All Topics  
White Australia policy

 
White Australia Policy

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

White Australia policy



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

While the movement of people has thought throughout history at various levels, modern immigration tourism are considered non-immigrants . Immigration that violates the immigration laws of the destination country is termed illegal immigration or undocumented immigration....
 to Australia from 1901 to 1973.

The chief architect of the policy, Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria , including the protection of rights at work....
, conceded that the Japanese and Chinese might be a threat to the newly formed federation and it was this belief that led to legislation to ensure they would be kept out:

"It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'White Australia policy'
Start a new discussion about 'White Australia policy'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Recent Posts









Encyclopedia


Ac
The White Australia policy is a term used to describe a collection of historical policies that intentionally restricted non-white immigration
Immigration

While the movement of people has thought throughout history at various levels, modern immigration tourism are considered non-immigrants . Immigration that violates the immigration laws of the destination country is termed illegal immigration or undocumented immigration....
 to Australia from 1901 to 1973.

The chief architect of the policy, Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria , including the protection of rights at work....
, conceded that the Japanese and Chinese might be a threat to the newly formed federation and it was this belief that led to legislation to ensure they would be kept out:

"It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors."

The happening of the inauguration of White Australia as government policy is generally taken to be the passage of the Immigration Restriction Act
Immigration Restriction Act 1901

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was an statute of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy....
 in 1901, one of the first Acts of the new national parliament upon federation, the bill had support from the labour movement
Australian labour movement

The Australian labour movement has its origins in the early 19th century and includes both trade unions and politics. At its broadest, the movement can be defined as encompassing the industrial wing, the unions in Australia, and the political wing, the Australian Labor Party and minor parties....
. The policy was dismantled in stages by successive Liberal governments after the conclusion of World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, with the encouragement of first non-British
British people

The British are citizenship of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants....
 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
Racial Discrimination Act 1975

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 is a statute passed by the Parliament of Australia during the Prime Minister of Australia of Australian Labor Party Gough Whitlam....
, which made racially-based selection criteria illegal.

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

Immigration policy prior to Federation


Gold Rush era

In the discovery of gold
Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold.Eight gold rushes took place throughout the 19th century in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States....
 in Australia in 1851 led to an influx of immigrants from all around the world. Over the next 20 years, 40,000 Chinese men and 11 women (mostly Cantonese
Cantonese people

The Cantonese people , broadly speaking, are a subgroup of the Han Chinese originating from the present-day Guangdong province in North China and South China China....
) migrated to the gold-fields because of wanting a new start in life by trying to find gold. Competition on the gold-fields led to significant conflict between groups.

This tension eventually led to a series of protests and riots, including the Lambing Flat Riots
Lambing Flat riots

The Lambing Flat riots or Lambing Flat massacre were a series of violent anti-Chinese Australian demonstrations that took place in the Burrangong region, in New South Wales, Australia....
 between 1860 and 1861. Governor Hotham
Charles Hotham

Sir Charles Hotham, Order of the Bath, Royal Navy was Governor of Victoria and, later, Governor of Victoria, Australia, Australia from 22 June 1854 to 31 December 1855....
, on 16 November 1854, appointed a Royal Commission
Royal Commission

In states that are Commonwealth Realms a Royal Commission is a major government public inquiry into an issue. They have been held in states such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia....
 on Victorian gold-fields problems and grievances. This led to restrictions being placed on Chinese immigration and residency taxes levied from Chinese residents in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)

File:Map Victoria Aboriginal tribes .jpgVictoria is a States and territories of Australia located in the southeastern corner of Australia. It is the smallest mainland state in area but the most Population density and urbanised....
 from 1855 with New South Wales following suit in 1861. These restrictions remained in force until the early 1870s.

Support from the labour movement
Australian labour movement

The Australian labour movement has its origins in the early 19th century and includes both trade unions and politics. At its broadest, the movement can be defined as encompassing the industrial wing, the unions in Australia, and the political wing, the Australian Labor Party and minor parties....

