From White Australia to Multiculturalism

White Australia:

White Australia came into being with two laws, the Immigration Restriction Act and the Pacific Island Labourers Act, which were both passed by the new federal parliament in 1901. The Immigration Restriction Act was put in place to keep non-white people out of Australia. The method used was the dictation test. Under the law, people seeking to enter the country could be required to do a 50-word written dictation test in ‘a European language directed by the officer’. White immigrants seeking to enter Australia were generally not required to take the 50-word dictation test, but non-whites were.

The Pacific Island Labourers Act was brought into being in an aim to rid Australia of the Pacific islanders who had been brought to Australia to work on the sugar farms of northern Queensland. Under this law no more islanders were allowed into Australia from 1904 and all islanders not actually born in Australia were to be deported by 1906.

Source 1:

Cartoon published in The Bulletin in 1895

From Assimilation to Multiculturalism:

Throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s, the Australian government and society expected new migrants to assimilate. However, the policy of assimilation did not work, and by the 1970s Australians began to acknowledge that they were living in a society in which many different cultures contributed to the richness of Australian life. During the years of the Whitlam Labor government (1972-1975) the concept of multiculturalism was adopted. The Racial Discrimination Act, passed in June 1975, made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race.

Multiculturalism was encouraged by subsequent governments, through various programs. For example, in 1979, The Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs was established to promote multiculturalism and provide advice to the government. In 1980, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) was established to provide television

programs for Australia’s largest ethnic groups. However, multiculturalism has been criticised by various people in recent decades.

Source 2:

Source 3:

Questions:1) What does Source 1 suggest about the reasons for the white Australia policy?2) Is the document in Source 2 in favour or opposed to the idea of multiculturalism?3) What is the document in Source 2 encouraging migrants to do? 4) Look closely at Source 2 and explain the meaning of the sentence: “we reject the argument that cultural diversity creates division”. 5) In Source 3, what is the main point Pauline Hanson is making about Asian migration?6) What reason does Pauline Hanson put forward to abolish the policy of multiculturalism? 7) What evidence does Hanson give to support her claim that “most Australians want our immigration policies reviewed … and multiculturalism abolished”? Are there any other unsupported claims?