2. YESTERDAY’S LESSON
The period after 1945 marked a huge change in
Australian immigration policy.
But what was the policy changing from? What
was the starting point or underlying philosophy
in 1945?
Yesterday you undertook an overview of
Australia’s migration patterns from 1850-1945.
What can you tell me?
3. TODAY’S LESSON
The waves of post-World War 11 immigration to
Australia, including the influence of significant
world events
Impact of changing government policies on
Australian migration patterns
Explain why the government attempted to
attract more migrants to Australia during the
1950s and 1960s with reference to the slogan
‘populate or perish’
4. REVIEW
The first white settlement began in 1788 with convicts
who were then followed by free settlers in the C18th
and C19th
However migrants became of a certain type:
predominately from England, Scotland and Ireland
The notion of a ‘white Australia’ steadily grew in the
19th century and it was a key factors that encouraged
Federation.
What philosophy or ideology drove the ‘White
Australia Policy’
5. DEVELOPING THE IDEA OF
WHITE AUSTRALIA
Attitudes towards people with different ethnic
backgrounds were generally negative and based
on beliefs that were popular at the time.
These were:
Racial purity
Ethnocentrism
Social Darwinism
6. REVIEW
• The Australian population was mainly white and
English speaking
• Population 3.7 million
• 95.5% of the population was born in Australia or
in the countries of Great Britain
• 4.1 % born in other countries
• Aboriginal Australians were not officially counted in
the Census .
7. WHY DID AUSTRALIA WISH TO RESTRICT NON-WHITE
IMMIGRATION?
The belief that the British race was superior and that
non-British races were inferior.
The fear that Australia could be invaded by the more
populated Asian countries to the North.
The fear that people from other nations would work
for lower wages and keep white Australians out of
jobs.
The two groups that were targeted particularly in
Australia were the KANAKAS and the CHINESE.
9. TOWARDS AWHITE AUSTRALIA
Most people rejected the
notion that “inferior races”
could ever assimilate into
the Australian way of life. The
phrase ‘White Australia’ was
first coined in the 1880s.
New and more restrictive
laws were implemented to
keep Asians out of Australia.
10. WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY
After Federation in 1901 the new Australian nation
introduced the White Australia Policy
Limiting of non-white immigration:
the policy of limiting the number of non-white people
migrating to Australia, embodied in the Immigration
Restriction Act of 1901
A medal commemorating
‘white Australia’
11. Depiction of Chinese miners on the
Australian goldfields
Kanakas on the Queensland cane
fields.
12. EXAMPLES OF RACISTS COMMENTS
Racist attitudes were conveyed in the
Bulletin magazine:
Australia for the Australians – the cheap
Chinamen, the cheap nigger and the cheap
European pauper to be absolutely excluded.
All white men who come to these shores….and
leave behind them the memory of class and
religious differences… are Australian….No
nigger, no Chinaman, no kanaka is an
Australian
2 July 1887
15. THINK YOU KNOW/WANT TO KNOW
In pairs discuss and write down what you think you already
know about Australia’s migration patterns after 1945.
Some questions to consider include:
Until the 1950s where did Australia receive most of its
migrants and why?
Why was there a large increase in the intake of migrants
after 1945?
Where did the initial wave of migrants come from?
How have migration patterns changed since?
Name 4-6 countries from which Australia has received
large numbers of migrants.
16. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW AND WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT TO KNOW
With your partner identify 2-3 points questions
about post-war immigration that you would like to
learn more about.
Link to your survey from yesterday. How do you
think continuing debates on immigration and its
place in Australian society continue to link to
contemporary events?
18. POST WAR IMMIGRATION
Immigration was the strongest force changing
Australia post war
The Chifley Labor government promoted the policy
of ‘populate or perish’
What do you think this means?
What events in WWII would have influenced this
thinking?
20. POPULATE OR PERISH
As a result of the war the Australian Labor government’s
vision was to build a stronger Australia through
immigration on a grand scale
The government proposed a yearly intake of 70 000
migrants
The government believed that an ambitious immigration
policy would provide
-a larger population for future military defence
-a larger workforce to promote greater economic
development and increase national wealth
21. REASONS FOR CHANGE: ECONOMIC REASONS
There was a serious labour shortage after the war and a
larger workforce would stimulate post war economic
growth
To develop its secondary industries(manufacturing) it needed
a larger workforce
A larger population would also provide for a bigger consumer
market
-New settlers meant new workers and new skills to strengthen
the Australian economy
-If Australia was to develop its vast open spaces then it was going
to need many more workers
22. REASONS FOR CHANGE: DEFENCE
WWII had shocked the people of Australia. It had
been the first time Australia had been under
enemy attack
The bombing of Darwin and Northern Australia
was seen as a wake up call for many
Australians
-A larger population would make it easier to defend
the country from a possible future invasion.
24. REASONS FOR CHANGED RESPONSE
HUMANITARIAN GROUNDS
The world was facing a humanitarian crisis at the end of
WWII. There were millions of refugees in Europe
Australia had an international duty to take some of the
refugees
The two main sources of refugees were:
-freed inmates from concentration camps
-people from Eastern Europe who were fleeing
communism
27. BEN CHIFLEY AND IMMIGRATION
Humanitarian
Factors
REASONS FOR CHANGED
ATTITUDE TO IMMIGRATION
Economics Defence
Justification of Australian
occupation of the continent
28. REVISION
Outline the concept of ‘populate or perish’
Copy the mind-map on the previous slide? Add one
to two dot points on how the policy was justified on
economic, defence and humanitarian grounds
Extension questions (pair and share)
Why would Australia feel an obligation to take
refugees after WWII?
