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This article shows that, compared with some recent elections, ethnic and immigration issues attracted little interest in 2007, in spite of record high levels of immigration under the Government of John Howard. Ironically the Chinese vote may have played a role in Howard's loss in the seat of Bennelong.

Australia has had two centuries of state planned and controlled immigration, with official policies excluding those felt undesirable for racial, social or economic reasons, Visa controls have been tightened in recent years even against the previously welcomed British. Australia has also accepted refugees for permanent settlement under the 1951 UN Convention. Since the 1990s this approach has been steadily modified, making it increasingly difficult to achieve settlement as an asylum seeker. Detention in prison-like camps, limitation of the right to permanent residence, and policies designed to expedite homeland return have all led to victimisation of the relatively small numbers seeking asylum outside the universal visa system. This has been accompanied by forcible removal to locations outside Australian territory and attempts to limit rights of appeal. Official demonisation of asylum seekers has damaged public acceptance of refugees, while draconian policies towards them have undermined Australia’s previous reputation as a safe haven.

In many democratic societies there is a strong tendency for voters from ethnic or religious minorities to support the party of the ‘left’, however this may be locally defined. This was initially noticed in the United States, where it is an important concern of political scientists and partisans. Similar trends are noticeable in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the seats where immigrant communities have concentrated, ethnic minority support for the ALP is consistently strong (Jupp 1981 and 1984). This support was largely sustained in 2013, despite general swings towards the Liberals. This chapter argues that predictions of a ‘wipeout’ for Labor in such electorates were unsound, both in Sydney and Melbourne. It does not argue for the overall impact of ‘ethnic and immigration issues’ as these were heavily focused on asylum seekers rather than immigration as a whole. Campaigning on such issues was aimed at the AngloAustralian majority. There was very little academic or journalistic debate on immigration issues, as both major parties were in full agreement on ‘stopping the boats’.

(1997). Tacking into the wind: Immigration and multicultural policy in the 1990s. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 21, Fatal shores, pp. 29-39.

The most famous Englishman in Australian history, Captain James Cook, missed the entrance to Sydney Harbour during the night. He and fellow Englishman, Sir Joseph Banks, committed future explorers to the less promising site of Botany Bay.Nearly 20 years later, Sydney was founded by the British government as a penal colony. Although there was an established Aboriginal population, they remained on the periphery and were gradually reduced by disease and displacement, a fate suffered by others further out as exploration and settlement proceeded. In contrast to New York, which was established by the Dutch, or Boston, which became predominantly Irish, Sydney was seen from the beginning as an ‘English’ town. This was despite its growing connections with the Pacific and the presence among its soldiers and convicts of some Scots and many Irishmen. The majority of transported convicts were English, the Church of England was the established religious faith and Catholicism was strictly limited by official control.

Displaced Persons: Calwell's New Australians. By Egon F. Kunz. ANU Press, Sydney 1988. Pp. 285. 529.00 paper. Bonegilla: ‘a place of no hope’. By Glenda Sluga. History Department, University of Melbourne 1988. Pp. 153. $7.95 paper. Migrant Hands in a Distant Land. By Jock Collins. Pluto Press, Sydney 1988. Pp. 302. $19.95 paper. Ideology and Immigration: Australia 1976 to 1987. By Katharine Betts. Melbourne University Press. Pp. 234. $24.95 paper 1988. A Divided Working Class. By Constance Lever‐Tracy and Michael Quinlan. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1988. Pp. 338. $29.95 paper. Mistaken Identity: Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia. By Stephen Castles, Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope and Michael Morrissey. Pluto Press, Sydney 1988. $14.95 paper.

Multicultural policy in Australia was developed by the Immigration Department, by most State governments and by individuals and groups involved in immigrant affairs. It remained within the Immigration portfolio from 1975 until 1987 and was returned to it in 1996. At the State level, where immigration is not a government function, it usually rested with the premier's office. It has not been essentially concerned with ‘culture’ in the conventional sense, so much as with immigrant settlement services. Not until 1989 were Aboriginal issues brought under the multicultural umbrella. This remained controversial and was not welcomed by many Aboriginal activists or organisations. They saw the Indigenous peoples as distinct and not merely one among many ethnic groups of recent settlement. Not until 2001 was Indigenous policy brought within the scope of the Immigration Department, which was renamed the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). This acknowledged the responsibility for Aboriginal reconciliation transferred to the minister, Philip Ruddock, some months before. Responsibility for multiculturalism was then undertaken by a junior minister, Gary Hardgrave. The Labor shadow ministry also separated immigration from multiculturalism in 2001. Multiculturalism replaced the long-standing support for assimilation. Yet it was not particularly controversial in the first decade when it was confirmed as Commonwealth public policy by the Galbally report of 1978 and reconfirmed by Malcolm Fraser in 1981.

