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Immigration Background
A non-discriminatory immigration policy
The election of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1972 heralded a new age in immigration policy. The Gov. immediately repudiated the White Australia Policy and announced that future immigration would be based on the 'avoidance of discrimination on any grounds of race or colour or nationality'.
Indochinese refugees
Changes in the pattern of immigration in the 1970's were caused mainly be international events. Australia played an important part in resettling Indochinese refugees after the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975. The Communist victory forced many owners of private businesses to sell or relocate. People who had served in the army or the bureaucracy of the former South Vietnamese Government, anti-Communist intellectuals, religious leaders and others considered to be enemies of the State, were detained in re-education camps. Such conditions caused many Vietnamese to escape the country. Some escaped overland, though neighbouring Cambodia and Laos, to Thailand. Other Vietnamese refugees escaped by sea, often undertaking perilous voyages in overcrowded and unseaworthy boats. Many suffered great hardships, such as storms, pirate attacks and lack of food. Many overcame these hardships and reached refugee camps in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines; some even reached Australia. During this period many Cambodians and Laotians also fled repressive regimes in their countries.
For humanitarian reasons and perhaps also because of its own involvement in the Vietnam War, Australia accepted the obligation to respond to this mass exodus from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Indochinese refugees have dominated Australia's humanitarian intake from 1975 to the late 1980's. Over 120 000 people from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been resettled in Australia.
During the 1980's it became obvious that the nature of the outflow of people from Indo-China to refugee camps in Southeast Asia had changed. Increasingly people were fleeing poverty and lack of opportunity in their homeland and not persecution. It became clear to the international community that resettlement in countries like Australia was not a solution and was becoming part of the problem by encouraging some people to leave who were seeking a better life in the West.
The international community's response to the large number of Vietnamese in camps was the Comprehensive Plan of Action, a strategy adopted at a conference in Geneva in June 1989. This plan has several components, including the individual assessment of refugee claims. However, it also provided that, after certain dates, all those assessed as not being refugees must return to Vietnam.
Modern Australian History
| The beginning of Immigration to Australia | Convicts in Australia | Letter from a convict |
Immigration
| immigration background | Attitudes towards European immigration | Postwar immigration | Extracts - Immigration Restriction Act 1901 | Refugee's story |
Chronology of key events from:
| 1848-1890 leading upto Gold | 1892-1945 | 1945-73 | 1973-92 |