Australia's Immigration Paradox: From Exclusion to Inclusion

Immigration Nation - Part 1

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Summary

Immigration Nation: Part 1 explores the paradoxical origins of Australia's immigration policy at the turn of the 20th century. At its inception, Australia was built on the notion of being a progressive and democratic society; however, it was marred by the White Australia Policy, which aimed to restrict non-European immigration. The documentary delves into the societal and political forces at play that led to this discriminatory stance, the impact on diverse communities within Australia, and the international implications of such a policy. From the introduction of the dictation test to the exclusion of Chinese and Pacific Islander communities, and the rejection of Japan's racial equality proposal at Versailles, this part captures how Australia's vision of a "white utopia" inadvertently sowed seeds of future conflicts, highlighted by Japan's aggression in WWII. This episode sets the stage for the dramatic transformation in Australia's immigration policy post-World War II.

Highlights

Australia's foundation was marked by a commitment to racial exclusion, seen in the White Australia Policy. 🏴
The dictation test was cleverly designed to keep non-Europeans out while seeming neutral on the surface. 🎭
The racial policies deeply affected Chinese and Pacific Islander communities, breaking families apart. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦
Australia's refusal of a racial equality clause at Versailles haunted international relations, particularly with Japan. 🇯🇵
Despite extensive exclusion efforts, Australia's demographics dramatically changed post-WWII. ✨

Key Takeaways

Australia's early immigration policy was built on racial exclusion, aiming for a 'White Australia.' 🏴
The paradox of promoting democracy but excluding non-white races marked Australia's early national identity. 🤔
Key legislation like the dictation test served as tools for racial exclusion while appearing neutral. 📜
Australia's refusal of racial equality at the Paris Peace Conference contributed to future conflict with Japan. 🇯🇵
The impact of policies led to family separations, community decline, and strained international relations. 🌎
Ironically, by protecting a 'white utopia,' Australia helped sow the seeds of its own fears. 🌱

Overview

Australia's early immigration policies were paradoxical, aiming to build a democratic society while enforcing racial exclusion. This laid the foundation for the notorious White Australia Policy, which sought to keep the country predominantly white. The introduction of the dictation test was a pivotal moment, cleverly discriminating against non-Europeans under the guise of a neutral examination. Such policies led to severe consequences for non-white communities living in Australia, fracturing families and curbing cultural diversity.

The international stage was another arena where these racial policies played out. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Australia's refusal to support a treaty that included racial equality was a significant moment. This decision did not just disappoint Japan but sowed seeds of tension that would later manifest during World War II as hostilities grew between Australia and Japan. This historical narrative highlights how the quest for a 'white utopia' ironically fostered future threats that Australians had initially aimed to avoid.

In the wake of World War II, however, Australia's demographic landscape was set to transfigure dramatically. Despite the previous era's exclusionary policies, post-war economic needs and international pressures would eventually pave the way for significant immigration reforms. These changes would steer Australia from its discriminatory past towards becoming a vibrant, multicultural nation, setting up a dynamic new journey that the documentary promises to explore further in the subsequent parts.

Chapters

00:00 - 02:00: Introduction: The Foundation of a Nation The chapter 'Introduction: The Foundation of a Nation' explores the paradoxical foundation of modern Australia, which is now known as an immigration nation. The transcript begins by highlighting that a hundred years ago, the plan for the Commonwealth of Australia was quite different. Despite this, the transcript suggests there may have been contradictory intentions or outcomes, leading Australia to become the diverse, multicultural society it is today.
02:00 - 06:00: The White Australia Policy: A Paradox The chapter titled 'The White Australia Policy: A Paradox' discusses the exclusionary immigration policies in Australia starting from 1901. These policies, known as the White Australia Policy, aimed to create an exclusively white community by imposing strict immigration restrictions. The intention was to keep Australia populated only by individuals of the white race. The policies had severe and devastating consequences, as exemplified by the personal impact on families who were divided, such as the narrator's brother and sister who were not allowed to come to Australia.
06:00 - 13:00: Dictation Test and Immigration Restrictions The chapter discusses the harsh realities and consequences of a utopian policy aimed at immigration restrictions in Australia. This policy not only separated families but also posed threats to Australia's economic future. Additionally, it might have damaged relationships with potential allies, turning them into possible adversaries. Anecdotal evidence is provided through a recount about observations of an air force, illustrating the broader impact and perhaps unintended outcomes of this policy.
13:00 - 21:00: Impact on Asian Communities This chapter discusses the impact of multiculturalism on Asian communities in modern Australia. It highlights the challenges and successes in integrating new life into the country's cultural fabric despite economic hardships.