Australia is an immigrant society. Without continual immigration the modern, urbanised and affluent society of today could not have been created. Australia is also the product of conscious social engineering to create a particular kind of society. This distinguishes it from other immigrant societies such as the United States, Argentina or even Canada, where the role of the state was less apparent and where private initiative was more important. Almost alone, with New Zealand, Australian governments set out to create a specific model using immigration and the introduction of overseas capital and technology. They are still doing so today, although naturally the goals and methods have changed over the past two centuries. A new Britannia Australia and New Zealand are the two ‘most British’ societies in the world outside the United Kingdom. Australia is the ‘most Irish’ society outside Ireland, although the United States attracted vastly more Irish immigrants to a much larger society. New Zealand might contest with Canada for the title of the ‘most Scottish’ society outside Scotland. The often repeated and incorrect claim that Australia is the ‘most multicultural society in the world’ does not bear close inspection. It is certainly much more multicultural than it was fifty years ago when the post-war immigration program began. It is even more multicultural than it was at Federation in 1901, when 20 per cent of its people were overseas-born and it had large German and Chinese minorities.

The Whitlam government officially ended White Australia and gave its support to the concept of multiculturalism. But this had only a limited immediate effect. The most public enthusiast for multiculturalism, Minister for Immigration Al Grassby, was defeated in Riverina in the 1974 election in a campaign which included racist attacks on him and his policies. His successors, Clyde Cameron and James McClelland, were in an older Labor tradition and promptly reduced the migrant intake at a time of rising unemployment. Whitlam abolished the Immigration Department altogether in 1974. He recalls that Grassby found it ‘incurably racist’. Functions were redistributed mainly to the Social Security, Education and Labour departments, with Senator McClelland as minister for labour and immigration from June to November 1975. Whitlam explained this as recognising a wider responsibility than organising intake: ‘We had abolished the Department because in our view the Federal Government's responsibility for migrants did not end with recruiting them …but extended into all the areas where my government had taken initiatives, such as education and health and urban services’. This continued to be the view of succeeding governments at least into the 1990s. But they operated with a revived and extended Immigration Department as well as through other relevant departments. This abolition temporarily removed the core from migrant settlement services which had begun to be built and left multiculturalism with no clear administrative location.

The Australian experience of immigration was historically with those from the United Kingdom. Before 1921 this included a large component of Catholic Irish, but these had almost ceased to arrive after the depression of the 1890s. England has always provided the largest number of the United Kingdom-born, followed by Ireland in the nineteenth century and Scotland in the twentieth. The Scots replaced the Irish by 1921 and were only replaced by Italians in 1961. The English have always been the largest overseas-born group to the present. Only in 1996 did New Zealand replace the United Kingdom as the single largest national source of newcomers, and that was reversed again by 2003. As Sir Henry Parkes put it before Federation, ‘the crimson thread of kinship runs through us all’. Himself an English migrant, Parkes ignored the Indigenous and Chinese populations who made up less than 5 per cent of the population. As premier of New South Wales in 1881 he warned Italians not to congregate together because it would delay their assimilation. He dispersed them throughout the colony as a condition of settlement aid. He was also hostile to Irish Catholic immigration and advocated its limitation. Most of his attitudes were widespread in late colonial Australia and represent majority opinion at the time of Federation in 1901.

Immigration policy and associated multicultural and settlement provisions have been driven through over the past thirty years with considerable success. But they have also been driven with the brake on. In all policy areas there has been resistance – either overt and destructive, as with One Nation and many conservative publicists – or quiet and subversive, as with reluctance to develop policies or to administer in accordance with multicultural principles. This strong undercurrent of resistance reflects the upbringing and collective culture of that generation of Australians born and educated before the abandoning of White Australia. It is based, however, on attitudes which are common in most societies, including xenophobia, assimilationism and lack of tolerance. These are not necessarily dominant, but they inhibit policies which must meet the realities of a globalising world, of declining fertility with consequent ageing, and of escalating human movement for business, pleasure, work, refuge and settlement. The three aspects of immigration policy – intake, settlement and multiculturalism – have been subject to consistent controversy, often based on ignorance, prejudice and simple lies. However, immigration has only occasionally been judged a major concern of citizens in opinion polling, being secondary to such conventional issues as the economy, employment, health and education, if more important than Aboriginal affairs or foreign policy. While official policies have emphasised numbers and qualifications, popular reaction has usually been against ethnic change.

