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Post-war immigration
The Second World War may be regarded as a dividing scene in the ongoing drama of Australia's immigration history. It separated off in time the economic disaster of the Depression which brought immigration to a virtual standstill. Our economy was depleted; production was in the doldrums; community services were in decline. Australia was feeling the scars of depression and war.
The country needed thousands of houses, schools, hospitals and other public amenities. Power blackouts were common. Principal exports such as coal and iron had fallen off drastically once the war demand was not there to be met. Australia's belt was so tight that the country was holding its breath.
But Australia, the lucky country (although it did not quite recognise the fact itself), showed an enormous potential, particularly in minerals and an exciting capacity for growth. There was only one way to go on the graph - upwards. All Australia needed was the most important resource of all - people.
The need was emphasised by the realisation engendered though the terrible war years - that so small a population in charge of such a vast land was under-protected and vulnerable. It was clear, too, that Britain would no longer be able to come to Australia's defence.
The scene was set for our extraordinary post-war immigration program. The Federal Department of Immigration was born.
Arthur Calwell, our first Minister for Immigration, expressed the program's philosophy in a speech to the House of Representatives in November 1946:
There was a time just four years ago when Australia faced its gravest peril. Armies recruited from the teeming millions of Japan threatened to overrun our cities and broad hinterland. They were so many. We were so few. Today we are at peace. But, while all of us must work to perpetuate that peace, let us not forget that armed conflict remains a grim possibility, both in the New World and in the Old - a possibility against which we must guard with all the intelligence, all the realism, and all the energy that we can must...
The days of our isolation are over. We live in an age when the earth's surface seems to be contracting under the influence of scientific discoveries that almost baffle our imagination. The call to all Australians is to realise that, without adequate numbers, this wide, brown land may not be held in another clash or arms, and to give their maximum assistance to every effort to expand its economy and assimilate more and more people who will come from overseas to link their fate with our destiny.
(DILGEA, Australia and Immigration: 1788-1988, AGPS, 1988, p.27.)
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 |