21:00 - 29:00: British Migration Scheme The chapter 'British Migration Scheme' begins by setting the historical context of Australia's journey as an immigration nation, starting from the time of Federation. It paints a picture of a sunny autumn day in May 1901, emphasizing the significance of that period in shaping immigration policies. The narrative promises to delve into the details of how these initial steps laid the foundation for Australia's contemporary identity as a nation built on immigration.
29:00 - 35:00: Racial Equality Proposal and International Reactions The chapter opens with a vivid scene of half-a-million people cheering for the Duke of York, who is the future King of England, as he heads to the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The atmosphere is filled with pageantry, pomp, and ceremony, featuring dukes, military presence, and festive decorations like paper waving streamers and grand arches. It captures a moment that feels like the beginning of something monumental.
35:00 - 45:00: Consequences of Immigration Policies The chapter discusses the inauguration of Australia's first federal parliament, attended by 12,000 dignitaries, and led by the first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton. It highlights the vision of the nation's founders in creating a new and unique country.
45:00 - 54:00: World War II and Changing Policies The chapter discusses the lessons Australia learned from the mistakes of other countries during World War II. It highlights Australia's desire to create a better society than those in Europe, England, and the United States. The foundation of this society includes states where women have the right to vote and workers are protected by fair pay and condition legislation. Australian leaders are focused on building and improving these foundations to create an ideal working society.
54:00 - 58:00: Post-war Migration and Multiculturalism The chapter discusses the post-war migration and the emergence of multiculturalism in Australia. It paints a picture of the country as a progressive and democratic society, envisioning itself as a brave new Commonwealth. The focus is on equality and being at the forefront of democratic social and industrial advancement. The federal apparatus in place is intended to safeguard this 'social laboratory,' enabling Australia to aspire toward creating a utopian society.
58:00 - 60:00: Preview of Next Episode The chapter delves into the contradictory nature of a nation's foundation where lofty ideals like democracy, equality, and freedom are proclaimed. However, these ideals are ironically meant to protect and serve only one race exclusively, highlighting an underlying fear and threat perceived by the nation's founders.

Immigration Nation - Part 1 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] modern Australia is an immigration nation but a hundred years ago this wasn't the plan the Commonwealth of Australia was built on a paradox paradox was they were going to realize
00:30 - 01:00 utopia that they were going to do it through excluding the vast majority of humanity from 1901 this meant tough restrictions on immigration the White Australia Policy we would be an exclusively white community there would be no one in Australia other than members of the white race this was the objective the consequences were devastating had my sister my brother been allowed to come to bend
01:00 - 01:30 again they would have died they died because of a policy ironically the utopian dream not only taught families apart it also threatened Australia's economic future and may even have turned an ally into an enemy it's a fun day and the distance always Erin might change this one fella said look at their air force these might sit area applying sweep I could they got rid spots on her my chance
01:30 - 02:00 [Music] this is the secret history of us our modern multicultural Australia was forged against the odds new life in this poor man
02:00 - 02:30 [Music] the story of how Australia became the immigration nation we live in today is a story that starts at Federation [Music] it's a sunny autumn day in May 1901 and
02:30 - 03:00 half-a-million people cheer the future King of England the Duke of York as he makes his way to the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne you've got all this pageant and pomp and ceremony of Dukes and the military and paper waving streamers and grand arches here we all are at the beginning of something incredible [Music]
03:00 - 03:30 it is here that Australia's first federal parliament will be opened the nation's founders are about to be sworn in before a packed crowd of 12,000 dignitaries [Music] but this is not simply a ceremony led by Australia's first Prime Minister Edmund Barton the architects of this brand-new nation are designing a country unlike
03:30 - 04:00 any other Australia would learn from the mistakes of other countries and create a society that was just so much better than the societies of Europe England United States the foundations are already strong in some states women have the vote and workers are protected by legislation guaranteeing fair pay and conditions but Australia's leaders want to build on this and create a working
04:00 - 04:30 man's paradise quite simply the most progressive and democratic society the world has ever seen they see themselves as creating a brave new Commonwealth in which equality will rule and in which they'll be at the forefront of democratic social Industrial advance this whole federal apparatus is going to protect the the social laboratory that Australia was to create a kind of utopia
04:30 - 05:00 but the dream also masks a deeply held fear the founders of the nation feels threatened ironically this means the bold and noble plan is designed to safeguard democracy equality and freedom for one race and one race honor