This short study by an eminent Australian scholar covers the entire period from the initiation of the White Australia policy in 1901 until the asylum seeker controversies of John Howard’s government in 2001. It will be of considerable value to those outside Australia who have only a limited knowledge of the radical changes during this century of organized mass immigration. They include many Asians who still believe that Australia implements a ‘whites only’ admission policy, which is far from being the case. It will also be of value to the many Australians who have only a distorted and populist view of recent developments. However, this is not a text for beginners. It starts with a detailed account of the various academic debates surrounding terms such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘racism’. These are drawn from several sources, not all of them Australian. Typically of academic texts there is a plethora of references to other scholars, rather than to other situations. There is an assumption that the dominant ethnicity is ‘Anglo-Celtic’ and the dominant race is ‘Caucasian’, both very contested terms. It was not true, as the author maintains, that the initial waves of migration before 1860 were ‘made up almost exclusively of British settlers of Protestant origin’ (p. 31). There were almost as many Catholic Irish as English in the three largest colonies by the 1880s, creating a social and political rift which was still apparent into the 1950s. However Jayasuriya, is correct in distinguishing racism against Aborigines from that against immigrants. The former were seen as a dying race, the latter as a threat. He is also correct in locating all forms of racism within those fashionable in Britain. British migrants brought their racism with them, planted it in virgin soil and watered it with imperialist pride. The greatest surge in hostility to Chinese and other Asians took place in the 1880s, coincidental with the greatest surge in British assisted

National governments have usually had first claim on the right to form national identities. In seeking votes or public support for their policies, political leaders have commonly made reference to national identity, as it was thought to be or as it could become. For example, in April 1993, newly elected Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating (1993e) argued that ‘Australia will be taken more seriously as a player in regional affairs if we are clear about our identity and demonstrate that we really mean to stand on our own feet practically and psychologically’. The first Australian prime minister to advocate a republic, he related his position to those demographic changes producing an Australia ‘where a growing proportion of the population has few if any ties with the United Kingdom; where our future increasingly lies within our own region; and where our identity as a nation is no longer derivative but our own’ (Keating 1993e). This eminently rational approach does, however, beg the question of whether governments can develop a clear and coherent identity in a society with many origins, and whether indeed they ought to do so. Australian governments have typically sought to shape and reshape national identity by two means. First, they have set restrictions and conditions upon foreign immigration into the country. Second, they have set criteria for granting citizenship and have framed domestic policies around such principles as integration or assimilation by which it was hoped to achieve social harmony, or even social justice.

Some years ago I foolishly predicted that the battle for multicultural ism in public policy was almost won.1 Today it seems more reason able to divide the history of official multiculturalism into three phases, all rather neatly lasting for five years. Between 1973 and 1978 there was the ‘euphoric phase’. Launched by Al Grassby and enthusiastically supported by Gough Whitlam, multiculturalism was awarded bi-partisan consensus by the Galbally Report of 1978.2 In between were the migrant worker’s conference of 1973, the forma tion of the major Ethnic Communities’ Councils in 1975 and the rapid development of ethnic media and political pressures. The next phase, from 1978 to 1983, might be termed one of ‘consensual consolida tion’. Multiculturalism was enthusiastically endorsed by the Fraser Liberal—National coalition, which set up the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs (1979) and began multicultural television (1980). While the ALP Opposition was critical of some aspects, it was fully committed to the general policies based on Galbally, promising only to sustain and improve them. Then began the third phase, which might be termed one of ‘disillusion and retreat’. This has lasted since 1983 and, if the five-year cycle means anything, is now giving way to something else. Whether this will usher in a five-year period of ‘total abandonment’ or simply of ‘total confusion’ (or something else) cannot be scientifically predicted. But there is no doubt that multicul turalism in public policy is being fought over both between and within the parties. Perhaps this phase (starting fortuitously with the Fitz gerald Report on immigration policy in June 1988) will see many of the issues which seemed resolved becoming controversial and even bitterly contested.3

