Post-war immigration to Australia
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Post-war immigration to Australia deals with migration to Australia in the decades immediately following World War II, and in particular refers to the predominantly European wave of immigration which occurred between 1945 and the end of the White Australia policy in 1973. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Ben Chifley, Prime Minister of Australia (1945–1949), established the federal Department of Immigration to administer a large-scale immigration program. Chifley commissioned a report on the subject which found that Australia was in urgent need of a larger population for the purposes of defence and development and it recommended a 1% annual increase in population through increased immigration.
Arthur Calwell with the Kalnins family – the 50,000th New Australian – August 1949
In 1954, 50,000 Dutch migrants arrived
British migrants on the deck of the Georgic, Australia, 1949
Australian Government poster displayed between 1949 and 1951 in reception rooms and dining halls at various migrant reception centres in Australia (image courtesy of the NAA)
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, 50,000 Dutch migrants arrived in Australia.