White Australia policy

White Australia policy, in Australian history, fundamental legislation of the new Commonwealth of Australia that effectively stopped all non-European immigration into the country and that contributed to the development of a racially insulated white society. It reflected a long-standing and unifying sentiment of the various Australian colonies and remained a fundamental government policy into the mid-20th century.

The Australian colonies had passed restrictive legislation as early as the 1860s. This was directed specifically at Chinese immigrants, but later a popular cry was raised against the increasingly numerous Japanese—especially after Japan’s victory over China in the 1894–95 Sino-Japanese War—and against South Asians and Kanakas (South Pacific islanders) as well. Fear of military invasion by Japan, the threat to the standard of living that was thought to be presented by the cheap but efficient Asian labourers, and white racism were the principal factors behind the White Australia movement.

The desire for a coordinated immigration bar against nonwhites was a spur in the 1890s toward Australian federation. Thus, the act was among the first pieces of commonwealth legislation enacted. In 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act effectively ended all non-European immigration by providing for entrance examinations in European languages. The essential clause of the act, rather than naming particular races or groups for exclusion, provided for a dictation test in a European language to be administered to prospective immigrants. A South Asian with a knowledge of English could be given a test in French, German, or, if need be, Lithuanian. The act practically excluded all “coloured” people. Supplementary legislation in 1901 provided for the deportation by 1906 of the country’s Kanakas.

Popular support for White Australia, always strong, was bolstered at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919–20 when the Australian delegation led the fight to defeat a Japanese-sponsored racial-equality amendment to the League of Nations Covenant. Although progress toward its abolition was slow, the policy became less stringent from about 1950 on, first under Liberal governments and also (more markedly) under Labor from 1972 to 1975 Discrimination was removed from the citizenship application process by enactment of the Australian Citizenship Bill 1973, which was followed by passage of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Speaking in the Philippines in 1973, Al Grassby, the minister for immigration in the government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, declared the policy dead, saying: “Give me a shovel and I will bury it.” Between 1947 and 1981 the number of persons in Australia of non-European descent more than doubled. By the early 21st century about two-fifths of Australian immigrants were Asian.