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8
Changing rights and
freedoms of migrants
INQ U IR Y Q U E STIONS
How have the rights and
freedoms of migrant groups
in Australia changed during
the post-war period?
Modern Australia is a multicultural nation.
Immigration has given us this diverse society
enriching all our lives. The ambitious immigration
program established after World War II transformed
Australia.
With millions of people left homeless by war,
the Australian Government established migration
programs for Europeans. In these early post-war
years all ethnic groups were expected to fit into the
Australian way of life. Despite government policies,
the ‘New Australians’ changed Australia forever with
their foreign languages, food and customs.
A photograph of Harold Holt
(Minister for Immigration) and
his wife with two young migrant
children, c. 1950
8.1 Migrants from the post-war world
immigration: to come into a
new country for the purpose
of permanent settlement
SOURCE 8.1
An emigration poster
from 1948
In the decades after World War II, immigration was the strongest force changing Australia.
After the experience of war in Asia and the Paciﬁc, Australians felt vulnerable to attack.
The war had frightened people into wanting immigration on a much larger scale than in
the past. The World War I Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, had stressed the importance of
immigration with the slogan ‘populate or perish’. After World War II the Australian Labor
government’s vision was to build a stronger Australia through immigration on a grand
scale. The government proposed a yearly intake of 70 000 migrants — that meant annually
adding one new migrant to every hundred Australians.
The government believed that an ambitious immigration program would provide:
sõ a larger population for future military defence
sõ a larger workforce to promote greater economic development and increase national
wealth.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Outline the purpose of the source 8.1
emigration poster.
2 Explain the image of Australia that the
poster expresses.
The New Australians
The Labor government established a
Department of Immigration, with Arthur
Calwell serving as the ﬁrst Minister for
Immigration. In 1946 Calwell designed the
Assisted Passage Scheme to attract British
migrants. Under this scheme British
ex-servicemen and their families were
given free passage to Australia, and other
British migrants paid £10 for an adult
fare and £5 for a child. The scheme was
offered on the condition that migrants
remain in Australia for a minimum of two
years.
The following year, Arthur Calwell
toured the refugee camps of Europe
where 11 million homeless survivors of
the war were waiting to be accepted for
settlement in new lands. Arthur Calwell
was aware of the Australian reluctance to
accept non-British immigration. Calwell
set out to change attitudes by declaring
that immigrants:
sõ would not take Australian jobs
sõ would stimulate the economy and
create more employment.
It was clear that British migrant numbers could not meet the government target
of 1 per cent annual growth. The Australian Government signed agreements with
the International Refugee Organization to accept a minimum of 12 000 settlers every
year. In November 1947 the ﬁrst group of World War II refugees arrived: 843 Latvians,
Lithuanians and Estonians. Within two years, 19 ships were regularly travelling between
Naples and Australia bringing migrants under the Displaced Persons Scheme. When the
scheme ceased in 1953 it had delivered 170 000 refugees to Australia.
CHAPTER 8
| Changing rights and freedoms of migrants
293
SOURCE 8.2
Extracts from the White
Alien Immigration
Report, 1944. (‘Alien’
means a person with the
citizenship of a country
outside the country in
which they are staying.)
The General Attitude to Alien Immigration
5. As it is likely that a much larger proportion of our future immigrants will be European
aliens, the white alien must be regarded as an asset and not a person admitted on sufferance.
It should be an important objective to ensure that the treatment and conditions of alien immigrants in the early post-war years will enhance Australia’s reputation in Europe. Considerations which have led to these conclusions are brieﬂy as follows:
(a) Australia needs additional population for reasons of defence, economic development, and
population growth. Defence reasons are obvious: the necessity for greater manpower has
been demonstrated by events since December 1941.
Industries both primary and secondary would beneﬁt from a larger home market. A
policy of full employment would maintain a high level of national income and consequently
a large demand for goods and services, especially ‘tertiary’ products and services, and
thus there would be a strong demand for labour. In these conditions domestic supplies of
new labour (from natural increase) would be insufﬁcient and immigrant labour would be
necessary.
Population growth in Australia, as in most countries of western civilisation, is not great
enough to assure any considerable future growth . . .
(b) Migrants of British stock are unlikely to be available in sufﬁcient numbers. In order to
double our present numbers by the end of the century we would need about 60 000 immigrants a year . . .
The volume of migration from Britain . . . seems likely to be much smaller than in the
twenties. Even so, Australia cannot expect to attract the whole of this British emigration;
we have to compete with other countries.
(c) Migrants must therefore be obtained largely from non-British countries . . .
