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This chapter presents a brief overview of past international migration trends and policies, and their effect on the growth and diversity of Australia’s population. It covers the post-World War Two migration schemes, the dismantling of the White Australia Policy, and the increasing diversity of migrant origins.

The Chinese are among the earliest immigrants to Australia, with substantial numbers coming from the middle of the nineteenth century, fully half a century before Federation of the states to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The White Australia Policy, established immediately after Federation in 1901 specifically to prevent migration from China, was not dismantled until 1972, when Australia was among the first Western nations to recognise the People’s Republic of China. Since that time, large-scale migration from China has recommenced, and the Chinese are now the fastest growing immigrant community in Australia. Substantial differences between the culture that Chinese immigrants bring with them and the dominant Australian culture contribute to risks for development of mental disorder, as a result of the challenges associated with settlement in a new country and culture. While there have been no adequate epidemiological studies of mental disorders in Australia’s Chinese communities, it is probably the case that the overall prevalence of mental disorders is not substantially different to that in the overall Australian population and in other immigrant communities. Despite this, Chinese immigrants with mental disorder substantially underutilise public mental health services, largely as a result of the lack of culturally appropriate, acceptable and effective mental health services. In recent years, the political and economic tensions between Western countries – primarily the United States – and China have become prominent also in Australia, with the possibility that these may be undermining Chinese immigrants’ sense of security and wellbeing.

During the 1980s Perth in Western Australia had a thriving nightclub scene. This scene was organised according to ethnicity/race and was imbricated with the concerns of official multiculturalism. Using interview material this chapter outlines the diversity of clubs, identifies the most important, and discusses who went to these clubs and the types of music played in them. The primary focus of the chapter is on Jules, the club to which young people thought of as black went. The chapter discusses who was thought of as black in Perth during the 1980s, roughly ten years after the final dismantling of the White Australia policy. The discussion of the Perth nightclub scene serves as a springboard for considering the relationship between everyday multiculturalism and official multiculturalism.

This chapter compares contemporary far-right movements in Australia with far-right movements from the 1930s. By examining the provenance and manifestations of the far right in these periods, the chapter notes the importance of Australia’s early history, especially with regard to the “White Australia Policy” that contributed to a rejection of Australia’s Indigenous population as well as non-white immigration. Movements from both eras, apart from their resurgence during times of apparent or feared economic decline, are shown to exhibit similar characteristics in adherence to a nativist populism, hybrid racism, ambivalence to democracy, and congruence with transnational far-right movements. The chapter concludes that as late as 2019 the ruling coalition government in Australia gained from a politically expedient electoral relationship with a xenophobic far right with roots in earlier far-right movements.

Australia’s population ethnic composition changed considerably in the three decades 1981–2011, as a result of the abandonment of the “White Australia Policy” in 1970s and change in the migration selection criteria in favour of more skilled migrants. Not only did the proportion of the Australian-born population decreased somewhat, in the three decades, but the distribution of the Oversea-born population also changed with a fall in the proportion born in Europe and rise in the proportion born in Asia. In 1981, when the largest proportion of migrants were born in Europe, the fertility of females born Overseas was greater than that of Australian-born. The analysis is concern with the fertility changes that occurred between 1981 and 2011 censuses of population, and differences and shifts in the fertility of females born in Australia and those born Overseas. This is of particular importance in view of government policies in favour of Australia’s population growth.

This chapter is devoted to three Asian languages, Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian. Aa the chapter shows, these languages had very different beginnings in the Australian tertiary sector. The chapter also reveals the beginnings of Australia’s interaction with Japan, China, and Indonesia. Again, the White Australia Policy reared its head in Australia’s early dealings particularly with China and Japan. Political influences, strategic concerns about communism and the nearby emerging democracy of Indonesia shaped Australia’s policies towards these countries and the importance, or otherwise, of their languages. Some universities gained funding for these languages from endowments, others from the government when defence concerns were paramount. It was, however, as representing countries important for Australia’s trade, that these three languages gained priority funding from the Federal government.

In Australia, there is a small, yet growing body of empirical research about Aboriginal children and youth’s Aboriginal identity. Current literature is focussed on Aboriginal adults, particularly the “Stolen Generation” who were forcibly removed from their families as children. Aboriginal identity is transmitted from Elder to parent to child, and in the case of Australian Aboriginal families, particularly those residing in urban spaces, the generational gap caused by the Australian government’s White Australia policy has impacted heavily on cultural transmission. Therefore, this chapter will firstly present Western Australian Aboriginal children and young people’s perspectives of their Aboriginal identity. Second, a description of the daily impact of prejudice, racism and discrimination upon identity and wellbeing will be provided. Third, the elements of Aboriginal identity that protects a child’s development and wellbeing will be explored. A meta-analysis of current literature will be conducted by searching the following key terms: Aboriginal identity, self-esteem, racism, child development, and wellbeing. A thematic analysis using Colaizzi’s (1978) methods will be performed.

