White Australia’s
Demise and Post
Vietnam Refugee
Crisis
Presentation subtitle
Prof Richard Broome La Trobe
University
1: Background Understanding
• 19thC Racism
• Origins of White
Australia Policy
• Connections of
whiteness and
nationality
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Anti-Chinese Sentiment Re-emerges
in 1870s
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Tolerance ends
Workers’ anxiety
Maritime Strike 1878
Anti-Chinese
Immigration Act 1881
• Chinese in Melbourne
furniture trade
• Extends to migration
morals & nationalism
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Anti-Chinese Campaign
• Anxieties re. Chinese
Commissioners’ Visit
1887
• ‘Afghan’ Crisis 1888
• Legislation in NSW>
all colonies
• Racism underpins
these moves
• stereotyping
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Bulletin: Anti-Chinese Campaign
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Late 19thC. Invasion Novels
• International genre
• Anxiety re national
strength, unity, race
fitness
• William Lane’s White or
Yellow (1888)
• Critique of Brit.capitalism
• Of urban masculinity
• Lane and the labour
movement
• Creation ‘New Australia’
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Discourse of Asia Rising
• Charles Pearson:reformer
• His National Life and
Character (1893)
• Influential: why?
• His views of white and
other races
• Challenged racial
determinism
• Transnational influence
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3: Alfred Deakin & Immigration Act
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Brilliant rise - MP @ 24
Most eminent colonial
Cosmopolitan man
American influences 1888
Race hierarchy-whiteness
Nation & homogeneity
Mississippi/Natal test
Immig Restrict’n Act 1901
London Morning Post
Rationale‘New Protection’
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Achieving Whiteness
• Pacific Islanders
Expulsion Act 1906
• Aust. Constitution
ignores Aboriginal
presence
• State Aboriginal Acts
• Non-white decline
• Diplomatic exceptions
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Sydney 1908: Burns v. Johnson
• 1900c:Colour line in
US-controlled boxing
• Not in UK – Peter
Jackson’s bouts
• Or Australia
• Whiteman’s counties
not exact replicas
• But race dominant
Western discourse
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Australia’s Tri-level of Identity
• 1: Australian
nationalism
• 2: British patriotism
• 3: Race patriotism
• Hancock (1930):
‘Independent
Australian Britons’
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Paris Peace Conference 1918-1919
• Pres. Wilson idealism
• Japan seeks racial
equality
• Diplomatic struggles
• Dominions dominate
• Hughes outspoken
• Japan’s humiliation
• Treaty’s legacy Whiteness &
Japanese militarism
Prime Minister Billy Hughes Aust Nat
Lib pic an 12266389
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Deportation Controversies 1946-9
• Malaysian seamen
• International & local
disapproval
• Not just Asians > pic.
• O’Keefe case 1949
• Calwell’s opposition
• WAP dented
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Modifications in the 1950s
• Special cases cause difficulty: Chinese
nationals; Eurasians and the 50% rule;
war brides and Cherry Parker case
• Asian students
• Asian engagement and the Columbo Plan
• Holt’s 1956 administrative refinements
• Migration Act 1958: end of dictation test
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1960s Policy Debate: For Change
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Principle: academics, churches & NGOs
Cosmopolitanism: students & elites
Pragmatism: Foreign Affairs Dept
Immigration Reform Group: Mackie, Rivett
Peter Heydon, Secretary Immigration Dept
Hubert Opperman, Minister of Immigration
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1960s Policy Debate: For Status Quo
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Inertia: Many officers of Immigration Dept.
Tradition: Most unions
Defence/Cold War fears: RSL
60-70% of public opinion- racial world-view
Arthur Calwell Leader of Opposition
Prime Minister Robert Menzies
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Shifts within Labor Party
• 1966 Whitlam replaces Calwell as leader –
seeks to modernise ALP
• 1971 ALP National Conf’ence: 3 principles
• 1972 win: immigration no election issue:
• But WAP ended + reduced targets
• 1973: Aust Citizenship Act –ends British
preference
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Consequences of New Policy
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Al Grassby tours Asia to bury WAP
Dept of Immigration reformed
Lower annual targets: change minimised
1973 changes: evolutionary from 1956+
Acceptable responses to a changing
context - sig. public acceptance
• 1975 Racial Discrimination Act
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Rise of Multiculturalism
• Aim of the Whitlam Govt: integration within
non–discriminatory Australian society
• Aust. Reality: poly-ethnic by 1971
• Labor govt focussed on migrant problems
• Al Grassby introduced new paradigm and
shifted the debate - ‘family of the nation’
• Subsequent Govts adopt - Frazer
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The end of ‘White Australia’ tested
by Asian Refugee Crisis 1976-82
• End of Vietnam War April 1975
• Aust. accepts few at fall of Saigon
• Vietnam’s internal problems & war with
Kampuchea, China create mass exodus
• Two million displaced in Indo-China
• Flee by land and in boats
• 1 M+ seek refuge overseas; 0.4 m in 1979 alone
• Malaysia & Thailand’s solution
• Boat people arrive in Australia April 1976+
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Australia’s Strategies
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Stem flow and introduce orderly arrival
Internationalise the issue- internat. law
Geneva Conferences 1978, 1979
Australia’s intake 1976-82: 176K
Comparative international intake –largest
Success: internal divisions ameliorated
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Yet: 1984 Immigration Debate
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Blainey claims: minority driving the policy
West: ‘Asianisation of Australia’, misread?
Protests from Blainey’s colleagues
Blainey’s All for Australia (1984): ‘the
secret room’ & conspiracy of elites theory
• Surrender Australia? (1985)
• First modern History War
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John Howard & ‘One Australia’
• 1985 becomes Opposition Leader
• 1988 rejects Aboriginal treaty & guilt
• 1989 Attacks multiculturalism ‘One
Australia’
• Immigration: opposes family reunion &
large-scale Asian immigration (//s Blainey)
• 1989 Howard ousted
• Lazarus rises 1994, Hanson 1996
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Bibliography
• Lake Marilyn & Reynolds. Henry, Drawing the Global Colour Line,
MUP, 2008.
• Markus, Andrew. Fear & Hatred. Purifying Australia and California,
1850-1901, H & I, 1979.
• Walker, David. Anxious Nation. Australia and the Rise of Asia 18501939, UQP, 1999.
• Broome, Richard, ‘The Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson’, R.
Cashman & M. McKernan, Sport in History, UQP 1979.
• Tavan, Gwenda. The Long Slow Death of White Australia, Scribe,
Melb. 2005
• Viviani, Nancy. The Long Journey. Vietnamese Migration and
Settlement in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melb. 1984.
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