Quoted in J. Zubrzycki, Arthur Calwell and the Origin of Post-War Immigration,
Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, Canberra, 1995.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Identify, from the source 8.2 immigration report, the reasons the government initiated a
massive post-war immigration scheme.
2 Using the arguments for immigration presented in source 8.2, write the script for a 30-second
radio advertisement promoting post-war immigration for a 1950s audience.
SOURCE 8.3
A photograph of Arthur
Calwell meeting
immigrants who had just
disembarked in Australia
from the Egyptian ship
SS Misr, on the morning
of 20 April 1947
294
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SOURCE 8.4
Recollections of the voyage of the SS Misr (pronounced Mizz-rr)
It all happened so very long ago, in the confusing, halfforgotten 1940s, when she was barely 11 and her small
world was being turned upside down. But scenes from
Paolina (now Pauline) Roccanello’s long journey from
northern Italy to Australia — from rural poverty to Promised Land, she says — still play vividly, as if in a picture
theatre, through her mind.
How she, little brother Giuseppe and mother Elisabeta had to occasionally push the truck taking them from
their village of Crispano del Grapa in the Veneto through
alpine snowdrifts to the port of Naples. How, before they
left, they packed so much crispbread and salami that it
saw them through to Durban where, she says, the sweaty
remains were given to a grateful black man.
How her mother was almost prevented from travelling
when she fell sick in Cairo after mistakenly receiving
double tetanus injections. How she helped protect her
mother’s most valuable possession, an ancient sewing
machine with which she hoped to make a living.
How she endured long, tedious, often horribly sick days
at sea, watching dolphins swimming alongside the ship
or endlessly walking the deck with her home-town friend
Elido Bortolazzo or the three Fontana brothers, Giovanni,
Silvano and Virginio, from nearby Carre.
Most vividly, though, she recalls the morning — in her
memory it will always be a bright, shiny morning — of
April 20, 1947. It was the day her ship, the Egyptianregistered SS Misr, ﬁnally docked at Melbourne and she
was reunited with her father. He had emigrated to Australia
in 1939, expecting his young family to follow soon after,
but the war had intervened. In eight years, the family had
received only one of the letters he had written, some ﬁve
years after it was posted.
‘We were looking over the side and my mama said,
“Look, you can see your papa down there in all the
people.” I looked and I looked, and when I see him I
faint, I faint.’ Even today, at 71, the sudden rush of distant
memory causes her to falter, her voice to crack, her eyes
to ﬁll with tears. ‘I was always my papa’s girl . . . All the
time he is in Australia he has my picture in his wallet. To
see him again, I never forget.’
Although she did not know it, among the many thousands of friends, relatives and journalists waiting at
Melbourne to welcome the Misr was the immigration minister, Arthur Calwell. Photographs of him shaking hands
with adults and patting wide-eyed children on the head
would appear on front pages throughout Australia the following day.
For such was the international newsworthiness of the
ship and its multicultural human cargo: 624 men, women
and children from 26 different ‘countries’, plucked from
ports in the Mediterranean, Middle East and east Africa.
Australian sailors, British migrants, displaced persons
(most of them Greek), refugees, returning residents, family
‘reuniters’ like Paolina, South African footballers. Even a
‘coloured’ stowaway called Said Ismael . . .
Extract from an article ‘When the boat came in’,
by John Huxley, Age, 10 March 2007.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Using the evidence provided by sources 8.3 and 8.4, describe the reasons people chose to
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migrate to Australia and the hardships they had to endure.
2 The arrival of the SS Misr in 1947 received wide media coverage and protests.
(a) In small groups discuss the reasons that this was such a controversial event in 1947.
(b) Compose a half-page report where you point out the strengths of a ‘multicultural
human cargo’.
3 You may wish to read more stories of the experiences of these early migrants, using the SS Misr
weblink in your eBookPLUS.
Hostel housing
By 1951 special hostels were constructed as reception centres for the New Australians.
The purpose of these centres was to:
sõ provide temporary housing and general medical care and assessment
sõ pay social services and provide basic provisions such as clothing
sõ interview and assess for appropriate employment assignment
sõ provide basic English language tuition and instruction in the Australian way of life.
The ﬁrst hostel was Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre, established in 1947 by
the Department of Immigration. It was located near Albury and had previously been
an army camp. Conditions were hard for families as men and women were separated
and housed in huts or tents accommodating between 20 and 30 people. Conditions at
Bonegilla improved when smaller huts were built, allowing families to be kept together.
About 300 000 people passed through Bonegilla before it was ﬁnally closed in 1971.
