Australia was built on migration, but it’s long been a love-hate relationship

The history of immigration policy in Australia is full of yes-no contradictions: fear jostling with hope, exclusion with openness.

Australia has been pulled in different directions by the strength of its British ties and the demands of its Asia-Pacific geography. The British and their descendants, never meaningfully reconciling with the original sin of having invaded a continent, then constantly added people to it, most of them in their own image.

Writing about the Immigration Restriction Bill, commonly known as the White Australia Policy, being debated in the federal parliament in late 1901, Alfred Deakin said that Australia should:

tolerate nothing within its dominion that is not British in character and constitution or capable of becoming Anglicised without delay. For all outside that charmed circle the policy is that of the closed door.

The exclusions, the door closing first on one group, then another, are well-known: saying no to convicts (1840s); saying no to Chinese migrants (1855–1900); saying no to South Sea Islanders as indentured workers (1901); saying no to “coloured peoples” more generally (1901-73) saying no to European aliens (1920s), until the “populate or perish” imperative forced an abrupt reversal after World War II; and finally saying no to “boat people” (1989–present).

But obsessing about the closed door misses the main story: how 12 million people born overseas came to arrive in Australia to commence new lives over the past 200 years.

Migration is the most debated public policy issue of the current moment, both in Australia and overseas. In this five-part series, we unpack how Australia’s migration system works, both practically and politically, and what its future might look like.

Too many convicts, not enough women

From very early on, the colonies became savvy in inducing and selecting the migrants it wanted.

In 1830, the combined population of the colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) and a tiny settlement in Western Australia had reached 70,000, but it was imbalanced. There were too many men and too many convicts.

A great wave of emigration had begun from an “over-populated” Britain to North America, but not to the Australian colonies. The cost of passage was beyond the financial means of ordinary workers.

To remedy this, the British government removed the prerogative of colonial governors to grant land and instead required it to be sold, with the proceeds used to subsidise the cost of passage for selected migrants in what was called “assisted passage”.

These new migrants were to be labourers and domestic servants to replace convicts, with young women to double as future wives and mothers.

In the 1830s, assisted passage brought 78,000 migrants to the colonies. By the end of that decade, free migrants outnumbered convicts.

Assisted passage lasted for 150 years. It brought 3.4 million settlers to Australia, almost all of them English, Irish and Scottish.

A gold-fuelled influx

A second inducement was the prospect of enjoying high living standards or, for a brief period in the early 1850s, becoming instantly rich.

In April and May 1852, six ships carrying eight tonnes of gold from Victoria were undocked on the Thames. Londoners were agog. Guides to the goldfields began to appear at newsstands.

In 1851, just over 4,000 people had left Britain for Victoria. Over the next three years, at least 141,000 set sail.

The gravitational pull of Victoria was a global phenomenon. Anyone might arrive, no passport needed. More migrants arrived in the 1850s than any decade until the 1950s – in net terms, more than half a million people.

Right through to the early 1890s, Australia’s reputation as the workingman’s paradise continued to attract migrants, assisted and not. When Australian living standards stalled, as they did from the 1890s through to the second world war, fewer people were inclined to come, and a good many who did returned home again.

After WWII, Australia was once again a people magnet, this time to the war-weary and poor of Europe.

Globalising Australia

More recently, Australia has attracted migrants by being ahead of the curve in openness to migration, relative to other rich countries.

In 1973, Australia copied Canada and adopted a universal visa policy. Now, anyone could apply for a visa so long as they met the eligibility requirements.

Governments began adjusting the requirements to expand (or shrink) the pool of would-be migrants in line with needs. Initially, this was done by reducing places for family reunion in the permanent migration program and increasing places for skilled migrants, giving a sharper economic focus.

Australia was bending to global economic forces. Across the world, increasing numbers of people were on the move, in parallel with the liberalisation of markets for goods and services and an eastward drift in economic activity as China rapidly industrialised. Australian industries and economic policymakers clamoured aboard.

In immigration policy, the opportunity was seized by loosening the reins on temporary migration. Australia opened the door to full-fee paying international students in 1986, kickstarting a massive export industry.

In 1997, it allowed companies to hire temporary skilled workers from abroad. The entry of them, along with international students and (most) working holiday makers, was uncapped.

Increasingly, the requirements around temporary migration became tied to serving the short-term needs of the labour market and supporting low-wage industries such as horticulture and hospitality, diluting the primary purpose of visas for working holiday makers and international students.

Two-step migration (where someone enters on a temporary visa initially and later transitions to permanent residency) was encouraged by giving international students bonus marks in the points test, and by allowing them and other migrants on temporary visas to switch from one visa to another while attempting to secure permanent residency.

It was thought the economic benefits of temporary migration could be fully captured, with no apparent cost. The mainstay of Australian immigration, the permanent settlement of young families, would be preserved, as the number of temporary migrants would eventually reach a balance between those arriving and those departing.

Instead, temporary migration grew and grew, devouring the permanent migration program. Since the late 2000s, it has accounted for twice as many additions to the population as permanent migrants.

Migration ballooned through a lack of stringent oversight, adding at least 1% annual growth to the population ten times since 2007, compared with only once in the preceding 50 years.

The costs — housing shortages, fracturing social cohesion — started to become apparent. As nothing was done by successive governments to stem the increase, it sparked the backlash against immigration that is now devouring our politics.

This article draws on material from the author’s forthcoming book, Waves of Plenty: Immigration and the Making of Australia, to be published by Black Inc. in September.