White Australia policy

The White Australia policy is a term used to describe a collection of historical policies that intentionally restricted non-white immigration to Australia from 1901 to 1973.

The inauguration of White Australia as government policy is generally taken to be the passage of the "Immigration Restriction Act" in 1901, one of the first Acts of the new national parliament upon federation, with virtually no parliamentary opposition. The policy was dismantled in stages by successive governments after the conclusion of World War II, with the encouragement of first non-British and later non-white immigration. From 1973 on, the White Australia policy was for all practical purposes defunct, and in 1975 the Australian government passed the "Racial Discrimination Act", which made racially-based selection criteria illegal.

Restrictions on immigration had preceded federation, which began with anti-Chinese legislation enacted by individual Australian colonies during the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s.

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 165,000 convicts transported to Australia, only 4,000 were not from the British dominions and of these only 900 were non-white.] |||Pauline Hanson in her maiden speech to parliament

On 24 May, 2007, Pauline Hanson, with her new Pauline's United Australia Party, continues her call for a freeze on immigration and provided comments about African migrants carrying disease into Australia [ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Hanson-launches-campaign-song/2007/10/05/1191091356094.html Hanson launches campaign song - Breaking News - National - Breaking News ] ] . 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:
reconciliation with Aborigines; mandatory detention and the "Pacific Solution"; the 2005 Cronulla riots. Former opposition Labor party leader Mark Latham, in his book "The Latham Diaries", described the ANZUS alliance as a legacy of the White Australia policy.

In 2007, the Howard Government introduced a citizenship test to include a tougher English language test, and a test on "Australian" values. The actual questions of such citizenship test have not been publicly released, and its future is in question given the ALP victory in the 2007 election.

Though the White Australia policy, which had segregated Aborigines, no longer exists, their poor socio-economic conditions typically leave them segregated from the rest of Australian society. Many non-Aboriginal people also suffer from poor socio-economic conditions, despite the provision of state schooling and health care. The situation in 1997 led one activist to suggest that the country could be led "back to apartheid". [ [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/054.html Australia Facing New 'apartheid,' Aborigine Says ] ] In fact, Australian government policy from earlier years is viewed by some as the original impetus for the Apartheid system in South Africa. [ [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/177.html Oral intervention to Plenary, 6 September 2001, Durban, South Africa ] ] [ [http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/articles/limb.htm The Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History: ] ]

ee also

*One Australia policy
*Eurocentrism
*First white child
*Racism
*Racial equality proposal
*Head tax (New Zealand)
*Settler colonialism
*South Sea Islanders
*Sinophobia
*Yellow peril
*Europeans in Oceania
*Head tax (Canada) and Chinese Immigration Act, 1923
*Anti-Chinese legislation in the United States
*Apartheid
*Asian Exclusion Act in the United States

References

Further reading

*cite book|author=John Bailey|title=The White Divers of Broome|publisher=Sydney, MacMillan|year=2001|id=ISBN 0-7329-1078-1
*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.
*cite book|author=James Jupp and Maria Kabala|title=The Politics of Australian Immigration|publisher=Australian Government Publishing Service|year=1993|id=
*cite book|author=Myra Willard|title=History of the White Australia Policy to 1920|publisher=Melbourne University Press|year=1923|id= (old but still very useful)
*cite book|author=Ian Duffield|title=Skilled Workers or Marginalised Poor? The African Population of the United Kingdom, 1812-1852|publisher=Immigrants And Minorities Vol. 12, No. 3; Frank Cass|year=1993|id=
*cite book|author=Keith Windschuttle|title=The White Australia Policy|publisher=Macleay Press|year=2004

External links

* (scan of the Act and information)
* [http://www.law.mq.edu.au/html/MqLJ/volume5/vol5_robertson.pdf The Mabel Freer Case]
* [http://dl.filmaust.com.au/tag/White+Australia+Policy/ Educational Resources about the White Australia Policy]
* [http://enc.slq.qld.gov.au/logicrouter/servlet/LogicRouter?PAGE=object&OUTPUTXSL=object_enc36ui.xslt&pm_RC=REPOSLQEAD&pm_OI=37620&pm_GT=Y&pm_IAC=Y&api_1=GET_OBJECT_XML&num_result=0 Newton Barton Diary, 1894-1895] - A shipboard diary kept by able seaman Newton Barton on one of his voyages to recruit South Sea Islanders for the Queensland cane fields. Digitised and held by the State Library of Queensland.