The Test of White Australia Policy

In addition, there has been a new call to abolish the White Australia policy. This is manifested in the establishment of an immigration policy reform team at the University of Melbourne. The group investigated the immigration situation and published a booklet to promote the replacement of the policy of accepting immigrants from Asian and African countries with restrictions and selectivity. Kenneth Levitt, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is the head of the immigration policy leading group. In 1950s, he led the immigration policy reform group to conduct many public opinion surveys on immigration. The results of the public opinion survey are shown in the following table: ①.

In the 1990s, colored people were forbidden to enter China% were allowed to enter China% had no opinions%.

1954 6 1 3 1 8

1956 5 1 42 7

1957 55 36 9

1958 45 44 1 1

1959 34 55 1 1

The survey conducted by the Immigration Policy Reform Group convincingly proves that the White Australia policy is unpopular and must be changed. However, it has been 60 years since the White Australia policy was formulated, and racist feelings are deeply rooted. In the case of serious racist sentiment, it takes time and struggle to completely abolish it.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, racism was defeated on two issues. One is about Papua autonomy; The other is about the citizenship rights of Australian aborigines. The solution of these two problems laid the foundation for the Labor government to abolish the White Australia policy in the 1970s. 1962 In July, the United Nations Trust Territory Committee made a report after carefully studying the Papua New Guinea issue. The report thinks that the progress of PNG autonomy is too slow, and severely condemns the Australian government's "stubborn adherence to the policy of gradualism" and its racial discrimination policy in the old law. The report requires the Australian government to establish a parliament with 100 members, and to establish a university in Papua New Guinea before 1964. Members should be elected. These requirements surprised the Australian government. Under the pressure of world public opinion, the Australian government immediately took action to amend the old law in 1962; The provisions of the old law that whites and blacks were treated differently were abolished, and a Committee was set up to investigate the third-level education in the trusteeship area. 1In the middle of 963, the Australian Parliament passed a resolution on expanding the authority of the Legislative Assembly of Papua New Guinea and establishing a parliament. According to the resolution, the Legislative Council has the right to consult the Chief Executive of the Trust Area. The resolution also specifies the composition of the Parliament of Papua New Guinea: the Parliament consists of 64 members, 44 of whom are elected by universal suffrage by adults with voting rights, 10 is elected by non-indigenous people, and 10 is officially appointed. As a result, the process of autonomy of Papua New Guinea has been accelerated, and the Australian government has paid more attention to the local residents (aborigines) of Papua New Guinea than in the past. However, Papua New Guinea still has a long way to go to achieve full autonomy. The local council was not elected until June 1964. Obviously, this is a big step forward for Papua New Guinea as a trust territory. However, in the eyes of the United Nations Trust Territory Committee, and even in the eyes of world public opinion, the pace of progress, that is, the process of autonomy, is too slow. Therefore, the Australian government, especially its territorial minister, G.E. Barnes, is often criticized by the United Nations Trust Territory Committee. The Committee called for the establishment of a political party in Papua New Guinea and the immediate abolition of 65,438+00 white members and another 65,438+00 designated members. This request of the Committee is another blow to the racist remnants of the Australian government.