The growth of the sugar industry in Queensland in the 1870s led to searching for labourers prepared to work in a tropical environment. During this time, thousands of "Kanakas
Kanakas

Kanakas were workers from various Pacific Islands employed under varying conditions in various British Empire colonies, such as British Columbia , Fiji and Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries....
" (Pacific Islanders) were brought into Australia as indentured workers. This and related practices of bringing in non-white labour to be cheaply employed was commonly termed "blackbirding
Blackbirding

Blackbirding refers to the recruitment of people through trickery and kidnappings to work on plantations, particularly the sugar cane plantations of Queensland and Fiji....
" and refers to the recruitment of people through trickery and kidnappings to work on plantations, particularly the sugar cane plantation
Plantation

A plantation is usually a large farm or Estate , especially in a tropical or semitropical country, like Brazil or Nicaragua on which cotton, tobacco, lice coffee, sugar cane and the like are cultivated, usually by resident laborers....
s of Queensland (Australia) and Fiji
Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of the Fiji Islands , is an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean east of Vanuatu, west of Tonga and south of Tuvalu....
. In the 1870s and 1880s, the trade union
Australian labour movement

The Australian labour movement has its origins in the early 19th century and includes both trade unions and politics. At its broadest, the movement can be defined as encompassing the industrial wing, the unions in Australia, and the political wing, the Australian Labor Party and minor parties....
 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 immigration restrictions for non-whites 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
Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal states and territories of Australia of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions....
 and Queensland, the area would have to be abandoned. Despite these objections to restricting immigration, between 1875-1888 all Australian colonies enacted legislation which excluded all further Chinese immigration. Asian immigrants already residing in the Australian colonies were not expelled and retained precisely the same rights as their Anglo and Celtic compatriots insofar as citizenship.

Agreements were made to further increase these restrictions in 1895 following an Inter-colonial Premier's Conference where all colonies agreed to extend entry restrictions to all non-white races. However, in attempting to enact this legislation, the Governors of New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania reserved the bills, due to a treaty with Japan, and they did not become law. Instead, the Natal Act of 1897 was introduced, restricting "undesirable persons" rather than any specific race.

The British government in London was not pleased with legislation that discriminated against certain subjects of its Empire, but decided not to disallow the laws that were passed. Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British businessman, politician, and statesman.In his early years Chamberlain was a radically minded Liberal Party member, a campaigner for educational reform, and President of the Board of Trade....
 explained in 1897:
"We quite sympathise with the determination...of these colonies...that there should not bre an influx of people alien in civilisation, alien in religion, alien in customs, whose influx, moreover, would seriously interfere with the legitimate rights of the existing labouring population."


From Federation to World War II


Federation Convention and Australia's first government

Immigration was a prominent topic in the lead up to Australian Federation
Federation of Australia

The federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate United Kingdom self-governing colony of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed a federation....
. At the Federation Convention, Western Australian premier and future federal cabinet member, John Forrest, summarised the prevailing feeling:
[It is] of no use to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a great feeling all over Australia against the introduction of coloured persons. It goes without saying that we do not like to talk about it, but it is so.


The government following Federation in 1901 was formed by the Protectionist Party
Protectionist Party

The Protectionist Party was an Australian political party, formally organised from 1889 until 1909, with policies centred on protectionism. It argued that Australia needed protective tariffs to allow Australian industry to grow and provide employment....
 with the support of the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an List of political parties in Australia.Known as the Australian Labor Party#Etymology for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the Australian federal election, 2007....
. The support of the Labour 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 Labour Party was founded.

Immigration Restriction Act 1901

The new Federal Parliament, as one of its first pieces of legislation, passed the Immigration Restriction Act 1901
Immigration Restriction Act 1901

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was an statute of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy....
 to "place certain restrictions on immigration and... for the removal... of prohibited immigrants". The Act drew on similar legislation in South Africa. Edmund Barton
Edmund Barton

Sir Edmund Barton, Order of St Michael and St George, Queen's Counsel , Australian politician and judge, was the first Prime Minister of Australia and a founding justice of the High Court of Australia....
, the prime minister, argued in support of the Bill with the following statement: "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman."

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
Edmund Barton

Sir Edmund Barton, Order of St Michael and St George, Queen's Counsel , Australian politician and judge, was the first Prime Minister of Australia and a founding justice of the High Court of Australia....
 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. At first this was to be in any European language, but was later changed to include any language.