Three defining events have shaped public policy in Australia towards the "war on terrorism." The September 2001 attack on New York was obviously the first. This prompted legislation in the following year that expanded the powers of the main intelligence body, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and expedited its move from intelligence collection to security operations. The second was the bombing attacks in London in July 2005, which shifted the emphasis from immigration control to domestic vigilance. The third was the major race riot at Cronulla, Sydney in December 2005. This alerted authorities to the deterioration in ethnic relations created by these previous events and led to increased penalties against violence. No terrorist attacks have happened in Australia. Only a handful of arrests have been made, most awaiting trial. Loss of life has been confined to the Bali bombing of October 2002, which was not directed specifically against Australians. This resulted in greatly improved cooperation between Indonesian and Australian security and police, something that had started to develop in response to the prevention of unauthorised asylum seeker arrivals, most of whom came through Indonesia. Thus the major policy shifts were from border protection to internal security. But the public debate was more concerned with immigration, multiculturalism, and the integration of the Muslim population. Both the 2001 and 2004 elections were fought essentially on security, to the advantage of the ruling Liberal-National coalition led by John Howard.PLANNED, SELECTIVE, AND CONTROLLED IMMIGRATIONThere is nothing random about Australian immigration. Everyone entering for whatever purpose must have a visa, with the exception of New Zealand citizens. New Zealanders receive a nominal visa on arrival. Others arriving without a valid visa may be returned to their place of origin or given a "bridging visa," which allows them to remain while their status is determined. Those seeking asylum under the UN convention and protocol on refugees (1951/1967) will also be given a bridging visa if they arrive on another visa. If they have no visa, they are mandatorily detained until their status is determined. This has been the case since 1993.1Those asylum seekers arrested at sea were often deported to two Pacific Islands (Nauru and Manus) under the now suspended "Pacific solution" of 2001-02 Refugees and humanitarian settlers are processed overseas mainly through the UN high commissioner for refugees or by Australian migration posts. Ideally, then, nobody enters Australia other than in transit without the permission of the Australian government. If they do, they are interned. This was clearly stated by Prime Minister John Howard during his victorious 2001 election campaign: "We will decide who comes to this country and under what circumstances." While this implicitly breached the UN convention of which Australia is a signatory, the principle of national sovereignty has been rigorously asserted ever since. This was easily sustained. Regular passenger access to Australia is now exclusively by air and there are fewer than 20 regulated points of entry.3This tightening of admission criteria follows a long history of planned and financially assisted immigration (1831-1982) that allowed Australian authorities to select those immigrants they favoured. Steadily over the years, the visa system was extended until it became one of the tightest in the world. But state intervention also involved actively encouraging immigration, usually with financial inducements such as paid or subsidized passages. Just as few other developed societies so rigidly imposed visas, so no other so generously encouraged those it wanted to settle. This degree of state control is not fully understood in Australia even now. In public debates that break out from time to time, many seem to think that anyone can come to Australia. This is far from being the case. …

This article examines migration policy in Australia with reference to the "White Australia" policy prior to 1975 and the multicultural policy thereafter. Mass immigration has not caused major social tensions. Mass tourism has been welcomed. Australian attitudes have changed from fear of massive numbers of Asians and mass poverty and ignorance to multiculturalism. Suspicious attitudes toward Asians, however, are still present among a minority of Australians. The most influential arguments against Asians are the concerns about employment of new arrivals and the environmental impact of an increasing population. Although there are many cultural differences, Australia is linked to Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines in that all have a history of British or American influence. Educated Indians and Sri Lankans are linked to Australians by their common language and Christian religion. The integration of Asians in the business and financial community holds the potential for economic gain over the years. The author finds that the Australian relationship to Asia is more acceptable in public arenas than the comparable changing relationship between Britain and Europe. The roots of a Whites-only policy extend back to 1901, when the Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act was ratified. The exclusion of non-European immigrants was not specified in the law. The mechanism for exclusion was included in the law. Undesirable immigrants could be excluded. Under mass migration programs after 1947 the population of non-English speaking Europeans increased. By 1973 government shifted from an assimilationist approach to a multicultural approach due to pressure from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Numerous historical events occurring during 1942-80 drew Australia out of its isolationist position in the world. At present about 25% of the total population are of non-British origin. Over 900,000 would have been excluded under the old migration policy. In 1991, 665,315 persons were born in Asia, of which the largest numbers came from Mainland China, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Asian immigrants are either refugees from Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos or voluntary Asian immigrants.