05:00 - 05:30 white Australia was based on a paradox that Democratic equality required racial exclusion these radical Democrats building a new society which would be based on the Equality of working men their equal political rights and their equal economic rights that required as they saw as the exclusion of those they saw as serve our races there is no place
05:30 - 06:00 in this brave new world for Aboriginal people the first Australians are beneath contempt the so-called scientific thinking of the day was that somehow the Aborigines were a relic of an early stage of human development I had made it into the 19th century into the early 20th century by a quirk of fate as these idealists built this new democracy they
06:00 - 06:30 consoled themselves with the evolutionary conceit that Aboriginal people were a dying race and that therefore sadly they would have no future in this brave new working man's democracy that the most these progressive people could do and they thought of themselves as compassionate of course was to smooth the pillow of the dying race [Music] those creating our white Australia also see Asians as inferior incapable of
06:30 - 07:00 belonging to this radical society yet ironically many Asians are outside the Royal Exhibition Building joining in the celebrations marking the birth of Australia none are more involved than the oh hi family keulen and his father Louie are responsible for organizing the centerpiece of Melvin's Federation
07:00 - 07:30 parade the grandfather and father paid fast Minar money to bring a Chinese dragon out from China and it was decided that long which means dragon should participate in the 1901 Federation celebrations in Norman so here's bindi goes dragon parading in the streets to celebrate the festival the grandfather and father tussles of China's community from vindicate would have been honored and proud to be part of the 1901
07:30 - 08:00 celebrations [Music] Denisov whose family first came to the Victorian gold rush town of Bendigo in the 1860s by Federation they're part of a Chinese community that numbers 30,000 across Australia in Melbourne the Chinese quarter is a vibrant hub of
08:00 - 08:30 commerce and business the Chinatown at the turn of the century was a place where people lived there were lodging houses there were families children were growing up in the streets there were general stores multiple general stores when I think about when is that area at its peak at its at its best at its most exciting it is at the turn of the century and beyond Victoria
08:30 - 09:00 multi-ethnic community is dotted around Australia feed the nation's economy in Bremen Darwin in first Ireland in Cannes all those substantial towns in the north of Australia had very large Asian populations or and/or Pacific island populations and in many ways they were the most economically important groups Australia's population of more
09:00 - 09:30 than three and a half million maybe almost 98% white but to those in power even this small minority are a big problem the economic success of the so-called servile races threatens the dream to create a white working man's paradise the very first act of the immigration nation will be to destroy the fledgling
09:30 - 10:00 diversity it was born with the idea was that several generations later we would be an exclusively white community there would be no one in Australia other than members of the white race this was the objective the 7th of August 1901 having been inaugurated just three months earlier Australia's first federal parliament is sitting in what today is
10:00 - 10:30 the Victorian state parliament building the task to debate the immigration restriction bill legislation that will change Australia forever and protect the rights of their brave new democracy through exclusion Australia's first Prime Minister Edmund Barton gets to his feet to deliver what will be without doubt one of the most important speeches he ever delivers in his entire life
10:30 - 11:00 and as he's getting up in his hand he's holding a book and it's by a fellow called Charles Pearson and the name of the book his national life and character a forecast published in 1893 this Melbourne academics book was a global bestseller it contains a chilling warning of what the future holds for the dominant white race Pearson says quite explicitly the day will come when black black and yellow
11:00 - 11:30 races are no longer under tutelage that they will be independent they'll be self-governing he says they will even control the ships of the sea the trade of the sea and then he says this will be totally humiliating for the white man if we don't take care our civilization will be overrun by by China by Africa by India by other cultures other civilizations believing Pearson's analysis Prime
11:30 - 12:00 Minister Barton and his peers fear non Europeans will destroy the progressive new democracy so he proposes that all migrants wanting to enter Australia will have to pass a 50-word dictation test based on a model already used in South Africa it's a sleight of hand that keeps out anyone who isn't white it appeared to not give offence it appeared to be something which was about
12:00 - 12:30 education and not about race but it was applied in a totally discriminatory way against non Europeans but for the opposition Labour Party the pretense of the test should be done away with their particularly fearful of migrants undercutting the wages of Australian workers and demand an outright ban on anyone who isn't white their leader Chris Watson warns of racial
12:30 - 13:00 contamination his party colleague Billy Hughes goes further demanding a white Australia by prohibiting the importation of a single coloured alien labour says just say it as it is bang put it down there like it's at a council meeting or an argument between the bosses and the workers just say what you want and what do we want we want a white Australia we want a Chinese we