In the British Empire South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand also had racially restrictive immigration policies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most Chinese immigration to the U.S. became illegal in 1882.

In 1902 the Australian parliament passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act
Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901

The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 was an statute of the Parliament of Australia which was designed to facilitate the mass deportation of nearly all the Pacific Islanders working in Australia....
. The result of this legislation was that 7,500 Pacific Islanders (called "Kanakas") working mostly on plantations in Queensland were deported and entry into Australia by Pacific Islanders after 1904 was prohibited..

The Paris Peace Conference

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919

The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors in World War I to set the peace terms for Germany and other defeated nations, and to deal with the empires of the defeated powers following the Armistice of 1918....
 following World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
, Japan sought to include a racial equality clause in the Covenant of the League of Nations
Covenant of the League of Nations

The Covenant of the League of Nations is the charter of the League of Nations....
. Japanese policy reflected their desire to remove or to ease the immigration restrictions against Japanese (especially in the United States and Canada), which Japan regarded as a humiliation and affront to its prestige.

Australia was one of few countries which had race as a dominant political ideology at the time. As such, Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes
Billy Hughes

William Morris 'Billy' Hughes, Companion of Honour, Kings Counsel , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, the List of longest-serving members of the Australian House of Representatives, and one of the most colourful figures in Australian political history....
 vehemently opposed Japan's racial equality proposition. Hughes recognised that such a clause would be a threat to White Australia and made it clear to British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor Order of Merit , Privy Council of the United Kingdom was a United Kingdom statesman and the only Wales Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - he is also the only one to have spoken English language as a second language, Welsh language having been his first....
 that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted. When the proposal failed, Hughes reported in the Australian parliament:
"The White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please, but at any rate, the soldiers have achieved the victory and my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back to you from the conference, as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted."


Stanley Bruce

Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce
Stanley Bruce

Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, Order of the Companions of Honour, Military Cross, Fellow of the Royal Society, Privy Council of the United Kingdom was an Australian politician and diplomat, and the eighth Prime Minister of Australia....
 was a supporter of the White Australia Policy, and made it an issue in his campaign for the 1925 Australian Federal election.

Abolition of the Policy


World War II

Between the Great Depression
Great Depression

File:International depression.pngThe Great Depression was a worldwide economic Recession starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries....
 starting in 1929 and the end of World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
 in 1945, global conditions kept immigration to very low levels. At the start of the war, Prime Minister John Curtin
John Curtin

John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician and 14th Prime Minister of Australia, led Australia when the Australian mainland came under direct military threat during the Japanese advance in World War II....
 (ALP
Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an List of political parties in Australia.Known as the Australian Labor Party#Etymology for short, the party is the current governing party of Australia, since the Australian federal election, 2007....
) reinforced the message of the White Australia Policy by saying: "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race."

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." An ethnocentric slogan that meant "Fill with whites, lest we be filled with yellows". During the war, many non-white refugees, including Malays, Indonesians, and Filipinos, had settled in Australia, but Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell
Arthur Calwell

Arthur Augustus Calwell Australian politician, was Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1960 to 1967....
 controversially sought to have them all deported. However in 1948, Iranian Bahá'ís seeking to emigrate to Australia were classified as "Asiatic" by the policy, and were denied entry and the policy largely remained in place until the 1960s and was lifted in 1973. In 1949, Calwell's successor Harold Holt
Harold Holt

Harold Edward Holt, Order of the Companions of Honour , was an Australianpolitician who became the 17th Prime Minister of Australia in 1966. His term as Prime Minister dramatically ended in December of the following year when he Missing person while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned....
 allowed the remaining 800 non-white refugees to apply for residency, and also allowed Japanese "war brides" to settle in Australia.

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 the right to settle permanently in Australia for business reasons.
  • 1950 Colombo Plan
    Colombo Plan

    The Colombo Plan is a regional organization that embodies the concept of collective inter-governmental effort to strengthen economic and social development of member countries in the Asia-Pacific Region....
    , students from Asian countries were admitted to study at Australian universities.
  • 1957 Non-Europeans 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 Asian spouses for citizenship.
  • 1964 Conditions of entry for people of Non-European stock were relaxed.