Immigration has profoundly shaped the national development of countries like the United States and Australia, who were both founded as settler societies. They have both been transformed by successive waves of immigration, first from Europe, and then from every other part of the world. The policies that these countries have enforced regarding immigration, recruitment, and settlement have had as equally far-reaching consequences for the oppressed and hopeful peoples of the world. With the current ongoing changes in the international arena, Canada, Australia, and the United States are still the primary countries to which most migrate. Surprisingly, nothing has been written to compare these countries' immigration experiences and there is little evidence to exchange of government information on policies relating to the field. Nations of Immigrants bridges these academic and governmental gaps with the first comparison of immigration policy in Australia and the United States. The work is divided into four sections: immigration regulation and control, economic effects of immigration, settlement issues, and multiculturalism and conflict. Written by scholars and professionals from both shores of the Pacific, this work clearly identifies pertinent aspects in the comparison and investigates how policymakers might learn from one another. This work is also essential for students and scholars to better understand the changing dynamics of the immigration history and policies of these countries.

(1979). The new Hebrides: From condominium to independence. Australian Outlook: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 15-26.

Neil Kinnock, Making our Way, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986, pp.200. $ 13.95 (paper) Roy Hattersley, Choose Freedom: The Future for Democratic Socialism, London, Michael Joseph, 1987, pp. 265. $39.95 (cloth) John Callaghan, The Far Left in British Politics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 249. $29.95 (paper) Maureen Mackintosh and Hillary Wainwright (eds), A Taste of Power: The Politics of Local Economics, London, Verso, 1987, pp. 441. $29.95 (paper) Peter Hain, Political Strikes: the State and Trade Unionism in Britain, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1986, pp. 357. $14.95 (paper) Roger Geary, Policing Industrial Disputes: 1893 to 1985, London, Methuen, 1986, pp. 171. $19.95 (paper) Derek Fatchett, Trade Unions and Politics in the 1980s: the 1984 Act and Political Funds, London, Croom Helm, 1987, pp. 135. $78.95 (cloth) Michael P. Jackson, Strikes: Industrial Conflict in Britain, USA and Australia, Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books, 1987. pp. 232. $34.95 (paper) Ken Coates and Tony Topham, Trade Unions and Pol...

THE NEW CONSTITUTION of I 972, which changed the name of Ceylon to Sri Lanka, incorporates Principles of State Policy which promise "the progressive advancement towards the establishment in Sri Lanka of a Socialist democracy" and the elimination of "economic and social privilege, disparity and exploitation."1 The adoption of the constitution came fifteen years afer S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, founder of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and prime minister from I956 to I959, first set up a committee on constitutional reform. The constitution embodied many of the objectives of Bandaranaike's party led by his widow, the then prime minister of Sri Lanka, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.2 While there were objections to the constitution from the opposition United National Party, which wished to entrench the protection of property rights and institute a presidential system' and from the Federal Party which wished to federalise Sri Lanka for the protection of the Tamil minority, the great majority of the parliament, including the Marxist parties (the Lanka Samasamaja Party and the Communists), welcomed the commitment to socialism. Despite insurrection in I97i by the revolutionary Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the existence of a number of extra-parliamentary Leninist groups, the great bulk of political opinion in Sri Lanka accepted the term 'democratic' as implying the continued movement towards socialism through parliamentary means and through the regular testing of the government at the ballot box. This commitment to democratic socialism (as the term is conven

C EYLON STILL REMAINS a monarchy, still allows appeals to the Privy Council, still has regular elections at which it regularly changes its government, and still maintains, almost without modification, the constitution on which independence was granted in i948.1 The question to be asked is not "Why has the model failed?" but "Why, and to what extent, has it succeeded?" The authorship and guidance of Sir Ivor Jennings provide part of the answer. His understanding of British and local politics contrasted favourably with that of other constitutional lawyers drafting new constitutions which failed. However, much credit must go to the Ceylonese voters and politicians, without whom the system might have collapsed. Ceylon's people are wedded to parliamentary methods. Ceylon has no revolutionary tradition, no revolutionary parties worthy of the name, a tiny army whose occasional political incursions have been farcical rather than threatening, and, most important, politicians who are neither particularly corrupt nor hostile to democracy. Most of its political leaders have had British legal training.2 The administrators, too, have a long background of experience in working constitutional democracy. The Ceylon Civil Service (the administrative class) was Ceylonized to the extent of 33.3 per cent in i925, 64 per cent in I940, and go per cent by I949. The nature of the present constitutional situation in Ceylon can best be examined against the background of past developments.3 Ceylon has had universal suffrage since i93i. At independence it had a class of established politicians, drawn from the professional classes and landed aristocracy, educated in Britain and deeply committed to parliamentary methods. The dominant families-the Senanayakes, Goonetillekes, Bandaranaikes, Ratwattes, and so on-were well represented in the Legislative and State Councils