Immigration to Australia
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The Australian continent was first settled when ancestors of Indigenous Australians arrived via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea over 50,000 years ago.
Women in England mourning their loved ones who are to be transported to the penal colony at Botany Bay, 1792
Migrants disembarking from a ship, c. 1885
Australian Government poster issued by the Overseas Settlement Office to attract immigrants (1928).
In 1954 the 50,000th Dutch migrant arrived in Australia.
White Australia policy
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The White Australia policy was a set of racial policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origins – Asians and Pacific Islanders – from immigrating to Australia, in order to create a
Immigration to Australia
…colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of a British penal colony in New South Wales. Starting at independence in 1901, Australia maintained the White Australia policy for much of the 20th century, which forbade the entrance in Australia of people of non-European ethnic origins. Following World War II, the policy was…
Camp Hill (Lambing Flat) at time of the riots, 1860–61. Now the town of Young, New South Wales
Eight-hour day march c. 1900, outside Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne
"Keep Australia White" poster used during the 1917 conscription referendum. The "No" campaign claimed that conscripted soldiers sent overseas would be replaced by non-white labour.