Post World War Two Immigrants :: history

Post World War two ImmigrantsDuring World War Two Australians finally realised just how dangerous they were to enemy attacks. The reality of this possibility hit home hard when the Nipponese attacked Darwin and when Japanese midget subs penetrated Sydney harbour. We now realised that our island was not an impenetrable fortress. They regimen also realised that our country was dangerously under-populated. The fact was that we had too a lot space and just now 7 million people living in it which once again made us very vulnerable to attack. The brass realised something must be done. In 1947, during a historical savoir-faire made by the minister for immigration, Arthur Augustus Calwell announced that Australia was opening its doors to European immigrants, instead British. Refugees and immigrants from all over Europe rushed to apply for visas. While many different cultures migrated to Australia the two we atomic number 18 going to focus on are the Italians and the British. At the conclusion of the war Italian soldiers and POWs returned to a destroyed Italy. The only thing worse than the immense destruction was the gentle suffering. The displaced Italians sought refuge in communal camps while dreaming of hop out to countries such as Canada, the USA and Australia. Italy had been looking for an overseas country that would get its unemployed, homeless Italians and when Australia opened her doors to them Italys President encouraged his people to assume a foreign language and emigrate. Meanwhile the Britain was also in ruins and although they had won the war, it had come at a big loss. Luckily though for the British, Australia was very keen for British refugees to make up a deep part of Australias refugee take-in. In Arthur Augustus Calwells initial speech he said, It is my hope that for every foreign migrant there will be ten people from the United Kingdom. So from the start it was obvious that White Australia was the floor of the immigration policy. Austr alia established schemes to attract immigrants from post war Britain and they created Australian Citizenship in 1948 so that Australians were no longer British subjects. Meanwhile, much stronger and stricter restrictions were imposed against the Italians. They were only permitted to immigrate if they already had close family already resident in Australia. The Italians suffered because they were not a priority group. The British had been given assistance and had been allowed to bring their families with them into Australia.