CHAPTER 8
| Changing rights and freedoms of migrants
295
7
6
8
4
5
A modern artist’s impression
of the facilities and activities at a
typical block of a large migrant centre in
Australia in the 1950s and 1960s
1
1 Migrants arrived in Australia after a long sea voyage from Europe and were
transported by train and bus to migrant reception centres.
2 New arrivals queued with their papers and belongings at the Reception ofﬁce. They
3
4
5
6
7
8
296
were assigned to huts and received a supply of essentials, such as cutlery, crockery,
linen and grey blankets.
The camps were often in rural areas and the new arrivals, in their heavy European clothes,
took some time to become used to the hot and dry conditions of summer.
The laundry hut was always busy, with women queuing to use the wash tubs and washing
lines. Although they spoke a variety of languages, the laundry hut was a social hub for many
migrant women.
People queued to use the communal showers and toilet facilities. The toilets were usually deep-pit
latrines although some later blocks had ﬂush toilets.
Children from many European cultures overcame language barriers to make friends and play games
to pass the long, often hot days at the camp.
People of many religious denominations shared a small chapel for worship.
In a central recreation hall, migrants organised concerts, dances and cultural celebrations. Movies were
sometimes shown.
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11
10
12
9
13
14
15
9 There were always
2
3
queues for the dining
room, where food was
served at a main counter
and migrants sat at
small table settings to eat.
10 Some migrant centres
were former army camps.
The long huts were close
together in blocks, and
the blocks stretched over
many hectares.
11 Huts were timber-framed
with corrugated iron
cladding. They were hot
and airless in summer and
cold in winter.
12 At ﬁrst the huts had no internal
partitions, and women and
children were housed in
separate huts from the men.
Partitions for families were
added later.
13 The furnishings in the cubicles were basic
and migrants added their own touches and
possessions to remind them of home.
14 In the classroom, migrants were taught basic
English language skills and social customs
to help them assimilate into Australian
communities.
15 Many men obtained work in distant towns or
on building projects and left their families for
long periods.
CHAPTER 8
| Changing rights and freedoms of migrants
297
SOURCE 8.5
Arthur Calwell explains
why Australia accepted
refugees from Europe
in 1947
On 17 July 1961, more
than 1000 migrants at
Bonegilla rioted over
lack of employment
opportunities. The
camp’s employment
ofﬁce was wrecked and
an immigration ofﬁcer
was injured.
. . . These people, whose normal standards of living have been compatible with our own, and
who even now do not, in a large proportion of cases, consist of depressed classes, represent an
ideal source of migrants who will ﬁt smoothly into our way of life and who will help to meet
Australia’s labour shortages in the ﬁelds of industry and agriculture . . .
A former military camp at Bonegilla, near Wodonga, has been ﬁtted out as a reception
and training centre. At this camp the migrants will be given a further course of instruction in
utilitarian English, Australian social conditions and other subjects which will assist their easy
absorption into the community.
Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 28 November 1947, vol. 195, pp. 2922–3.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Read source 8.5 and describe the quality that Arthur Calwell identiﬁes in the migrants being
accepted in 1947.
2 Outline the role of Bonegilla in the immigration process.
SOURCE 8.6 Photograph of the Nissen huts at the migrant hostel at Balgownie in
New South Wales, 1957
SOURCE 8.7
Cartoon by Tanner from
the Age newspaper,
1968, commenting on
the poor conditions
experienced by many
residents of the
migrant hostels
‘They’re spending more money on migrant hostels — has the price of barbed wire gone up?’
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Explain the point being made by the cartoon in source 8.7.
2 How does the cartoon compare with the photograph in source 8.3 (page 294) as a comment on
the way that newly arrived migrants to Australia were received?
298
Retroactive 2
Assimilation
assimilation: policy which
forces people to conform to
the attitudes, customs and
beliefs of the majority of the
population
SOURCE 8.8
A photograph of
21-year-old Dian Forsyth
getting ready to take part
in a Greek–Australian
community concert in
Victoria in the mid 1960s
cosmopolitan: not limited to
one part of the world
Bonegilla was created during the era of assimilation. Assimilation guided immigration
policy through the 1950s and most of the 1960s and was based on the belief that
Australia would be best served if all ethnic groups conformed to the ‘Australian way of
life’. Australians expected the migrant community to take on all the social and cultural
characteristics of the broader Anglo-Australian community because the ‘Australian
way of life’ was superior to any other. Assimilation required that traditional aspects of
community life such as language, food and music be left behind in the ‘old country’.
