Post World War Two Immigrants

During World War Two Australians finally realised just how vulnerable they were to enemy attacks. The reality of this possibility hit home hard when the Japanese attacked Darwin and when Japanese midget subs penetrated Sydney harbour. We now realised that our island was not an impenetrable fortress.




They government also realised that our country was dangerously under-populated. The fact was that we had too much space and only 7 million people living in it which once again made us very vulnerable to attack. The government realised something must be done. In 1947, during a historical speech made by the minister for immigration, Arthur Augustus Calwell announced that Australia was opening its doors to European immigrants, preferably British.




Refugees and immigrants from all over Europe rushed to apply for visas. While many different cultures migrated to Australia the two we are going to focus on are the Italians and the British.




At the conclusion of the war Italian soldiers and POW’s returned to a destroyed Italy. The only thing worse than the immense destruction was the human suffering. The displaced Italians sought refuge in communal camps while dreaming of escape to countries such as Canada, the USA and Australia.




Italy had been looking for an overseas country that would accept its unemployed, homeless Italians and when Australia opened her doors to them Italy’s President encouraged his people to “learn a foreign language and emigrate”.




Meanwhile the Britain was also in ruins and although they had won the war, it had come at a big loss. Luckily though for the British, Australia was very keen for British refugees to make up a large part of Australia’s refugee take-in. In Arthur Augustus Calwell’s initial speech he said, “It is my hope that for every foreign migrant there will be ten people from the United Kingdom.”




So from the start it was obvious that 'White Australia' was...