10 History
Unit 2
Rights and Freedoms
WALT: Identify and explain
the impact of WW2 on
migration patterns
WILF: Explain the impact of
post WW2 migration
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed
under CC BY-SA-NC
At the end of WW2, Australia’s 7
million people came from a
predominately Anglo-Celtic
background and the majority of
people, including politicians, wanted
to keep it that way.
In the decades that followed the end of
WW2, Australia would be forced to open
is borders to waves of immigrants, first
from Europe, then from Asia.
The different beliefs and attitudes that
these immigrants brought with them
would both cause conflict and enrich
Australian culture.
After WW2, Australia faced a significant
employment shortage.
Why?
39366 soldiers were killed during WW2.
66 553 were wounded. Many were unable
to join the workforce at their previous
capacity.
Although many women had been
employed and filled the positions of men
while they had been overseas, this was
not supported after the men’s return
Australia needed to supplement its
population.

Initially, northern and southern
Europeans displaced or destitute
because of the war filled the breach.
The first wave of post-war immigrants
were able to enrich Australia
economically by meeting the
employment opportunities that were
available and culturally by enhancing
the diversity of the Australian
population.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC
BY-SA

The transition to Australian life was not always smooth,
and for many immigrants, Australia was not a welcoming
place.

Australian politicians, torn between a need to
economically diversify and to placate existing Australian
attitudes, manipulated the immigration situation to suit
their agenda.

Fearing that such a small population would be vulnerable
to attack from overseas, Arthur Calwell, the immigration
minister at the time, attempted to recruit immigrants from
Europe.

These immigrants were put to work as part of the post-war
construction effort. During this period, a high level of
economic growth, combined with a low level of
unemployment, led to the post-war boom.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
Post War Construction Boom
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Snowy Mountains Scheme – hydroelectricity and irrigation
project started in 1949
Over 100 000 employees. 65% of employees were migrants
from 32 countries
The workforce built seven power stations, 16 dams, 80
kilometres of aqueducts, 145 kilometres of tunnels and 1,600
kilometres of roads and railway tracks.
The scheme brought together thousands of people whose
nations only years before had been fighting each other.
These included British and Germans, Norwegians and
Italians, Australians and Austrians, but as William Hudson
said, ‘You aren’t any longer Czechs or Germans, you are
men of the Snowy’.
This influx of foreign skilled and unskilled workers all
engaged in building Australia’s greatest piece of energy
infrastructure had a positive influence on national attitudes
and government policy towards non-British immigration.

Despite the range of benefits that a larger population
offered the country, the immigration minister’s welcome
initially extended only to those of white European descent.

A change in government in 1949 led to a slight change to
Australia’s immigration policy.

The Menzies government and its immigration minister,
Harold Holt, relaxed the conditions facing some nonEuropean immigrants and also allowed Japanese war
brides to be admitted.

Between 1945 and 1965 approximately 2 million European
migrants came to Australia as assisted immigrants. Assisted
migrants had most of their fare paid for them and in return
they had to work for at least two years in jobs often chosen
by the Australian government for them.
At the end of World War 2, where were most of Australia’s immigrants from?
Top 5 countries of origin?
How did this change after WW2?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFnG2EQs_Rk
Refugees
Political: Refugees are people who have fled
war, violence, conflict or persecution and have
crossed an international border to find safety in
another country.
Economic: An economic migrant is different
from a refugee or asylum seeker – this is someone
who leaves his or her country of origin purely for
financial or economic reasons. Economic migrants
choose to move in order to find a better life and they
do not flee because of persecution. There is no such
thing as “economic asylum” – therefore, they do not
fall within the criteria for refugee status and are not
entitled to receive international protection.