In 1950 the government established the Good Neighbour movement to make migrants
feel more welcome, and to encourage the established Australian community to accept
newcomers. The government attempted to break down the prejudice against ‘foreigners’
through special ABC broadcasts highlighting the contributions of migrant Australians.
Assimilation was promoted through English language classes.
Despite assimilation, the ethnic communities maintained their identity through
local community organisations, newspapers and social clubs. The change to Australian
society was most clearly seen through the revolution in eating and drinking habits.
Before World War II, eating out at restaurants was uncommon. Under the inﬂuence of a
changed population, the menu broadened as it became popular to eat European and
Asian food. Australians also discovered local
wine was of world standard and so adopted
the European custom of drinking wine with
meals. Australian cities, under the inﬂuence
of this massive post-war immigration,
became more cosmopolitan.
Social habits changed in Australia in the
1960s and 1970s, along with the composition
of the Australian population. In the mid
1960s, skilled migrants were in demand
and were admitted as permanent residents.
By 1966, one-seventh of the Australian
population had been born overseas, and only
Israel had a higher proportion of immigrants.
By 1970, more than 2 500 000 Australians had
been born overseas.
The gathering together of a vast number
of nationalities under Australian skies
was dramatically changing the traditional
Australian lifestyle. There was a growing
need to reconsider the place of migrant
communities in the broader Australian
society.
SOURCE QUESTION
Describe how the source 8.8 photograph demonstrates the change that Australian society was
experiencing as a result of post-war immigration.
UÊ In 1959 the Australian Government asked the Greek and Italian
governments to encourage unmarried Greek and Italian women to migrate
to Australia. The Australian Government was concerned about the number of young Greek and
Italian men who could not ﬁnd partners from their own ethnic communities.
UÊ The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (see page 29) introduced a dictation test for people wishing
to gain entry to Australia. Applicants were required to write out a passage of 50 words in any
European language — not necessarily English — as part of their assessment for suitability
as migrants to Australia. It was not until the Migration Act 1958 that the dictation test was
discontinued.
CHAPTER 8
| Changing rights and freedoms of migrants
299
SOURCE 8.9 Country of origin of Australia’s migrants, 1947 to 1974 (percentages)
Origin
1947–51
1951–61
1961–66
1966–71
1971–74
Total
Britain
41.4
32.6
54.7
53.9
60.6
45.4
Northern Europe
7.5
26.3
0.8
4.9
0.5
11.2
Eastern Europe
37.3
5.0
6.6
13.3
6.1
13.2
Southern Europe
11.5
33.1
29.4
11.3
0.9
20.9
Asia
1.6
2.3
5.2
11.2
22.4
6.4
Africa
0.1
0.2
1.5
1.5
2.0
0.9
America
0.5
0.4
1.8
3.8
7.4
2.0
Other (Paciﬁc etc.)
0.1
0.1
–
0.1
0.1
–
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Total foreign
Source: Adapted from C. A. Price, Australian Immigration: A Review of the Demographic Effects of Post-War
Immigration on the Australian Population, AGPS, Canberra, 1975, p. 5.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Using the information from the table in source 8.9, identify the changes that took place between
1947 and 1974 in the percentage of European migrants coming to Australia.
2 Explain how this reﬂects the change in Australia’s immigration policy during these years.
ACTIVITIES
Compare means identify the
similarities and differences
between two things.
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1 Brieﬂy explain the meaning of the term ‘populate or perish’.
2 Explain why the Australian Government launched an ambitious immigration program
in 1947.
3 Compare attitudes towards British and non-British migrants. Suggest reasons that
Australian attitudes to the two groups differed.
4 Describe the challenges the New Australians had to face.
5 Deﬁne ‘assimilation’ and then outline the impact it had on migrants to Australia.
RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATE
6 In small groups, investigate the history of one ethnic group in your community.
a Research the place of the group in your community by asking questions, looking at
small business directories or checking the local history collection at your library. You
can ﬁnd out more by contacting a migrant or community support group (often run
through your local government).
b Find out how the ethnic and cultural identity has been preserved by interviewing
members of the community about subjects like the role of family and celebration. If
you are interviewing, ensure that you have questions prepared that require more than
a yes or no answer.
c Once you have completed your research as the historian, compile your ﬁndings and
present them to the class.
7 Imagine that Arthur Calwell has asked you to design posters to educate Australians
about the value of non-British immigration to Australia in the 1940s and 1950s. Have
a class discussion on the different angles you could look at and then design a series of
promotional posters that will help the 1950s immigration program gain acceptance.
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300
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WORKSHEET
Worksheet 8.1 Life for new arrivals