Laksiri Jayasuriya: Transforming a ‘white Australia’: issues of racism and immigration

Abstract

This short study by an eminent Australian scholar covers the entire period from the initiation of the White Australia policy in 1901 until the asylum seeker controversies of John Howard’s government in 2001. It will be of considerable value to those outside Australia who have only a limited knowledge of the radical changes during this century of organized mass immigration. They include many Asians who still believe that Australia implements a ‘whites only’ admission policy, which is far from being the case. It will also be of value to the many Australians who have only a distorted and populist view of recent developments. However, this is not a text for beginners. It starts with a detailed account of the various academic debates surrounding terms such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘racism’. These are drawn from several sources, not all of them Australian. Typically of academic texts there is a plethora of references to other scholars, rather than to other situations. There is an assumption that the dominant ethnicity is ‘Anglo-Celtic’ and the dominant race is ‘Caucasian’, both very contested terms. It was not true, as the author maintains, that the initial waves of migration before 1860 were ‘made up almost exclusively of British settlers of Protestant origin’ (p. 31). There were almost as many Catholic Irish as English in the three largest colonies by the 1880s, creating a social and political rift which was still apparent into the 1950s. However Jayasuriya, is correct in distinguishing racism against Aborigines from that against immigrants. The former were seen as a dying race, the latter as a threat. He is also correct in locating all forms of racism within those fashionable in Britain. British migrants brought their racism with them, planted it in virgin soil and watered it with imperialist pride. The greatest surge in hostility to Chinese and other Asians took place in the 1880s, coincidental with the greatest surge in British assisted