The document discusses Australia's immigration policy between 1901 and 1979, known as the White Australia Policy. It introduced restrictions on non-European immigration after Australian federation in 1901. During World War II, the need to increase Australia's population to defend itself led to plans for large-scale post-war immigration. The Australian government sought migrants primarily from Britain and other Northwestern European countries to more easily assimilate to Australian society, as supported by all political parties and the White Australia Policy. Arthur Calwell played a key role in developing these immigration plans as head of the Department of Information during the 1940s war years.
The document discusses Australia's immigration policy between 1901 and 1979, known as the White Australia Policy. It introduced restrictions on non-European immigration after Australian federation in 1901. During World War II, the need to increase Australia's population to defend itself led to plans for large-scale post-war immigration. The Australian government sought migrants primarily from Britain and other Northwestern European countries to more easily assimilate to Australian society, as supported by all political parties and the White Australia Policy. Arthur Calwell played a key role in developing these immigration plans as head of the Department of Information during the 1940s war years.
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The document discusses Australia's immigration policy between 1901 and 1979, known as the White Australia Policy. It introduced restrictions on non-European immigration after Australian federation in 1901. During World War II, the need to increase Australia's population to defend itself led to plans for large-scale post-war immigration. The Australian government sought migrants primarily from Britain and other Northwestern European countries to more easily assimilate to Australian society, as supported by all political parties and the White Australia Policy. Arthur Calwell played a key role in developing these immigration plans as head of the Department of Information during the 1940s war years.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
The advance of the Japanese in early 1942 and Australia's inability
to defend itself made it clear to the Curtin Government that something would have to be done in the post war years to increase the nation's population. 'Total War' and conscription put a huge strain on our economy and further emphasized the need to 'populate or perish'.
Before the war concluded, the Department of Information, headed
by Arthur Calwell, began to develop a plan to populate Australia. Policies which included encouragement of natural growth were
THE IMMIGRATION NATION 2
pursued by the government and in fact the birth rate had risen significantly during the war. However, natural increase was never likely to bring the sort of growth that was felt necessary to secure the country against the possibility of invasion.
Large scale immigration seemed to be the best answer. By late
1944 the Australian government had begun negotiations with Britain for assisted migration programs in the post war years. All political parties in Australia supported the White Australia Policy and looked only to Britain and north western European countries for migrants in the belief that people from these countries would more easily accept the Australian way of life. This was the government's vision at the end of the war. John Curtin did not live to see the plan put in place and he may well have been surprised by the eventual large scale migration program after the war.
Robert Menzies
THE IMMIGRATION NATION 3
On the eve of the Senate campaign, the Vietnam War began to take shape as the dominant issue in Australian politics. In August 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which it was claimed that forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) had fired on American vessels in international waters, exposed the dilemma that was to dog the Labor Party throughout the war: how to condemn the United States' intervention without condemning Australia's ally, the United States. Calwell personified Labor's dilemma and expressed it memorably in an emotion-laden speech at a parliamentary reception for President Lyndon Johnson in October 1966 in which he ended a philippic against the war by reciting the final sentences of the Gettysburg Address.