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Ethnic groups
Today the population of Australia consists of more than 270 ethnic groups. Until the mid-20th century, however, Australian society was, with some accuracy, regarded in the wider world as essentially British—or at any rate Anglo-Celtic. The ties to Britain and Ireland were scarcely affected by immigration from other sources until then. The complex demographic textures in Australia at the beginning of the 21st century contrasted quite sharply with the homogeneity of the country during the first half of the 20th century. Although some nine-tenths of Australia’s population is of European ancestry, more than one-fifth is foreign-born, and there is a small but important (and growing) Aboriginal population. Of those born overseas, about half were born in Europe, though by far the largest proportion of those came from the United Kingdom. Among the larger non-European groups are New Zealanders and Chinese. The growth in immigration, particularly Asian immigration (from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines) beginning in the last decades of the 20th century, combined with a subsequent flow of refugees from the Balkans, altered the cultural landscape, imbuing Australia with a cosmopolitanism that it lacked in the mid-20th century. Despite the country’s long-standing Anglo-Celtic heritage, two ethnic groups, the Chinese and the Italians, have had an important presence in Australia since the 19th century.
The Chinese
The long history of Chinese migration to Australia dates from the early 19th century. In the 1850s tens of thousands of Chinese people arrived to provide a source of cheap labour as workers in the goldfields. After the gold rushes, many Chinese miners returned home to their families in China, but others stayed to establish businesses or work the land. Because many Chinese immigrants had rural backgrounds and possessed water and land management skills, they played an important role in the early development of Australian agriculture. Chinese communities also set up market gardens, growing and selling fresh food such as vegetables, herbs, ginger, and other spices. Many other Chinese worked as labourers, cooks, clerks, carpenters, and interpreters. Resentment and anger grew, however, over the perceived threat that Chinese migrants posed to European colonists, who wanted to restrict the economic competition that came from Asian migrants. As a reaction, when Australia became a federation in 1901, one of the first laws passed by the newly formed government was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. This legislation, known as the “White Australia” policy, was specifically designed to end Asian migration to the country in order to maintain a “white” population. It severely limited the size of Chinese communities in Australia for more than 50 years, until its abolishment in 1973. Since then, migrants of Chinese origin have arrived in increasing numbers, and many have become notable figures in a variety of sectors in society.
The Italians
Italian migrants are another cultural group with a long and rich history of settlement in Australia. The first Italian community was established in Victoria during the gold rush of the 1850s. After the gold ran out in the region, many Italians remained in Australia and established agricultural communities in other parts of the country. Like the Chinese, many Italian migrants came from rural backgrounds, which helped them to excel in farming and viticulture. After World War II the Australian migration schemes of the 1950s and ’60s brought large numbers of Italian migrants to Australia. In the suburbs and cities, Italians set up family businesses, including bars, restaurants, greengrocers, general stores, fishmongers, and bakeries.
From the 1950s onward large numbers of Italians also migrated to northern Queensland where they were recruited to work on the sugar plantations. Italian migrants were also employed in significant construction projects, most notably on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, the largest and most complex engineering project in Australian history. With workers from more than 30 countries, including thousands of Italian immigrants, it took over 25 years to build. Italian migrants also established their own highly successful construction companies, such as Electric Power Transmission (EPT), Transfield, and Pioneer Concrete.
Aboriginal peoples
The persecution of and political indifference shown toward Aboriginal people failed to extinguish their culture. Inevitably, “land rights” became the rallying cry of a political movement accompanying a highly publicized revival of the Aboriginal community. A national referendum on Aboriginal rights held in 1967 agreed to the transfer of legislative power over Aboriginal affairs from the states to the federal government, and this accelerated the revival. The number of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, though still only a tiny fraction of the total population, increased dramatically in the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, jumping from 115,000 in 1971 to some 550,000 in the 2011 census.
In numerical terms, the most important Aboriginal concentrations are located in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and Northern Territory. Until the later 1960s the Aboriginal population was not inaccurately described as being as rural as white Australia was urban. In the Outback, small numbers still lived in tribal societies and tried to maintain the traditional ways. Some were employed as highly skilled stockmen on the big stations (ranches), and welfare payments and charitable organizations supported others on mission stations and government reserves. From the 1970s and ’80s the drift of Aboriginal people to the towns and cities transformed the old patterns except in Northern Territory, where the rural distribution has remained predominant. Their migrations to the country towns have often left Aboriginal families as stranded “fringe dwellers,” a term with social as well as geographic connotations. In the larger centres, Aboriginal communities from widely differing backgrounds face innumerable hazards as they attempt to adjust to volatile urban politics. Perceptions of common grievances have encouraged a unity of purpose and a sense of solidarity between urban and rural groups. (See Sidebar: The Quality of Life for Indigenous Australians in the 21st Century.)
The growth in the Aboriginal population has been exceeded by the increase in the number of Australians born in Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. By the early 21st century about one-third of all new settler arrivals had been born in Asia. Huge expenditures have been made on Aboriginal affairs, to the chagrin of much larger minority groups who have received less international visibility. Official federal policy has been to encourage self-help and local autonomy while improving the provision of essential services and the climate of opportunity. Obstacles to progress have included residual prejudice and neglect in the white (i.e., European) community and the lingering consequences of the vicious circle of poverty, ignorance, and disease in which Indigenous peoples became entrapped after their earliest encounters with whites.