The explanation for the treatment of non-European immigrants in nineteenth century Australia has been the subject of historical controversy since the mid-1950s. At a time when 'racially' based immigration restriction was coming under criticism within Australia, historians began a reconsideration of the 'white Australia' policy's genesis. While some continued to offer explanations based on the colonists' rational appraisal of the threat to living standards and national identity, B. C. Mansfield and others pointed to the abundant evidence of irrational racial bigotry. Over the last decade alternative (for example, either economic or racist) explanations gave place to arguments which recognised both rational and irrational elements. Most recently there have been attempts to demonstrate the precise inter-relationship of various factors, with several historians arguing that pre existing racism must be the starting point in any explanation.1 The most forceful exponent of such an interpretation is Verity Burgmann. Racist ideology, in Burgmann's account, is generated in the interests of capital accumulation to justify 'practices which would otherwise correctly be seen as disgusting'. Before the coming of non-European immigrants in large numbers, racist ideology was already deeply embedded in Australian society: racist assumptions, which had provided the rationale for British occupation, continued to be nourished by the imperial experience and in the process of justifying Aboriginal dispossession racism 'developed a dynamic of its own'. It is this pre-existing ideology that explains the response to the Chinese gold diggers. According to Burgmann explanations for hostility which focus on the actions of the Chinese themselves, particularly on contemporary perceptions and attitudes, are guilty of the empiricist fallacy: the confusion of appearance with reality, an uncritical acceptance of arguments advanced by the opponents of the Chinese which leads to a blaming of the victims of prejudice for the prejudice manifested towards them. Explanation should rather focus on a specific form of false consciousness, racist ideology, which led European miners and others to identify the Chinese as an 'outgroup', as unworthy economic competitors. The particular circumstances of life on the goldfields ? the number of Chinese, declining yields ?explain why thought was translated into practice, why racial thinking led to racist action, but not the source or basis of such ideas and actions, which is to be located in racist ideology. A second misconception in the literature, according to Burgmann, is the giving of undue emphasis to working-class agitation in providing an explanation for discriminatory legislation. It is an absurdity to attribute the legislation to the working-classes, for they were not in a position to legislate, and it is a mistake to think that legislation would be enacted for their benefit. Rather, the legislation should be seen as a response to the needs of capital; while Australian employers had 'since the ending of transportation' supported unrestricted immigration they experienced a change of heart, having become disillusioned by the failure of non-Europeans to provide them with cheap