Boat People

● 1970s- A new wave of seaborne refugees dock in Darwin

● First refugees from East Timor, followed by Indochina, fleeing
from their violent and war-torn home countries.
● Vietnamese ‘boat people’ arrive towards end of Vietnam War
● Migration occuring during heated public debate about Australias
involvement in the Vietnam War
● Australia's public majority opposes new concept of
multiculturalism (specifically towards Asian refugees).
● Immigration restrictions meant that most of the refugees were
allowed to settle in Australia.

● Australia promotes immigration with the catchphrase - ‘Populate or

perish!’ (The concept that without a larger population, Australia
would be invaded, or susceptible to the spread of communism).
● Australia signs immigration agreements to accept roughly two
million migrants, asylum seekers, and displaced people from
Europe.
● Australia heavily promotes British migration scheme, offering
assisted passage to Australia fo just to one million British
migrants, and finally, in the 1970s, repealed the restrictive White
Australia policy framed in 1901.

The Menzies government also continued the White Australia policy but
attempted to be more flexible in individual cases. In doing so, they hoped
to ameliorate the bad reputation the policy earned Australia overseas,
especially in Asian countries.

Australians were not as hostile towards German immigrants as they were

towards the Japanese. Many Germans and other northern Europeans were
among the thousands of immigrants who arrived in the early 1950s.

After World War II, during the 1950 and 1960s, large numbers of
migrants came to Australia from the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Malta,
Germany and Turkey. This was part of the ‘Populate or Perish’ migration
policy.

In 1956, Hung​By this stage further softening of the White Australia

policy had occurred. One example, in 1958, was the abolition of the
infamous dictation test which had required prospective immigrants to
undertake a dictation test in a European language. This had served to
weed out non-European applicants since Federation.​arian refugees fled
fighting in their country.

In 1968, Czech refugees fled fighting

In 1973, refugees came to Australia from Chile following the overthrow

of the elected government.
From 1975-1985, over 90,000 refugees came to Australia from Indochina
(Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) after the end of the Vietnam War.
From 1976– 1981, approximately 16,000 Lebanese refugees fled civil
war.
After migrants from Britain and New Zealand, one of the largest groups
of immigrants to Australia comes from Asian countries. In the early
1990s Asian immigration to Australia peaked: over half of the immigrants
arriving here were from an Asian country.
From 2000, Australia has taken in people from a broad range of countries
including Iraq, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sudan, India and Sri Lanka.
However, the majority of settlers are from New Zealand and the UK.
Gradual relaxation of the White Australia policy during the middle of last
century. Japanese war brides were allowed to settle in Australia in the
1950s, the dictation test was dropped in 1958 and Harold Holt, on
becoming Prime Minister in 1966, extended the skilled migration or
'distinguished persons' category to include some non-European would-be
immigrants.

In addition, many cities and large towns throughout Australia have Asian
temples and gardens. Large public celebrations take place around the
Chinese New Year and some other Asian festivals. Some suburbs in big
cities like Sydney have large Asian communities and schools and
universities take in many students from Asian countries.

But those countries, especially India, continued to criticise Australia's

stance. They argued not enough non-Europeans were allowed into
Australia while the Australian public reacted angrily to any relaxation of
the policy. An example was the issue of Japanese war brides. Some
Australian soldiers who had served in Japan and remained there during its
reconstruction after the war had married Japanese women. Some of them
had even started families. They were angry that they were not allowed to
bring their families home to Australia. The government eventually
allowed them to settle here in 1952, to the displeasure of many
Australians who still saw the Japanese as enemies.