1972 On the eve of the Australian general election, Whitlam, leader of the Labour Party, promised that Papua New Guinea would become independent in the shortest time if the Labour Party came to power. Labour won the election. As soon as the Labour government came to power, it fulfilled its promise. However, the biggest difficulty in establishing a country in Papua New Guinea is the mutual hatred of tribes from different places. These tribes split into several separate opposing countries, and a powerful separatist movement has emerged in bougainville island. Despite all kinds of difficulties, the government of Whitlam stepped up its work and decisively announced that PNG would gain full autonomy from 1973 12 1. 1975, the Chief Minister of Papua New Guinea, M. Sommer, declared the Queen of England as the head of state of Papua New Guinea, which gave birth to a new independent country and became a member of the Commonwealth. The process of indigenous autonomy and independence in Papua New Guinea is actually a process in which racism in Australia is impacted and declined. This is of great benefit to the elimination of racist ideas in Australia. Since then, the Australian government has begun to consider solving the problems of Australian aborigines. According to the Australian Constitution, Australians have no political rights. Article 127 of the Constitution stipulates: "When calculating the federal population, … local people will not be counted". Papua New Guinea has accelerated the process of autonomy under the care of the United Nations Trust Territory Committee, which will inevitably affect Australians' consideration of the political rights of their indigenous people. 1966, the newly elected prime minister Chrt is determined to solve this problem. The first decree issued by his government through the National Assembly was to hold a referendum to amend the Constitution, so as to authorize the federal government to include indigenous people in the population calculation and give them legal rights. 1967 On May 27th, a referendum was passed, and Australian aborigines obtained citizenship. However, the process of granting autonomy and citizenship to indigenous people in Papua New Guinea and Australia is not smooth sailing, and there are still struggles. There is a "right-wing alliance" composed of racists and right-wingers, which is strengthened by a group of white immigrants from South Africa and calls itself the "Australian Nazi Party" to carry out racist propaganda. At the same time, some young people organized themselves and used various occasions to oppose racism. In the general election of 196 1, Australian college students, especially those in Victoria, lobbied members against the policy of white Australia. Politicians of almost all political parties were asked about their positions on the policies of Belarus and Australia, thus pushing the struggle against racism to a new stage. By the early 1970s, the struggle had reached a new climax. 1971At the end of June, a South African white springbok team arrived in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Immediately, Australia set off a large-scale demonstration against apartheid. When the team arrived there, the demonstration appeared there, and the South African team became an Australian street mouse. At the end of the same year, a South African white cricket team toured Australia. In order to avoid another confrontation, the Australian Prime Minister asked Donald Bradman, chairman of the Australian Cricket Management Committee, to find a solution and put forward the principle of separating politics from sports. Although Bradamann agreed to the Prime Minister's request, he also advised him that the reputation of apartheid in South Africa was too bad. He hoped that the Australian government would refuse to accept the racist sports teams in South Africa in the future.

1972 in may, the royal commission of inquiry recommended that the government provide land to the indigenous people who were driven out of fishing and hunting areas by ranchers. In order to recapture the lost land, the aborigines fought for the first time. Under the leadership of their leaders, they set up an indigenous "embassy" on the lawn opposite the Parliament Building in Canberra, the capital, and vowed to stay there for a long time until the indigenous people obtained "land rights". However, the rural party and the liberal party are firmly opposed to giving land to indigenous people, believing that it will lead to apartheid like South Africa. The government issued a decree to send police to forcibly expel and relocate the tents of indigenous "embassies", but it did not work. On the contrary, it caused a large number of indigenous people to flood into the capital, which made the government very passive, and thus there was another climax against racism.

Frequent racist attacks have forced political parties to change their internal and external racist policies. The Labour Party, which had been defending the "White Australia Policy" in the past, took the lead and became a deep-water bomb to abandon racist policies in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, 1965, the Labour Party deleted the White Australia policy from its platform. Another example is 197 1. In June, at the 29th annual meeting of the Labour Party, delegates passed a resolution to amend the party's immigration policy by 44 votes to 1 to ensure that there would be no racial discrimination on the immigration issue.

1966 In March, after reviewing the past non-European immigration policies, the Director of Immigration Hubert O 'Paellmann said that those non-European applicants who are considered to be able to integrate into Australian culture immediately and benefit Australia's development will be allowed to immigrate to Australia. At the same time, Holt's Liberal government has selected a group of non-European Australians with "temporary residence qualifications", who can voluntarily become permanent residents and Australian citizens (like European immigrants) after five years.

The truly effective abolition of the White Australia policy is usually considered as 1973. At that time, Whitland's Labor Party added a series of amendments to the immigration law to prevent the strengthening of racial views. These amendments ensure that all immigrants, regardless of birth, have the right to obtain citizenship after living for three years and recognize all international agreements on immigration and race. 1973 there were 25,000 immigrants, of whom112 were non-European immigrants. 1975 the racial discrimination law stipulates that official rules with racial overtones are illegal.

It was not until 1978 that the Fraser government revised the immigration law and finally abolished the policy of choosing immigrants according to the country of birth. Many recent immigrants come from China and India, although immigrants from Britain and New Zealand still account for the vast majority.