White Australia

white australia policy

The 'White Australia' Policy comprises a variety of historical policies that restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia from 1901 aimed at excluding all non-European migrants and the Pacific Islanders, to make Australia as 'White Australia'. The Immigration Restriction Act was the significant part of a package of legislation which passed by the new Australian Government in 1901.

The background of the 'White Australia' unofficially policies can be traced back to 1850s.

In Victoria, An Act to Make Provision for certain Immigrants was passed in 1855. Taxes were levied by the Victoria Government against the Chinese for residence on the goldfields and for entry by land or sea. To avoid these fees, Chinese settlers' vessels would land at Port Adelaide and later at Guichen Bay in South Australia. Chinese passengers were then led overland across border to the Victoria goldfields.

In 1857, there was an outbreak of violence against the Chinese at Buckland River in Victoria and the worst violence happened at Lambing Flat in New South Wales. European miners were enraged by the Chinese miners and their wastage of water when extracting gold. The most serious riot happened in July 1861, when approximately 2000 miners attacked Chinese miners.

This pressured on the New South Wales Government to pass the Chinese Immigration Restriction and Regulation Act in 1861, to restrict the numbers of Chinese's settlement. Queensland introduced restrictions in 1877, and Western Australia followed suit in 1886.

Later, it was the turn of hard-working contracted labourers' from the South Sea Islands of the Pacific (known as 'Kanakas') in northern Queensland. Factory and sugar plantation workers from the South Sea Islands became strongly opposed to all forms of immigration which might threaten their jobs, particularly by non-white people who thought would accept a lower standard of living and work for lower wages. Some influential Queenslanders felt that their settlement would be excluded from the coming Federation if the 'Kanaka' trade did not cease. In 1901, after the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, received royal agreement on 23 December 1901. Australia Government ended employment of those Pacific Islanders.

It was described as an Act 'to place certain restrictions on immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited immigrants'.

The Act prohibited from immigration are those considered to be insane, anyone likely to become a charge upon the public or upon any public or charitable institution. It also included any person suffering from an infectious or contagious disease 'of a loathsome or dangerous character'.