After a review of the European policy in March 1966, Immigration Minister Hubert Opperman
Hubert Opperman

Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, Order of the British Empire , referred to as Oppy by Australian and French crowds, was an Australian cyclist and politician, whose endurance cycling feats in the 1920s and 1930s earned him international acclaim....
 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
Harold Holt

Harold Edward Holt, Order of the Companions of Honour , was an Australianpolitician who became the 17th Prime Minister of Australia in 1966. His term as Prime Minister dramatically ended in December of the following year when he Missing person while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned....
 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 a result, annual non-European settler arrivals rose from 746 in 1966 to 2,696 in 1971, while annual part-European settler arrivals rose from 1,498 to 6,054.

End of the White Australia Policy

The legal end of the White Australia policy is usually placed in the year 1973, when the Whitlam
Gough Whitlam

'Edward Gough Whitlam', Order of Australia, Queens Counsel , known as 'Gough Whitlam' , is an Australian former politician and 21st Prime Minister of Australia....
 Labour government implemented a series of amendments preventing the enforcement of racial aspects of the immigration law. These amendments:
  • Legislated that all migrants, regardless of 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
Racial Discrimination Act 1975

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 is a statute passed by the Parliament of Australia during the Prime Minister of Australia of Australian Labor Party Gough Whitlam....
 made the use of racial criteria for any official purpose illegal.

It was not until the Fraser
Malcolm Fraser

John Malcolm Fraser, Order of Australia, Order of the Companions of Honour is an Australian Liberal Party of Australia politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia....
 Liberal 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.

In 1981 the Minister for Immigration announced a Special Humanitarian Assistance (SHP) Program for Iranians to seek refuge in Australia and by 1988 some 2500 Bahá'ís and many more others had arrived in Australia through either SHP or Refugee Programs. See Iranian Australian
Iranian Australian

Iranian-Australians including those who are expatriates in exile or permanent immigrants....
 and Bahá'í Faith in Australia
Bahá'í Faith in Australia

The Bah?'? Faith in Australia has a long history beginning with a mention by `Abdu'l-Bah?, the son of the founder of the religion, in 1916 following which United Kingdom/American emigrants John and Clara Dunn came to Australia in 1920....
. The last selective immigration policy, offering relocation assistance to British nationals, was finally removed in 1982.

Legacy


Contemporary demographics

The 2001 Australian census results indicate that many Australians claim some European heritage: English 37%, Irish 11%, Italian 5%, German 4.3%, Scottish 3%, Greek 2%, Dutch 1.5%, Polish 0.9%. Australians of some non-European origin form a significant but still relatively small part of the population: Chinese 3.2%, Indian 0.9%, Lebanese 0.9%, Vietnamese 0.9%. 2.2% identified themselves as Indigenous Australians. 39% of the population gave their ancestry as "Australian". The Australian census does not classify people according to race, only ethnic ancestry. (Note that subjects were permitted to select more than one answer for this census question.)

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

Political and social legacy

Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity was legally sanctioned until 1975. Australia's new 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. As Leader of the Opposition, John Howard
John Howard

John Winston Howard, Order of Australia was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Robert Menzies....
, argued for restricting Asian
Asian people

Asian or Asiatic people is a demonym for people from Asia. However, the use of the term varies by country and person, often referring to people from a particular region or subregion of Asia....
 immigration in 1988, as part of his One Australia policy
One Australia policy

One Australia was an immigration and ethnic affairs policy of the Liberal Party of Australia-National Party of Australia Opposition in Australia, released in 1988....
, later admitting that his comments cost him his job at the time:

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

Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of One Nation , a political party with a Populism and anti-immigration platform....
 was widely accused of taking Australia back to the days of the White Australia Policy, particularly through reference to Arthur Calwell
Arthur Calwell

Arthur Augustus Calwell Australian politician, was Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1960 to 1967....
, one of the policy's strongest supporters:

On 24 May 2007, Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson

Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of One Nation , a political party with a Populism and anti-immigration platform....
, with her new Pauline's United Australia Party
Pauline's United Australia Party