13:00 - 13:30 want no Indians no Africans that's what we want so why can't we just say it Australia may be an independent nation but all new laws must still get Royal Assent from London Secretary of the colonies Joseph Chamberlain has an empire to think about he knows if Australia unilaterally bans non-whites British citizens in India and elsewhere will be outraged Chamberlain will back
13:30 - 14:00 the dictation test but warns Barton and Australia he'll not support an outright ban based on color or race Barton says if we pass this law and make it racially explicit it will imperil our relations with the Empire and that's as pretty much as dark a threat that you can put to the Australian people at the time because the Australian people need the
14:00 - 14:30 British Empire to protect their Shores on the 26th of September 1901 the vote is taken Barton prevails as Labor's amendment is defeated by just five votes the immigration restriction Act is passed the dictation test the device that will make it work what will come to be known as the White Australia Policy is
14:30 - 15:00 enshrined in law this is the founding of the nation the rock on which the nation is founded and it just so happens that the rock on which this nation is founded is an enactment of racial discrimination a lead piece of legislation to exclude totally non-european [Music] news of the legislation spreads among
15:00 - 15:30 australia's diverse communities and just months into its existence the new nation already has an indelible stain on its reputation around the world the Japanese felt incredibly humiliated and offended by this policy the Japanese view was the Japan's a great park in fact a much bigger power than Australia and so why should Australia be
15:30 - 16:00 discriminatory towards its own people as the decades pass Japanese humiliation will grow and fester into something far for now Australia's ruling elite turn their attention to the many non-whites who have lived here for decades the first port of call is the sugar fields of Queensland where 10,000 South Sea Islanders toil there will be no place
16:00 - 16:30 for them in this new Australia [Music] in the sugar plantations of northern Queensland 10,000 South Sea Islanders live and work they've been arriving here
16:30 - 17:00 for almost 40 years from 1863 to 1906 ran at a time that's when the Islanders were bought from the South Pacific I brought here for the sugar industry to help establish it Matthew nagisa's ancestors were among those who came tricked like many into leaving their Island homes I would lure want to bites there you
17:00 - 17:30 have shown things like pocket knives mirrors were another thing they were given different types of tools they would charm the end of the holes and the bites once they got him down they would shut the hatchets there's even stories from some of the people where a whole village of men were taken what Raider was in that process he will take a quarried in Australia Matthews grandfather and all Islanders are bound
17:30 - 18:00 to three-year contracts of indentured labour but what started as slavery becomes settlement many of them came again and again and increasingly numbers of them remained in Australia in Queensland after their period of indentured labour had run out [Music]
18:00 - 18:30 those building the nation in Melbourne are now led by a new Prime Minister Alfred Deakin the very fact that the South Sea Islanders are beginning to settle is precisely why they threatened the white working man's paradise and the dream itself they were already large numbers of Pacific Islanders who weren't under contract who were free labor who lived in the community who were becoming property owners who were marrying and
18:30 - 19:00 having children and in particular marrying Aboriginal women these were the people who are mostly concerned them because they're putting down roots in white Australia the solution to the problem is uncompromising the Pacific island and laborers Act of 1901 calls for the immediate deportation of the sugarcane workers if we talk about people were kidnapped and taken against their will though they were forced
19:00 - 19:30 against their will to go back to [Music] they were uprooted and they had to leave behind all their memories of life in Queensland but also friends and relatives it was a ruthless form of ethnic cleansing
19:30 - 20:00 by 1908 around 9,000 Islanders are deported Louis from Burdick on is typical he's forced to leave behind his Australian wife and son forever dear Rosie tell her bed that I can't see him no more we were meet in heaven he takes her pit
20:00 - 20:30 with you can you take all my things I know see my mrs. anymore goodbye Rosie and plenty of pieces this last letter your lovingly the social engineering to create a wife Australia is beginning to work [Music] but the dream will not be achieved by deportation alone the so called servile
20:30 - 21:00 races must be stopped from coming in the first place for that there is the cunning of the dictation test you're arriving in Australia at one of the ports and you're not wanted by Australia you'll be met by a customs official who will sit down with you and he will read out to you fifty words that you have to write down that's the dictation test you're hearing it company of being read to you by an
21:00 - 21:30 official and you have to write it all down and if you don't write it all down then that's it you're not allowed into the country [Music] the hairy adornment of the lion renders him more formidable in appearance but the plain fact is they are truly astonishing passages sometimes quite complicated scientific passages with a lot of really technical complicated
21:30 - 22:00 terms so clearly one way you could get people to fail was to just have a very difficult passage of dictation that just about you know no one could pass a difference win it but just in case what was originally an English test is made even harder Lorna meant value to Lion Lorenz plus redoubtable and appearance the customs official have the power to give it to them in any European language and then any prescribed language they made at any
