reported in the Australian parliament:

Australia was one of few countries which had race as a dominant political ideology at the time.

Abolition of the Policy

World War II

Between the Great Depression, starting in 1929 and the commencement of World War II in 1939, global economic pressures kept immigration to very low levels.

At the start of the war, John Curtin reinforced the message of the White Australia Policy by saying:

However, by the end of World War II, Australia's vulnerability during the war in the Pacific and small population led to policies summarised by the slogan "Populate or Perish". During the war, many non-white refugees, including Malays, Indonesians and Filipinos, had settled in Australia. Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, controversially sought to have them all deported. In 1949 Harold Holt allowed the remaining 800 non-white refugees to apply for residency and also allowed Japanese "war brides" to settle in Australia.

Progressive relaxation of restrictions

Australian policy began to shift towards significantly increasing immigration. Legislative changes over the next few decades continuously opened up immigration in Australia.
  • 1947 the Australian Government relaxed the Immigration Restriction Act allowing non-Europeans to settle permanently in Australia for business reasons.
  • 1950 Colombo Plan, students from Asian countries were admitted to study at Australian universities. This helped break down racial attitudes.
  • 1957 non-whites with 15 years' residence in Australia were allowed to become citizens.
  • 1958 The Revised Migration Act of 1958 abolished the dictation test and introduced a simpler system for entry.
  • 1959 Australians were permitted to sponsor non-European spouses for citizenship.
  • 1964 Conditions of entry for people of mixed-descent were relaxed.

After a review of the non-European policy in March 1966, Immigration Minister Hubert Opperman announced applications for migration would be accepted from well-qualified people on the basis of their suitability as settlers, their ability to integrate readily and their possession of qualifications positively useful to Australia. At the same time, the Holt Liberal government decided a number of 'temporary resident' non-Europeans, who were not required to leave Australia, could become permanent residents and citizens after five years (the same as for Europeans).

As as result, annual non-European settler arrivals rose from 746 in 1966 to 2696 in 1971, while annual part-European settler arrivals rose from 1498 to 6054.

End of the White Australia Policy

The effective end of the White Australia policy is usually dated to 1973, when the Whitlam Labor government implemented a series of amendments preventing the enforcement of racial aspects of the immigration law. These amendments legislated that:
  • all migrants, of whatever origin, be eligible to obtain citizenship after three years of permanent residence
  • ratified all international agreements relating to immigration and race.
  • issued policy to totally disregard race as a factor in selecting migrants.

The 1975 Racial Discrimination Act made the use of racial criteria for any official purpose illegal.

It was not until the Fraser government's review of immigration law in 1978 that all selection of prospective migrants based on country of origin was entirely removed from official policy. Currently, a large number of Australia's immigrants are from countries such as China and India, though the United Kingdom and New Zealand respectively remain the two largest single sources of immigrants.

The last selective immigration policy, offering relocation assistance to British nationals, was finally removed in 1982.

Legacy

Population Distribution

The 2001 Australian census results indicate that a majority of Australians claim some European heritage: English 37%, Irish 11%, Italian 5%, German 4.3%, Scottish 3%, Greek 2%, Dutch 1.5%, Polish 0.9%. Non-European origin forms a significant but still relatively small part of the population: Chinese 3.2%, Lebanese 0.9%, Indian 0.9%, Vietnamese 0.9%. 2.2% identified themselves as Indigenous Australians. 39% of the population gave their ancestry as "Australian". (Note that subjects were permitted to select more than one answer for this census question.)

15 percent of the population now speaks a language other than English at home. The most commonly spoken languages are Chinese, Italian, Greek, and Arabic.

Given that current Australian birth rates are below levels required for population replacement, it is possible that, with declining birth rates compensated by immigration, there may be fewer native-born Australians than immigrants by 2100 (see graphs).

Political and Social Legacy

Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity has been illegal in Australia since 1975. Australia's official policy on racial diversity is: "to build on our success as a culturally diverse, accepting and open society, united through a shared future ".

The White Australia Policy continues to be mentioned in modern contexts, although few politicians ever mention the policy, except when denouncing their opposition. John Howard famously argued for restricting immigration in 1988, later admitting that his comments cost him his job at the time:

Pauline Hanson was also widely accused of taking Australia back to the days of the White Australia Policy, particularly through reference to Arthur Calwell, one of the policy's strongest supporters.

At their peak, Ms Hanson's One Nation Party received 9% of the national election vote.

Topics related to racism and immigration in Australia are still regularly connected by the media to the White Australia Policy. Some examples of issues and events where this connection has been made include:

See also

References

Further reading

  • Wulf D. Hund (2006): White Australia oder der Krieg der Historiker. In: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 3.
  • Laksiri Jayasuriya, David Walker, Jan Gothard (Eds.) (2003): Legacies of White Australia. Crawley, University of Western Australia Press.
  • (old but still very useful)

External links

  • (scan of the Act and information)

Australian immigration | Discrimination | Politics and race | Racism

Australia Blanca | 白豪主義 | 白澳政策

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "White Australia policy".

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