Australia unmasked:

Secrets of Australian immigration history

Sanjeeva Wickremasena

[Multi-cultural]

* Pacific Islanders brought for slave labour

* White Australia policy introduced

* Premier Malcolm Fraser introduced more liberal policy

* Indian were subject to racially motivated attack recently

* Current policy - mandatory detention for asylum seekers

Modern Australia does not want the world to know their racist past and take extraordinary steps to hide their ugly past. Australians want to project the country to the world as a modern multi-cultural nation that promote Australian ‘mateship’ and equality to all of their citizens. Unfortunately this is far from the truth and Australia and Australians have a long way to go as a nation that constitutes equality among their citizens irrespective of their ethnicity.

In 1901 - Australian Federation was formed.

1901 - Pacific Islander Act 1901 and Immigration Restriction Act 1901 were introduced with the intent of removing 10,000 Pacific Islanders from Australia. These Pacific Islanders were brought to Australia as slave labour against their wishes in the 1800s. Most of them were forcefully put in ships from their native land and moved to Australia.

In 1909 - Approximately 9,000 Pacific Islanders were deported. Some of them had been living in Australia for decades and had strong family ties to Australia. Such as some of them married Australians and had children. They had to leave their children and wives behind when they were deported.

Government policy

Since the federation was formed Australia had introduced a white Australia policy, where the country is to be inhabited only by white Anglo Saxon Australians and majority of Australians supported this policy. By 1940s, 99 percent of Australians were of white Anglo Saxon background.

Government policy was designed in a way that any person attempting to gain entry to Australia who was not white would not be able to enter the country. Any non white person attempting to access Australia were given a dictation test where a customs official, would read a difficult paragraph from a book and applicant had to write this down as the words were dictated to him/her.

In an unlikely event that the applicant was successful then the task was given a different language such as French which virtually guaranteed the person would fail the test.

At the same time Australian Government policy was promoting immigration from the United Kingdom for the Anglo white community. British Citizens who were also non-white were excluded from migration to Australia. The word ‘ten pound pom’ came about describing white British citizens upon payment of 10 pounds were given the opportunity to migrate to Australia for a better life. Most of these ten pound poms ended up settling in the state of Western Australia.

In 1919 after the First World War, a number of super powers were merged. Among these countries were Japan, France, Italy, Australia, UK and America. These leading countries plus diplomats from another 29 countries attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 with the intent of forming an organisation called the League of Nations (LN). The League of Nations was formed with a series of treaties (‘Paris Peace Treaties’) which were designed with the intent of keeping international peace. Russia and Germany were not invited to join the LN; other purpose of LN is to determine the conditions for Germany and other defeated nations to exist in the international community following the Armistice of 1918 after the First World War.

Japan insisted on stipulating racial equality for all the members of LN and also wanted this added to the LN constitution, where Australia fiercely objected to this with the indirect support of UK and America. Australian Director of Military Intelligence were at odds with the Australian Prime Minister of the time as he believed if this stand continues, Australia will have Japan as their number one enemy. Unfortunately Japan left the 1919 Paris peace talks, infuriated by Australia and the rest of Western countries due to the Australian Prime Minister’s stand on white superiority which eventually prevailed with the help of the US and UK. This led to Japan becoming an enemy of Australia and the West as predicted. Ultimately Australia got bombed by Japan in the Second World War and Pearl Harbour was also bombed by Japan. The Australian Prime Minister who came home from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference received a hero’s welcome as a majority of Australians supported his stand on racially white Australia.

By end of the time of the Second World War Australia was lacking in manpower to rebuild the economy and immigration of British subjects were not enough to maintain the economy.