22:00 - 22:30 prescribed language so it was basically foolproof and if someone managed to pass that they could be given a second test in another language so that they would ensure that they would fail the test may be foolproof but there are ways of avoiding at all together q lon ahoy came to Australia before Federation it means he qualifies for an all-important exemption certificate from
22:30 - 23:00 the dictation test he can come and go from Australia as he pleases the dad in 1910 by proxy he marries my mother who was thin only 14 and in 1912 who was also returned to China and meet my mother for the first time and then they decided to start a family Dennis's father keulen is now desperate for his new family to settle in Australia but
23:00 - 23:30 his wife Suey and daughter TOI hon do not qualify for an exemption from the dictation test because they were born in China with my mother and my sister to her and decide to catch a boat to come to Australia they would have got to the shores got to immigration and they would then be asked to do the infamous dictation test to write an essay in a language which unfamiliar to them and there is no way they could have done it so they
23:30 - 24:00 would not have gained entry in Australia ten years after leading the celebrations at Federation Dennis's father keulen has become just another [ __ ] who stands in the way of the dream to create a white Australia they couldn't be together there was this big massive barrier the world trade policy they kept the family apart this affected all Chinese families they were not there to
24:00 - 24:30 come in because they're Chinese it was a cruel and unjust act that it would divide families as it did with my family and put great hardship on family bonds it was a very cruel act by the outbreak of the Great Wall in 1914 Australia's population of almost 5
24:30 - 25:00 million is whiter than at any time in its history but as more than 300,000 Australian soldiers go into battle plans are afoot to bring people into the country the first mass migration scheme is being plotted not in Australia but 12,000 miles away the ideal to create a white utopia will
25:00 - 25:30 be developed even further through the vision of a swashbuckling imperialist so Henry rider Haggard was the walking embodiments of the The Ultimates British Empire dream he was a man who who lived it who wrote John Grisham like novels about it and who and who spent his life so - trying to secure the not just that the supremacy of the British Empire but the
25:30 - 26:00 expansion of the British race a key advisor to the British government Haggard believes the empire will be strengthened by a large-scale migration of Britons to the vast continent of Australia Australians will become the young of the British [Music] for hagit the British Empire was the the great house with many empty rooms and
26:00 - 26:30 Australia was one of the biggest and emptiest of the rooms and brighter Haggard wanted the British race to fill all of the rooms so it could maintain itself in this vast house and Australia had to be filled not only will the British pay for the scheme but Australia will gain the people it needs to populate lands left empty by the removal of Indigenous Australians in turn the
26:30 - 27:00 nation will be better able to defend itself against what it fears more than anything else invasion from the Asian north that in a nutshell was the Australian fear the Yellow Peril 400 million Chinese coming down sweeping on the top of over the top of us and that's how rider Haggard sold his idea for the British vibration scheme
27:00 - 27:30 the war to end all wars is finally over 60,000 Australian troops lie dead but the horror of sacrifice and suffering will have unexpected consequences the White Australia Policy is about to come under the glare of an international spotlight it's 1919 and
27:30 - 28:00 now the Labour firebrand Billy Hughes is the nation's prime minister at Federation he called for a ban on all migrants who weren't white the passing of time and the Great War has only strengthened his faith use was a remarkable character small deaf but fiercely fiercely determined a
28:00 - 28:30 union leader he knew how to talk to men and but he was even more striking amongst the diplomats and eros the Kratz in Paris in 1919 [Music] the Paris Peace Conference will create a new world order out of the ashes of the Great War a League of Nations will be born to secure peace for generations to
28:30 - 29:00 come in the cool January air 72 delegates from 32 nations gather to begin six months of negotiations the big four America Britain France and Italy hoped to dictate proceedings but there's now a new world power taking their place at the top table the Japanese saw themselves has been the leader of Asia and that was where the Japanese were
29:00 - 29:30 heading and certainly by 1919 because of the fact that Japan was selected as one of the five great paths that sort of sentiments or the feeling was being confirmed by the Western Great Palace they expected to be accepted as a civilized people and they found having jumped through all the hoops there was one who they could never jump through and that is they weren't white
29:30 - 30:00 the Japanese delegation led by Baron Makino nobuaki has a very clear wish they want racial equality enshrined into this new world order it's a demand that could threaten the entire League of Nations and even make Australia's immigration policies illegal under international law there were a number of political pressure groups back in Japan demanding that the racial equality
