The Immigration Restriction Act (IRA)

I argue that the ideologies behind The Assimilation Policy were evident since the first white settlers had arrived in 1788. Since first contact, Aboriginal people’s values, customs, beliefs and traditional way of life began to erode. From the 1850s onwards, Aboriginal people were forced onto reserves, and then into towns and cities in the mid 20th century . Many people feared that the ‘Australian’ culture was being affected by immigrants. Since the early 1900s, there had been a ‘White Australia’ policy and assimilation was expected upon arrival. However, Aboriginal people did not immigrate, so their policy, dictated by the Australian States and Commonwealth Government was known as The Policy of Assimilation. Assimilation policies were supported by racist assumptions and represented by settler nationalist imperatives . In the 1950s, assimilation policies for Aboriginal people were supported by the

Many people still thought that a woman's place was "in the kitchen", this changed shortly after the second world war. 500,000 women joined the workforce post WW1 because all of the men had gone to war. This set Australia up and benefited from more people with a wider experience in many jobs.

The Chinese people that came to Australia were typically men brining there family over with them to work for an income that would be big enough to support them. The wife however was left at home to forfill the role of looking after her in-laws in this time. The family would have to work for them aswell, and send a percentage of there profit over.

With the already little population of 5 million Australian people and the loss of 300,000 men, this should have been a dark time, but to make up on that loss Australia received 300,000 migrants. These Migrants came from Britain. As there was a large amount of unemployment the British government encouraged the people of britain to migrate to Australia. Also the

Australia was in a time of crisis during World War 2 (1945) when they were threatened by the Japanese invasions. Australia did not have a big population at that time resulting in not have a strong defence to protect Australia. The Department of Immigration that was created then strongly urged that Australia needed an increase in its population by at least 1% each year. They needed a plan to gain a huge population; they needed to populate or perish!

For many years Asian Migrants were restricted from entering Australia and found it difficult to migrate due to discriminatory political policies. The main policies were the ‘dictation test’, the policy of ‘Assimilation’ and the ‘White Australia’ policy. The main Asian Migration wave occurred in 1976 after the Vietnam War forced many people to leave there homes and come here to Australia. These Asian Migrants arrived in Australia by boat which was usually very over crowded. The cause of

There was more or less no assistance of any kind given to the Chinese migrants, as immigration was rather a haphazard affair in the 19th century (especially to an isolated young country like Australia) and the level of racism encountered by Chinese prospectors on arrival made goldmining and making a living in Australia even harder.

Before the 1900s, there was no Australia, just 6 colonies. New south wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania (the island colony). The colonies eventually joined up. Referendums were put to the people and on the 23rd of December 1901, Edmund Barton put forward and idea called the immigration act.The immigration restriction act is an act, led by the Australian parliament to limit immigration in Australia. This act formed the basis of the white Australian policy which disallowed all non-Europeans from Australia. This act was introduced on the 23rd of December 1901 by Edmund Barton.The law allowed all immigration officers a wide amount of responsibility to stop individuals from entering the country. The ACT

Among its other provisions, the 1917 Act required that immigrants be able to read and write in their native language, obligating the Immigration Service to begin administering literacy tests. Another change, the introduction

The White Australian policy was Australia’s solution to prevent immigrants migrating into the country’s colonies. The law was enforced so that the Chinese, Africans, and all non-European were not allowed to enter the country, these were the factors that led to the law. The white Australian policy was actually called ‘Immigration restriction act’. Australia’s plan all along was to stay as a white only country that was run under British customs. The White Australian policy also excluded prostitutes and criminals.

The arrival of British colonists was based on a certain understanding of the world that had a racial character. The idea of terra nullius presumed that civilised humanity was achievable only by Europeans. What the British believed was settlement, was for Indigenous peoples invasion and dispossession. When the colonies federated as a Commonwealth in 1901, the organising principle was that of racial unity in the form of a White Australia. The first legislation passed by the Commonwealth Parliament was the Pacific Island Labourers Act (1901), which expelled all Pacific Islanders working in Australia. The deportation of the approximately 10,000 Pacific Islanders working in Australia - mostly in sugar plantations in Queensland - was aimed to ensure the living standards of white Australian workers wouldn't be undermined by cheap coloured labour. This was soon followed by the enactment of the Immigration Restriction Act (1901), perhaps the best known legislative instrument of the White Australia Policy. The Act would introduce the infamous dictation test used to exclude non-European

During the first half of the 20th century, the government wanted to create a uniform white Australian culture (Australians Together, n.d.). Thus they implemented the Assimilation policy wherein Indigenous people were to be ceased to exist while half-castes (half Indigenous and half another nationality) were encouraged to live with the White Community (Australians Together, n.d.). It was assumed that the implementation of the Assimilation policy was because they thought that the Indigenous people would enjoy living the Western way. However, because of this policy, the consequence for the Indigenous people were immense. Not only did they lose their cultures and traditions, they also lost their identity.

The immigration restriction act also made the dictation test required the non-Europeans that that wanted to enter to do many tests. ‘The Dictation Test applied to all non-European people entering Australia between 1901 and 1958. The applicant was required to write out 50 words in any European language’ (national archives 2015)

By 1901 there were 10,000 Pacific Islanders left working in the Queensland cane fields. Between 1904 and 1908, most of these workers were deported in an effort to ‘racially purify’ the incipient Australian nation and ‘protect’ white Australian workers from the threat of frugal labour. The Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901 sanctioned these deportations and vetoed further recruitment after 1903. Only a minority of Islanders were sanctioned to stay in Australia and a few obnubilated from ascendant entities and stayed

Imagine yourself moving to a different country which has a completely different culture to yours and the people there who you thought would be kind and peaceful, abuse you regularly and belittle you as much as possible. You become the target of prejudice and racist attitudes by both European and the Australian government. These are the hardships and the forms of racism faced by the Chinese from the Europeans upon arriving in Australia from 1800. In 1851, gold was discovered in Australia.