Australia's policy on non-European immigration

Abstract

The first aim of the thesis is to analyse the actual administrative mechanism of Australia's immigration policy in regard to persons of non-European race, as it had been developed up until the beginning of 1959* That is, the functioning of the 'White Australia' policy, as it is popularly known. It does not deal with the general history of the policy, nor with the sociological problems of racial assimilation, nor with the geopolitical problems of 'empty lands and hungry people'; It deals rather with the nature of the policy itself. Part I contains the essence of the thesis - a detailed analysis of the policy and its application. Part II discusses the statutory underpinning of the policy. Its aim is to clarify the somewhat complex relationship between the Statutes and the policy and the reasons for this complexity. Part H i m in one chapter, discusses the pressures on the Government from within the community in relation to their influence on the important changes in the policy. The conclusions are very briefly that the policy has successfully achieved its objective in keeping Australia 'white* in spite of complications due largely to circumstances •which prevailed at the turn of the century. Certain inevitable compromises made absolute exclusion impossible. The thesis is largely concerned with the nature of these compromises and with the way in which the broad aims of the Australian community were interpreted by its legislators and achieved by its administrators.