30:00 - 30:30 clause had to be a condition of Japan's acceptance of the creation of the League of Nations so the Japanese delegates in Paris were put under enormous pressure from very powerful and influential lobbying groups in Japan in order to succeed on the racial equality negotiations Billy Hughes has one main objective in Paris he links the death of 60,000
30:30 - 31:00 diggers to the preservation of Empire and white Australia anything that questions this assertion will be rejected out of hand Japan's racial equality proposal is unacceptable Hughes would insist that if there was any consideration of a racial equality clause that the Australian delegation would leave Versailles bag and baggage
31:00 - 31:30 [Music] but as negotiations get underway in the opulent surrounds of the hotel decree on it seems that Hughes is not alone in his objections the British Prime Minister Lloyd George and American President Woodrow Wilson also have strong reservations about the racial equality proposal but they're determined to keep diplomatically quiet and avoid offending
31:30 - 32:00 the Japanese the British and the Americans they don't want a strongly worded brochure quality clause either but there is the issue of relations with Japan they now know if they don't support this racial equality clause possibly Japan will walk away from the League of Nations certainly their relationship will be harmed but if they can move most of the blame onto use if they can make use the Patsy then they can also get what they want and so in
32:00 - 32:30 the rarefied air of Paris in the spring a skillful plan is hatched Britain and America will hold their tongues and point the Japanese towards the noisy hues the Japanese were were very patient and they tried again and again and they tried the Americans and Americans said well it's not up to us you have to talk to the British so they talk to the British and the British say well we have a problem with these two minions in
32:30 - 33:00 Australia and New Zealand and South Africa you'll have to new deal with them so the Japanese endeavor to talk to all the leaders of the dominions and most of them say well you know we wouldn't mind this but there's always Australia that's the problem [Music] the Japanese have no other option but to deal directly with Hughes and suffer the inevitable consequences the Japanese found him impossible to negotiate with he was not very statesmen
33:00 - 33:30 like as far as the Japanese so concerned because other statesmen and delegates that the Paras behaved in a civilized matter in a very diplomatic manner they say this man is a peasant how is it that we have to try and deal with this ignorant provincial from Australia why don't the British make him behave often Hughes pretended that he wasn't around when the Japanese requested to see him and when they did he was just kind of
33:30 - 34:00 you know pretend that he couldn't understand what they were saying when they were speaking to him obviously English uses unique diplomatic approach is causing alarm at home in Melbourne the director of military intelligence Edmund Pease believes the consequences of ignoring Japan's demands could be disastrous despite the flexure pans and a line the Australian military still sees Japan as its number one threat in the region so
34:00 - 34:30 for peace if countries like Australia insist that there is no racial equality clause that the Australian are actually walking into a trap despite pieces dire warnings Hughes is unequivocal white Australia must be protected the Australian Prime Minister has played the role of Patsy to perfection the American British ploy works the Japanese believe Billy use is
34:30 - 35:00 the central stumbling block indeed Baron Makino one of the senior members of the Japanese delegation writes back to Tokyo that the racial equality clause it's fate rests in the hands of one man the Australian Prime Minister [Music] after three long months of negotiations the fate of the racial equality proposal and potentially the legality of white Australia hang in the balance at the
35:00 - 35:30 Palace of Versailles a vote is taken a majority of Delegates support the proposal but the American president intervenes [Music] Wilson from the chair said there's not unanimity and this is an issue on which there must be anonymity therefore it is lost quite against all procedure of what had been regarded as normal meeting
35:30 - 36:00 procedure in the league itself the Japanese were mortified the whole notion of the League of Nations was built on the idea that he should create a fairer and more just international order and by denying this you know supposedly basic basic principle of equality of States how could this League of Nations really effectively provide a international order on the 28th of June 1919 the peace
36:00 - 36:30 treaty is finally signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles denied its racial equality Clause Japan departs Paris humiliated and embittered against the West Billy Hughes on the other hand leaves for Australia head held high News returns to Australia a conquering hero
36:30 - 37:00 and always in his public speeches he refers to the racial equality clause and he refers to the protection of the water strap Australia is yours you may do with it what you please my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back from the conference as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted Hugh's already a hero to the Australian
37:00 - 37:30 soldiers has never been so popular the little digger who went into battle at Versailles to save white Australia but the triumphalism hides a grave troops back in Australia people like Edmund Pete's are devastated by the decision they're devastated because Australia leaves Paris as Japan's number one enemy in the region well there were people who
37:30 - 38:00 were saw the defeated Versailles and as being one of those things which pushed the Japanese towards militarism imperialism and militant anti Western feeling in the coming years Japan's aggression will build ironically by protecting its borders and the dream of a white utopia Australia has helped sow the seeds for
