Editing White Australia policy (section)

===Gold rush era===
[[File:SLNSW FL3324035.jpg|thumb|Camp Hill (Lambing Flat) at time of the riots, 1860–61. Now the town of [[Young, New South Wales]]]]
The discovery of [[gold rush|gold]] in Australia in 1851 led to an influx of immigrants from all around the world. The colony of Victoria had a population of only 77,000 in 1851 and [[New South Wales]] just 200,000, but the huge influx of settlers spurred by the [[Australian gold rushes]] transformed the Australian colonies economically, politically and demographically. Over the next 20 years, 40,000 Chinese men but very few women, nearly all from the province of Guangdong (then known as Canton) but divided by language and dialect nevertheless, immigrated to the goldfields seeking prosperity.<ref name="Markey">{{cite web
|url=http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:18167215&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20c%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=
|archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20171019161339/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18167215.html
|archive-date=19 October 2017
|last =Markey
|first =Raymond
|date=1 January 1996
|title=Race and organized labor in Australia, 1850–1901
|publisher = The Historian
|access-date =14 June 2006
}}</ref>

Gold brought great wealth but also new social tensions. Multi-ethnic migrants came to Victoria and New South Wales in large numbers for the first time. Competition on the goldfields, particularly resentment among [[light skin|white]] miners towards the successes of Chinese miners, led to tensions between groups and eventually a series of significant racist protests and riots, including the [[Buckland riot]] in 1857 and the [[Lambing Flat riots]] between 1860 and 1861. [[Charles Hotham|Governor Hotham]], on 16 November 1854, appointed a [[Royal Commission]] on Victorian goldfields problems and grievances. This led to restrictions being placed on Chinese immigration and residency taxes levied from Chinese residents in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] from 1855. New South Wales following suit with poll taxes and tonnage restrictions only in 1861. These restrictions remained in force only until 1867.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lockwood|first=R.|date=1964|title=British Imperial Influences in the Foundation of the White Australia Policy|journal=Labour History|issue=7|pages=23–33|doi=10.2307/27507761|jstor=27507761 |issn=0023-6942}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=December 2022}}