What was Australia's post-war immigration policy?

Australia's post-war immigration policy from 1945 brought millions of new migrants to the country, transformed the population, and fundamentally reshaped Australian society. The slogan 'populate or perish' captured the post-war consensus that the country needed a larger population for defence and economic development. The Chifley Labor government's Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell led the policy from 1945 to 1949, with the Liberal-Country Coalition continuing it under successive Immigration Ministers from 1949.

The policy had several specific elements. Assisted passage schemes paid most of the cost of migration from Britain (the Ten Pound Pom programme, operated from 1947) and selected European countries, with migrants paying only ten pounds for the sea voyage to Australia. The Displaced Persons Programme, operated from 1947 to 1953 in cooperation with the International Refugee Organization, settled about 170,000 European refugees from camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. The Free and Assisted Passage Scheme expanded to Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, West Germany, Yugoslavia, and other European countries through the 1950s and 1960s.

The numbers were extraordinary. About 6 million people migrated to Australia between 1945 and the early 2000s. The population grew from about 7.4 million in 1945 to 13 million in 1970, with immigration contributing more than half of the growth. Major source countries shifted over time: British migrants dominated through the 1950s, Italian and Greek migration peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, Yugoslav and Lebanese migration grew through the 1960s and 1970s. Australian cities, particularly Melbourne and Sydney, were transformed by the new communities.

Several specific policies shaped settlement. The Snowy Mountains Scheme (1949 to 1972) employed about 100,000 workers from more than 30 countries and is widely credited with helping to integrate post-war European migrants. The Holt government's 1966 reforms removed most remaining racial restrictions, allowing non-European skilled migrants. The Whitlam government's 1973 reforms introduced a strictly non-racial migration framework based on skills, family, and humanitarian need, completing the dismantling of the White Australia Policy. The Fraser government (1975 to 1983) settled more than 100,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees after the 1975 fall of Saigon. Successive governments have maintained substantial immigration programmes, with about 30 per cent of Australians today born overseas and more than 270 ancestries represented.