Fact Sheet 4 - More than 60 Years of Post-war Migration

Since 1945, around 6.8 million people have come to Australia as new settlers. Their contribution to Australian society, culture and prosperity has been an important factor in shaping our nation.

A large-scale program of migration to Australia began at the end of World War II when millions of people in Europe were displaced from their homelands. At the same time, in Australia, there was a desperate shortage of labour and a growing belief that substantial population growth was essential for the country's future.

These and other factors led to the creation of a federal immigration portfolio in 1945.

By 1947, a post-war immigration boom was under way, with a large and growing number of arrivals including those on government-assisted passage.
Agreements were reached with the United Kingdom, some European countries and the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) to encourage migrants, including displaced persons from war-torn Europe, to come to Australia. By 1950, almost 200 000 people had arrived.

A million more migrants arrived in each of the following four decades. Today, nearly one in four of Australia's more than 21 million population were born overseas. New Zealand and the United Kingdom are the largest source countries for migrants, but other regions – notably Asia – have become more significant.

Early migration waves

The date of the first human occupation in Australia remains an open question, but evidence exists that humans have been on the continent for at least 40 000 years. Consequently, the Aboriginal people are regarded as the indigenous people of Australia.

Transported criminals were the basis of the first migration from Europe. Starting in 1788, some 160 000 convicts were shipped to the Australian colonies. From the early 1790s, free immigrants also began coming to Australia.

The rapid growth of the wool industry in the 1820s created enormous demands for labour and sparked an increase in the migration of free people from the United Kingdom. The social upheavals of industrialisation in Britain also resulted in many people emigrating to escape widespread poverty and unemployment.

During the Gold Rush era of 1851 to 1860, early migration peaked at arrivals of around 50 000 people a year. During this period, Chinese immigrants were the largest non-British group.

Over the years, the migration program reflected economic or social conditions in Australia and elsewhere. For example:

• during the 1840s a large number of Irish immigrants came to Australia to escape famine in their homeland
• from the 1860s to the late nineteenth century, labourers from Melanesia were recruited to work on Queensland plantations
• from the 1860s to the 1920s, concerns about population imbalance resulted in deliberate efforts to attract women to Australia
• during the second half of the nineteenth century, Afghani, Pakistani and Turkish camel handlers played an important part in opening up the continent's interior, facilitating the construction of telegraph and railway lines
• Japanese fishers were instrumental in the pearling industry in the late nineteenth century.

The two world wars also influenced Australia's migration program. The resettling of ex-servicemen, refugees and young people were significant chapters in Australian immigration history.

Post-war developments

The most ambitious part of Australia's migration program followed the end of World War II. Australia negotiated agreements with other governments and international organisations to help achieve high migration targets.

The agreements included:

• a system of free or assisted passages for United Kingdom residents
• an assisted passage scheme for the British Empire and United States ex-servicemen, later extended to ex-servicemen or resistance fighters from The Netherlands, Norway, France, Belgium and Denmark
• an agreement with the IRO to settle at least 12 000 displaced people a year from camps in Europe
• formal migration agreements, often involving the grant of assisted passage, with the United Kingdom, Malta, The Netherlands, Italy, West Germany, Turkey and Yugoslavia
• informal migration agreements with Austria, Greece, Spain, Belgium and other countries.

These agreements are no longer in force.

Economic and humanitarian events around the world subsequently influenced the size and source countries of the Australian program. At various times in the 1950s and 1960s, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia were important migrant source countries.

There were also significant intakes:

• of Hungarian and Czech refugees following unrest in those countries in 1956 and 1968 respectively
• from Chile following the overthrow of the Allende Government in 1973
  from Indochina after the end of the Vietnam war in 1975
• from Poland after martial law was declared in December 1981.

Today the migration program is global, using one set of criteria for applicants anywhere in the world, with migrants originating from more than 185 countries.

Today's migration

In 2006-07,more than 148 000 migrants were granted visas under the Skill and Family Streams of Australia's Migration Program.

In this same period more than 493 000 people received temporary entry visas to Australia to undertake specific work or business, or to entertain, play sport, have a working holiday or study.

In addition to this, around 13 000 humanitarian entrants were granted visas to enable them to live in Australia to rebuild their lives, having fled persecution or suffering.

The impact of immigration

The post-war immigration program has benefited Australian life in many ways.

Economic

Immigration affects the demand side of Australia's economy through:

• migrants' own spending (food, housing and leisure activities)
• business expansion (investment to produce extra goods and services)
• expansion of government services (health, education and welfare).

It also affects the supply side of the economy through:

• labour, skills and capital introduced into Australia
• new businesses developed by migrants
• migrant contributions to technology
• adding productive diversity through knowledge of international business markets.

Like all Australians, migrants pay taxes to, and receive benefits and goods and services from, government. Research shows that, overall, migrants contribute more in taxes than they consume in benefits and government goods and services. As a result migrants generate surpluses for government.

Australia's economic growth is significantly enhanced when migrant's direct impact on the economy through their contribution of migrants to supply and demand and their indirect contribution to government surpluses (or smaller deficits), work their way through the economy.

Population composition

Migration has had a very significant effect on Australia's population. At the end of World War II, Australia's population was just over 7 million, with around 90 per cent born in Australia.

At the time of the 2006 Census, Australia's population was 19.9 million, with nearly one in four people living in Australia born overseas. Some 43 per cent of all Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent who was born overseas. Of those born overseas, the United Kingdom is the largest overseas-born group (23.5 percent), followed by New Zealand (8.8 percent), China (excluding SARs and Taiwan Province) (4.7 percent) and Italy (4.5 percent).

Population growth

Natural increase has been the main source of population growth over the past hundred years, contributing two-thirds of the increase in population between 1901 and 2001. Immigration has also been a significant contributor to Australia's population growth but has been more volatile. In 1993, for example, it contributed about 23.1 per cent to population growth while in 2007, it contributed 55.6 per cent.

Immigration's contribution to population growth is likely to increase during the next 30 years as the ageing of Australia's population leads to deaths increasingly catching up with births.

 

Further information is available on the department's web site.
See: www.immi.gov.au

The department also operates a national telephone service inquiry line.
Telephone: 131 881
Hours of operation: Monday to Friday from 9 am to 4 pm (recorded information available outside these hours) for the cost of a local call anywhere in Australia.

Fact Sheet 4. Produced by the National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra.
Revised 17 November 2008.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2009.