The government’s white Australia policy prevented the opening of doors to migrants of non-white origins. By end of the Second World War millions of people from Eastern European counties were displaced and the Australian Government decided to turn their attention to Eastern European countries for immigrants. But they all had to satisfy the basic requirement to be white preferably with blond hair and blue eyes to be considered for migration to Australia. Most of these migrants were qualified professionals. The only employment offered to them in Australia were physical labour. After the Second World War Australia had signed the international refugee convention which stipulates, when granting asylum the governments cannot discriminate against individuals based on their skin colour (ethnic background) or religious beliefs etc. Unfortunately Australian immigration officials continue to enforce government policy by not selecting migrates from non-white ethnic origins although the Australian government was already signatory to the International Refugee Convention after the Second World War.

During the Second World War, the Australian government rounded up all persons of Japanese and German background and put them in internment camps, including their own citizens, under the cover of the national security guidelines which was another one of the most racist policies at the time.

The White Australia policy continued beyond the 60s and into the 70s where successive Prime Ministers of Australia showed the outside world that they have taken steps to change the policy. The first real directional change came from Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser during the Vietnam War where he went against popular opinion and his confidants of the Liberal Party and granted a large number of displaced Vietnamese nationals asylum in Australia. By the time Fraser’s term ended as the Prime Minister, over 70,000 displaced Vietnamese nationals were settled in Australia. This was fiercely resisted by the Australian populous and media. Both major political parties in Australia Labour and Liberal had supported the white Australia policy and were reluctant to take a different stand in fear of voter backlash. The Australian media historically supported the white Australia policy in line with the majority of the Australian populous.

The Australian government’s white Australia policy which was eventually abandoned by the government in the 70s was very similar to Adolf Hitler’s ideology of racial purity. The only difference being the Australian Government did not round up Jews and send them to gas chambers, but strongly believed in a white superior race and wanted to maintain this status quo and had taken some extraordinary steps to enforce this. One example of this was the 70s government’s decision to deport a five-year-old Fijian girl named Kathy Prassad, although she had strong ties to Australia. When the little girl ended up in the Sydney airport she was temporary kidnapped by Australian politician Charles Perkins with intent of protesting against the government’s white Australia policy. This child was eventually deported to Fiji and was let back into Australia eight years later when the Government policy was changed.

Present times

Australian migration is open to all nationalities nowadays, provided there is a skill to offer to Australia or in some cases humanitarian grounds and there are laws to prevent discrimination based on the individual’s ethnic origins in Australia.

But majority of Australians still look at non white nationalities as a threat to the Australian way of life and often treat them as second-class citizens. In a recent times, the Sydney suburb of Cronulla witnessed race riots. Quite unfortunately most of perpetrators of Cronulla riots were white Anglo young Australians and they rioted against migrants of any ethnicity under theme of “we were born here you were flown here”. At the time the Prime Minister of the day failed to condemn the riots and saw the situation as young people expressing their misguided view in a democratic country. New South Wales Police contained the riots with great difficulty which were caused by migrants using a beach in Cronulla usually inhabited by white Australian young males.

Indian nationals

In recent times, a number of Indian nationals were subject to racially motivated attacks in Melbourne. One Indian national was stabbed to death. The Victoria Police and the Australian Government failed to recognize these attacks as racially motivated and also in most cases failed to catch the perpetrators.

Mandatory detention

The current Australian policy is mandatory detention of any person seeking asylum in Australia. Thousands of displaced refugees are currently detainees. Some of them were stationed at an offshore detention centre called Christmas Island and a recent investigation by Australian Government Ombudsman had found these detainees to be held under very poor conditions.

In some instances, women and children were detained for long periods while immigration officials look into their asylum request. Quite unfortunately refugees from a number of countries including Sri Lankans are facing these difficult circumstances in Australia. Australia is the only country in the developed world which has a mandatory detention policy for refugees and asylum seekers. In conclusion modern Australia has allowed immigration to non white nationalities with great reluctance.

Unfortunately due to inability to fill the country with white Anglo Saxon British subjects, the Government was forced to allow the immigration to non white ethnicities. If this was not done Australia as a nation would have faced difficult economic circumstances and would likely have been classified as a Third World country. Australia had taken the decision to remain as an economically wealthy but moving away from white Australia policy with great reluctance and resistance.