This chapter considers Australia’s version of the insane immigrant clause, and shows how, over its first decade, it went through a series of manifestations. Procedural amendments reintroduced a version of the nineteenth-century bonding provision. Conversely, amendments to the Act itself closed the loopholes which had weakened its intent. In 1905 the deportation function was formalised and exemptions based on domicile were removed. The unwieldy operations came to the notice of the eugenically minded who viewed the low rejection rates as a failure rather than proof of healthy immigration.

The title of this chapter, Australia both multicultural and multilingual, homes in on the issues facing Australia as a result of its huge post-war migration scheme. Not only did Australia become more multicultural demographically, but also consequently multilingual. As migrant communities became established in Australian society, they sought the right for their languages to be taught both in schools and universities. Government policies were changing: from the infamous White Australia policy formulated at Federation, to attitudes of assimilation and then integration. Changing governments tackled these issues calling for reports into migrant services, languages taught in the tertiary sector, how and why certain languages should be taught. Small community languages were vulnerable to funding cuts and variable student demand. Two case studies, one into Ukrainian and the other on Yiddish show the powerfulness of philanthropy in enabling community languages to continue.

This chapter demonstrates how the roots of Australia’s relationship with China can be found in the hostility directed at Chinese on the Australian gold fields in the 1850s. After the gold rush ended, some Chinese remained in Australia, frequently the object of racist marginalization. The 1901 White Australia policy saw the exclusion of Chinese settlers from the Australian continent. With the success of Mao Zedong’s communist forces on the Chinese mainland in 1949, a ‘fear of China’ governed the Cold War foreign policies of successive Australian governments where the security concerns of the United States were seen by Australia’s leaders as the lodestar guiding Australian foreign policy making. Over the last two decades China has emerged as Australia’s biggest resources export market. Hence Australia is confronted with a policy dilemma. In the event of conflict between the USA and China, which way will Australia turn?

This chapter surveys the history of Australia’s relations with Japan, from the late nineteenth century until the present. It notes how the Japanese were desirous of a close and mutually advantageous trading relationship with the Australian colonies. With federation in 1901the new federal government in Australia rebuffed Japan’s friendly overtures, preferring to trade with Britain. The 1901 Immigration Restriction Act (the White Australia policy) blocked Japanese attempts to foster closer ties. At the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, Australia’s Prime Minister Billy Hughes opposed Japanese proposals for administering Germany’s former territories in the Pacific and bitterly attacked Japan’s desire for the new League of Nations to be a bulwark against racism. The subsequent marginalization of Japan led to the horrors (on all sides) of the Pacific War. After the War Japan became one of Australia’s major export markets. Increasingly this instrumental relationship is acquiring a security dimension.

Among developed countries of the West, towards the end of the twentieth century, there was a widespread belief that unlike countries in the “Third World” where the drinking water was generally contaminated and the public health infrastructure was suspect, you could always rely on the fact that it was safe to drink water from the tap here. I remember that as one who grew up in the Third World (a common designation for Malaysia before the era of politically correct euphemisms) I was shocked to see my Australian college room-mate drink straight from the tap during my freshman undergraduate year in 1965 at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. In my childhood, Malaysians were taught to only drink boiled water as a general rule and the idea of drinking “raw” water straight from the tap was to invite the risk of tummy upsets and worse. When I had mentioned this to my fellow students at ANU, some of the less sensitive Aussies would say that “only the wogs have to do that”—that is, only the great unwashed in backward countries have to boil their water. This attitude was still prevalent in the 1960s when the last vestiges of the White Australia policy had yet to be rescinded and Arthur Calwell, who had previously declared in parliament when he was Immigration Minister, that “two Wongs do not make a White” was then leader of the Australian Labor Party.

Although a minority of the men found something to admire in the enemy, the great majority uncritically recycled the propaganda that had demonised the Boer in their letters home. The Boer women attracted the strongest censure. Most found little romance in battle. The men did not disguise the reality of Kitchener’s war. Initially, the Tommy, the paragon against whom they would be measured, fascinated the men. Familiarity, however, brought about a rapid, and often negative, reassessment. They were not prepared for South Africa’s blacks or their numbers, describing them as subhuman. It affirmed their commitment to the racism that would become the White Australia policy.