Pauline's United Australia Party is an Australian political party launched by former One Nation founder Pauline Hanson on May 24 2007 and registered by the Australian Electoral Commission on September 20 2007....
, continues her call for a freeze on immigration and provided comments about African migrants carrying disease into Australia. Topics related to racism and immigration in Australia are still regularly connected by the media
Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a mainstream such as the population of a nation state....
 to the White Australia Policy. Some examples of issues and events where this connection has been made include: reconciliation with Aborigines
Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands and their descendants. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Australian Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.6% of Australia's population....
; mandatory detention and the "Pacific Solution"
Mandatory detention in Australia

Mandatory detention in Australia concerns the Government of Australia's policy and system of mandatory detention active from 1992 to date, pursuant to which all persons entering the country without a valid visa are compulsorily detained and might be subject to deportation....
; the 2005 Cronulla riots
2005 Cronulla riots

The Cronulla riots of 2005 were a series of Racism motivated mob confrontations which originated in and around Cronulla, New South Wales, a beachfront suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
. Former opposition Labor party leader Mark Latham
Mark Latham

Mark William Latham , a former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005....
, in his book The Latham Diaries
The Latham Diaries

The Latham Diaries is a political memoirs by the former Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party leader, Mark Latham. The book, published in 2005 by Melbourne University Press, attracted a great amount of criticism....
, described the ANZUS
ANZUS

The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is the military alliance which binds Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States to cooperate on Defence matters in the Pacific Ocean area, though today the treaty is understood to relate to attacks in any area....
 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.

In fact, Australian government policy from earlier years is viewed by some as the original impetus for the Apartheid system in South Africa.

See also

  • One Australia policy
    One Australia policy

    One Australia was an immigration and ethnic affairs policy of the Liberal Party of Australia-National Party of Australia Opposition in Australia, released in 1988....
  • Eurocentrism
    Eurocentrism

    Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture....
  • First white child
    First white child

    The birth of the first white child was a celebrated occasion across many parts of the New World. Such births are a matter of pride for many townships, and they are commemorated with plaques and monuments at the location of the event....
  • Racism
    Racism

    Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that Race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race....
  • Racial equality proposal
    Paris Peace Conference, 1919

    The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors in World War I to set the peace terms for Germany and other defeated nations, and to deal with the empires of the defeated powers following the Armistice of 1918....
  • Head tax (New Zealand)
  • Settler colonialism
    Settler colonialism

    Settler colonialism is a policy of conquering a land to send settlers in order to shape its demographic similarly as in the metropole. This practice contrasts with exploitation colonialism, a policy of conquering distant lands not with the intention to supplant its population, but rather to exploit its natural and human Factors of production...
  • South Sea Islander
    South Sea Islander

    The Australian label South Sea Islanders refers to the Australian descendants of people from the more than 80 islands in the Western Pacific including the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in Melanesia and the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Kiribati and Tuvalu in Polynesia and Micronesia who were recruited between the mid to late 19th century as labour...
    s
  • Sinophobia
    Sinophobia

    Sinophobia or anti-Chinese sentiment is the fear of or dislike of China, Han Chinese, or its Culture of China. Sinophobia can affect both the actions and attitudes of individuals or the policies of governments and other organizations....
  • Yellow peril
    Yellow Peril

    Yellow Peril was a color terminology for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of China laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion....
  • Europeans in Oceania
    Europeans in Oceania

    European exploration and settlement of Oceania began in the 16th Century, starting with Spanish people landings and shipwrecks in the Marianas Islands, east of the Philippines....
  • Head tax (Canada)
    Head tax (Canada)

    The Chinese head tax was a fixed fee charged for each China person entering Canada. The head tax was first levied after the Canadian Government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885....
     and Chinese Immigration Act, 1923
    Chinese Immigration Act, 1923

    The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, known in the Chinese Canadian community as the Chinese Exclusion Act, was an act passed by the federal government of Canada, banning most forms of History of Chinese immigration to Canada....
  • Anti-Chinese legislation in the United States
    Anti-Chinese legislation in the United States

    Anti-Chinese legislation in the United States was introduced in United States to deal with Han Chinese migrants following the gold rush in California and those coming to build the railway....
  • Apartheid
  • Asian Exclusion Act in the United States


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)
  • - 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.