Australia: Immigration Restiction Act aka White Australia Policy

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In this essay I will propose that colonialism and the ‘Immigration Restriction Act aka White Australia policy’, are not dead, not just yet anyway. I will briefly outline some of the tensions in the community which led to the implementation of this policy in 1901. I will also investigate how the media of the day helped this policy along. I will then go on to explain how this policy, which was enacted to stop non Europeans entering Australia, effected the Indigenous population throughout the life of said policy. I will then go on to see if some points from this policy are being revived in today’s political environment, or is it just coincidence that these new legislations seem to align themselves with the 'White Australia' policy of yesteryear. Also I will briefly examine if these new policies breach the ‘Human Rights Act’. One in particular, Operation Sovereign Borders, designed to stop refugees entering the country illegally. By the end if this essay I should be able to answer the question posed above.
The Immigration Restriction Act was the main component of a package of legislation acknowledged by the new Federal Parliament in 1901. It was premeditated to exclude all non-European migrants and also the Indigenous population who were deemed as not being Australian. This package also incorporated the ‘Pacific Islander Labourers Act and Section 15 of the 1901 Post and Telegraph Act’, which provided that ships hauling Australian mail, and therefore funded by the Commonwealth, should provide work for white labour only. The attitudes were in line with Australian nationalism of the late 1800s. And was a move to control non-European immigration to most of the Australian colonies dating back to the 1850s.
The beginning of the '...

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... 2014. http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-16.html.

National Communications Branch, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Canberra, "Fact Sheet 8 – Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy." Accessed February 09, 2014. http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/08abolition.htm.

SBS. "Factbox: Operation Sovereign Borders." News. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/19/factbox-operation-sovereign-borders (accessed February 10, 2014).

Thompson, Stephen. Migration Heritage Centre, "Objects Through Time." Last modified 2011. (Accessed February 12, 2014) http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/immigration-restriction-act/.

Transcript. No. 17 of 1901. No. 17 of 1901. Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, 1901. http://foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/cth4ii_doc_1901a.pdf. (accessed 10 Feb 2014).

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