38:00 - 38:30 its darkest fears to be realized [Music] children ox in England 1921 the British set the scheme proposed by rider habit has been given the go-ahead and the first organized mass migration to Australia is underway thousands of hopeful Britons will fill
38:30 - 39:00 the vast empty lands cultivate the soil and settle more than 20,000 new farms Australia doesn't even need to pay the British of footing the bill it's very much an imperial vision for Australia's future the British want a lot Australia back into the empire and one way that this happens on the ground literally is through schemes of British settlement that are underpinned underwritten for the first time by the
39:00 - 39:30 British for Frederick chalice the chance to leave his life behind as a poor farm laborer in Essex is too great he sets off with his wife rose and six children it's a story of adventure that's been passed on to his granddaughter granddad realized there was no bettering himself he wasn't going anywhere he was going to stay like this forever unless something changed they painted this wonderful
39:30 - 40:00 picture it was like come to the land of milk and honey you'll have a farm fenced cattle a house just everything the Sun shines all the time it's going to be wonderful they could actually see a future for themselves instead of standing still in England forever and that to them was just a dream [Music] as the door opens wide for the British
40:00 - 40:30 it is fast being slammed in the face of those trying to make their way to Australia from Asia for seven years q lenovo has been desperately trying to bring his family to Australia and with China now embroiled in civil war he is convinced the lives of his wife soui daughter toy han and son billy are in imminent danger
40:30 - 41:00 that was upset and he's a list of the government officials and bureaucrats he is stating quite categorically that the village is under attack he wants to bring his wife and he wants to bring his children's Australia it's an unsafe place and the government officials are just without explanation they'll reply there's no reason will not be granted so dad would again rutter another government official or another politician or bureaucrat for
41:00 - 41:30 help dear sir the locality where my wife lives men and women co-op guarding the place because if the brigands capture anyone they would be cruelly treated and have to pay ransom but Q lands please fall on deaf ears and time runs out for the family his son Billy dies of an illness and while Suey is out defending the village his five-year-old daughter toy harm dies in a tragic accident at
41:30 - 42:00 home had my sister my brother been allowed to come to Bendigo and dad's first requests they would have died it's as simple as that they died because of her policy [Music] too late to save his children cue line has finally granted a temporary two-year visa to bring his grieving wife to
42:00 - 42:30 Australia that is given permission to bring my mother out and she arrives had been together for the very first time and through the reunification two children are born Myrtle was the first born and then George dad is happy he's got his wife he's got two newborn children they're born here in a Bendigo they're Australian citizens the visa starts to run out so dad writes more letters can I have an extension no your
42:30 - 43:00 wife has to go faced with an impossible ultimatum keulen decides his young children George and Myrtle should also return with their mother to China by splitting up families like the ojos the Chinese community is slowly being strangled the generation that arrived before Federation is growing old and dying out and they can't be replaced the
43:00 - 43:30 immigration restriction act and the dictation test are the perfect deterrent within a few years people even stop trying to come to Australia sit the dictation test causes a waste of money and it was known that it was a waste to make from its vibrant bustling peak just two decades ago the trading quarter of Melbourne is now in decline Chinatown starts to shrink and it starts
43:30 - 44:00 to shrink dramatically it's no longer taking up four city blocks it's taking up two city blocks then one city block effectively the unwelcoming nature of the legislation meant that the community couldn't be refreshed with new with new people with new family members with uncles with ants with with children by the early 1920s the Chinese population
44:00 - 44:30 in Australia has halved since Federation [Music] meanwhile in Western Australia thousands of Britons are arriving the chalice family are on the final leg of their journey with high hopes and dreams of
44:30 - 45:00 finding a land of milk and honey they meet the Great Australian outdoors for the first time they were all dumped off the truck with their belongings and left there and the truck disappeared there was no farm clearing or anything it was just virgin thick bush everything had to be cleared by hand morning till night chopping and clearing and burning and trying to get some sort of paddock
45:00 - 45:30 to put something on but they thought well we obviously have been conned but we've got nothing else so let's go for it they just kept working all the time just every bit was a bit more improvement I don't know how he did it the chalices make a go of it but they are rare many have come from urban Britain and have no experience whatsoever of working on this or any other land they couldn't farm they
45:30 - 46:00 didn't know how to farm now brought to land that was utterly unsuitable for the sort of farming that they were told to do it was quite a romantic expectation that they could leave you know wage slavery in the cities and become their own independent proprietors in Australia the scheme is an unmitigated disaster fewer than 500 of the proposed 22,000