Why was this a challenge to Australia’s existing
migration policy?
29. THE MISR 1947
On April 20, 1947, the Egyptian-registered SS Misr
docked in Melbourne with its multicultural human
cargo: 624 men, women and children from 26
different countries, plucked from ports in the
Mediterranean, Middle East and East Africa.
It was a voyage that began amid scenes of almost
unimaginable chaos, as hundreds of thousands of
migrants, refugees and displaced persons
scrambled for berths on ships heading out of an
area ravaged by war and now being painfully
redrawn along new boundary lines.
30. Arthur Calwell greets newly
arrived immigrants who had
travelled to Australian
aboard the Misr.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/w
hen-the-boat-came-in/
2007/03/10/1173478709142.html?page=
fullpage
31. THE MISR 1947
It was a voyage that ended in unprecedented
controversy as the SS Misr sparked a bitter wrangle
over dire on-board conditions, and allegedly "animal-like"
behaviour by steerage-class migrants.
And a voyage that sailed deep into the national psyche,
exposing widespread fears that the very future of White
Australia was suddenly threatened by the arrival of so
many Jews, of so many swarthy dark-skinned southern
Mediterraneans.
Un-British, un-Australian, "unsuitable"
32. EXTENSION: EXPERIENCES ON THE MISR
Go to http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/misr/
and outline the experiences of some of the early
boat arrivals.
http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/misr/pappas.
html
http://www.theage.com.au/multimedia/misr/bortolaz
zo.html
33. THE PROCESS:
It was within this context the Labor
government established a Department
of Immigration with Arthur Calwell as
the first Minister for Immigration.
Caldwell was aware of the Australian
public’s traditional reluctance to non-white
immigration.
In order to soften the way, he painted
the situation as dire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4
DwCaB7E3Q
34. POLICY IN ACTION
Between 1945 and 1965 more then two million migrants
came to Australia.
‘Populate or perish’ became the catchcry, as the
Australian Government embarked on an intensive
international promotional campaign to encourage
migration to Australia.
Most were assisted: the government paid most of their
fare to get to Australia.
The campaign initially targeted Britons with schemes
such as ‘Bring out a Briton’ as shown in the
‘Immigration Nation’
35. ASSISTED PASSAGE SCHEME
In 1946 Calwell designed the Assisted Passage
Scheme to attract British migrants
Under this scheme British ex-servicemen and their
families were given free passage to Australia and other
British migrants paid 10 pounds for an adult and five
pounds for a child.
The scheme was offered on condition that migrants
remain in Australia for a minimum of two years
36. An immigration poster from 1948
http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/ex
hibition/objectsthroughtime/post-war-migration-
poster/
37. Prime Minister Ben Chifley and Minister for
Immigration Arthur Calwell greet a party of
migrant British building tradesmen. The
men were bound for Canberra and had
arrived at Sydney on the Largs Bay in
January 1947.
NAA: A1200, L21159
39. DEFICIENCY OF THE TEN POUND POMS
As early as 1947, it was clear that the British migrant numbers could not
meet the target set by the Australian government
1947 Arthur Calwell toured the refugee camps of Europe where 11
million homeless survivors of the war were waiting to be accepted for
settlement in new lands
Calwell was aware of the Australian reluctance to accept non-British
immigration
He attempted to change attitudes by declaring that immigrants :
-would not take Australian jobs and
-they would stimulate the economy and create more employment
40. THE BEAUTIFUL BALTS
In order to appease Australians about
the fear of ‘dark skinned’
Europeans invading the country,
Caldwell adopted a deliberate
strategy of selecting blue eyed,
blonde haired refuges and migrants
from the Baltic states, the so-called
‘Beautiful Balts’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi
OvBob5d1I
7.00-10.00
41.
42. OPENING OUR SHORES TO
NON-BRITISH MIGRANTS
In 1947 The Australian government signed agreements with the
International Refugee Organisation to accept a minimum of 12
000 settlers every year
In November 1947 the first group of WWII refugees arrived:
843 Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians
Between 1947 and 1953 the Displaced Persons Scheme had
delivered 170 000 refugees to Australia
By 1949 Australia was accepting any European provided
they were under 45 years of age and not supporters of
communism
14 000 Hungarian refugees came to Australia after the anti-communist
revolt in Hungary in 1956
43. FURTHER BROADENING OF IMMIGRATION
The government gradually
widened the immigration intake to
include many other European
countries for example Poland,
Russia Ukraine, Czechoslovakia
and the Baltic states 1947
Malta 1948
Italy and the Netherlands 1951
West Germany, Austria and Greece
1952
Spain 1958
44. END TO WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY?
NOTE: accepting European migrants did not
directly challenge the idea of a White Australia
and despite the vigorous immigration policy
after WWII the White Australia Policy remained
official policy.
Arthur Calwell fiercely defended the WAP even
deporting Asians who had been given refugee
status in Australia during WW11
45. REVIEW
Claim/Support/Challenge
The White Australia Policy was alive and well in
Australia in the 1950s
Cite evidence that supports the claim
Cite evidence that challenges the claim