46:00 - 46:30 farms are settled at a cost of 15 million pounds the equivalent of half a billion dollars today and the scheme is about to be buried for good beneath a worldwide depression [Music] The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression that took place subsequent was the the worst economic disaster of the entire 20th century but it was also the final nail in the coffin of the
46:30 - 47:00 Great British migration scheme to Australia in the 1920s while the British go down with the crash ironically some of the migrant communities the White Australia Policy is designed to destroy our surviving sometimes was the help of ordinary white Australians quite often although a local community might in general be against
47:00 - 47:30 Asian immigrants they were favorably disposed to their own Chinese that everyone knew that everyone knew the Chinese family who bought the fruit and vegetables and bought better fruit and vegetables and in a way they got to know those families and often were very protective of them and it's not just the Chinese who are avoiding the ravages of white Australia since the 1850s the Japanese have come
47:30 - 48:00 to dive for pearls their superior skill and bravery making them invaluable to the economy [Music] the one place where the policy ultimately failed was in the pearling industry they certainly tried the authorities to bring white divers to drive out the colored labor the Japanese in particular but this was a lamentable failure and the Japanese captains the
48:00 - 48:30 jet the Japanese seamen and the Japanese divers continued to be essential to the pearling industry right through the period of the white Australia the Japanese migrants may be a godsend to the pearling industry but Japan itself is fast causing alarm having invaded Manchuria in 1931 Japanese forces have now moved further into China
48:30 - 49:00 the ghosts of Versailles and the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 have come to halt the defeat of the racial equality proposal in 1919 was seen to be a highly significant factor in the nineteen thirties particularly by merchants mainly because it was a the most symbolic example of the West's rejection of Japan
49:00 - 49:30 with the Japanese advancing the ovoid family is still locked in their own very personal battle keulen now has four Australian born children but they're living with his wife Suey in China because she is only allowed to come to Australia on a short-term visa in 1935 Suey and the children arrived in Australia for another temporary two-year
49:30 - 50:00 stay the family is reunited again if everyone's happy but it's only a short-term visa there's the threat my mother will have to go which means the two boys and two girls will have to go dad finally is exhausted every avenue to keep the family together I'm born in 1938 that is in the process now of buying the tickets for mother the
50:00 - 50:30 four siblings including me were about to be quietly deported but in an ironic twist Dennis and his family win a late reprieve Japan's invasion of China means all shipping is canceled between Australia and the Far East the authorities want to split up the Ojai's yet again but there's no boat to put them on great that it took a war to keep them allowed my mother to stay and my
50:30 - 51:00 siblings including my sock it's extraordinary that it was a war the World War that enabled me to stay here been again as Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December 1941 the die is cast for Australia the Japanese hard paws southward landings are made on the Philippines one
51:00 - 51:30 wake Hong Kong fall a huge pacific area is Japanese territory by right of conquest war left's the shores of Australia Australia climbed behind her defenses and waited it's Athan die with just a few like lads about and the distance always aeroplanes
51:30 - 52:00 Jesus one fellow said look at their airfield these might had better ice adhesive the area appliance we pack a decent they got rid spots on my jet worth lots of dogs almost every bombers fighters United there were only Darwin the 19th of February 1942 Australia's darkest fears are realized the invasion feared for generations
52:00 - 52:30 could finally become a reality the seed sown at Versailles the obsession to build a dream have instead helped create a nightmare there is a connection this is not to suggest that Japanese militarism would not have happened without the racial equality clause but that whole racial equality debate set in forth a train of ideas of
52:30 - 53:00 tensions of suspicions that ultimately find voice first at Pearl Harbor and later with the Japanese attacks on Australia there's an almost unbelievable irony of worki Australia had done everything to try and safeguard a white Australia and in uncanny fashion helped manufacture the ultimate Yellow Peril threat that's white Australia had first been invented to try and avoid
53:00 - 53:30 [Music] by World War two ninety-nine percent of Australia's 7 million people are white half a century of exclusion and restriction has socially engineered a nation but just as this was achieved the most extraordinary reversal was already being plotted [Music]
53:30 - 54:00 the post-war years will turn the policy of no entry on its head as Australia embarks on the largest migration program in its history the battle to build modern multicultural Australia is set to enter a dramatic new era [Music]
54:00 - 54:30 [Applause] [Music]
54:30 - 55:00 [Applause] next on immigration nation how Australia spins the arrival of a million migrants yet somehow clings to the White Australia Policy the selection teams are instructed very clearly to select people from Latvia and the Baltic countries and to have blonde buxom women and for an interactive version of the Australian immigration story go to SBS comte you forward slash immigration nation
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