Editing White Australia policy (section)

==From the Federation to World War II==

In writing about the preoccupations of the Australian population in early Federation Australia before [[World War I]] in ''ANZAC to Amiens'', the official historian of the war, [[Charles Bean]], considered the White Australia Policy and defined it as follows:<blockquote>"White Australia Policy" – a vehement effort to maintain a high Western standard of economy, society and culture (necessitating at that stage, however it might be camouflaged, the rigid exclusion of Oriental peoples).</blockquote>

===Federation Convention and Australia's first government===
[[Immigration]] was a prominent topic of discussion in the lead up to the establishment of the Australian Federation. At the third session of the Australasian Federation Convention of 1898, Western Australian premier and future federal cabinet member [[John Forrest]] summarised the feeling of the Anglo-Saxon people in Australia:<ref name="Willoughby" />

{{blockquote|It is of no use to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a great feeling all over Australia against the introduction of coloured persons. It goes without saying that we do not like to talk about it, but it is so.<ref>{{Cite web|title=ParlInfo – 1898 Australasian Federation Conference : Third Session: Debates – February 8|url=https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%2522constitution/conventions/1898-1104%2522|access-date=2023-02-02|website=parlinfo.aph.gov.au|archive-date=25 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220525091231/https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22constitution%2Fconventions%2F1898-1104%22|url-status=live}}</ref>||source=}}

The [[Barton government]] which came to power following the first elections of the Commonwealth parliament in 1901 was formed by the [[Protectionist Party]] with the support of the [[Australian Labor Party]]. The support of the Labor Party was contingent upon restricting non-white immigration, reflecting the attitudes of the [[Australian Workers Union]] and other labour organisations at the time, upon whose support the Labor Party was founded. The Australian historian James Jupp wrote that it was not true that the White Australia policy was exclusively a right-wing cause as the strongest support for the White Australia policy was on the left-side of Australian politics with both the trade unions and the Labour Party being the most militant opponents of Asian immigration well into the 1960s.{{sfn|Jupp|1995|p=207-208}} Many Australians in the early 20th century tended to define being white as being the same as Australian with a majority of Australian states passing laws banning marriage and/or sex between whites and [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginals]] as part of an effort to maintain Australia's white character.{{sfn|Jupp|1995|p=208}}

The first [[Parliament of Australia]] quickly moved to restrict immigration to maintain Australia's "British character", and the Pacific Island Labourers Bill and the Immigration Restriction Bill were passed shortly before parliament rose for its first Christmas recess. The colonial secretary in Britain had, however, made it clear that a race-based immigration policy would run "contrary to the general conceptions of equality which have ever been the guiding principle of British rule throughout the Empire". The Barton government therefore conceived of the "Education test", later called the "Dictation Test", which would allow the government, at the discretion of Customs Officers, to block unwanted migrants by forcing them to sit a test in "any European language".{{sfn|Jupp|1995|p=208}} At the time, Anglo-Japanese relations were improving, and in 1902 Britain and Japan were to sign a defensive alliance directed implicitly against Russia.{{sfn|Jupp|1995|p=208}} The White Australia policy led to vigorous protests from the Japanese government, and led to complaints from London that Australia was gratuitously straining relations with Japan, which Britain viewed as a prospective ally against Russia.{{sfn|Jupp|1995|p=208}}

For the Labor Party this was a compromise of principles, so the main question for the debate on the Immigration Restriction Act just how openly racist to be, with the Labor Party preferring to openly bar "aboriginal natives of Asia, Africa, or the islands thereof". However in the end the preferred option of the British, the Education Test was passed. There was also opposition from Queensland and its sugar industry to the proposals of the Pacific Islanders Bill to exclude "Kanaka" labourers, however Barton argued that the practice was "veiled slavery" that could lead to a "negro problem" similar to that in the United States, and the bill was passed.<ref name="ReferenceA">Brian Carroll; From Barton to Fraser; Cassell Australia; 1978</ref>

====Immigration Restriction Act 1901====
{{Main|Immigration Restriction Act 1901}}
The new Federal Parliament, as one of its first pieces of legislation, passed the [[Immigration Restriction Act 1901]] (1 Edward VII 17 1901) to "place certain restrictions on immigration and... for the removal... of prohibited immigrants".<ref name="BRL9-1">{{cite book |last1= Lawrence |first1= David Russell |title= The Naturalist and his "Beautiful Islands": Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific |date= October 2014 |publisher= ANU Press |isbn= 978-1-925022-03-2 |page= 257 |chapter= Chapter 9 The plantation economy |chapter-url= http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch092.pdf |access-date= 31 March 2019 |archive-date= 30 March 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190330035755/http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch092.pdf |url-status= live }}</ref> The act drew on similar legislation in the South African colony of Natal. [[Edmund Barton]], the prime minister, argued in support of the bill with the following statement: "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman."<ref>{{cite web|last=Kendall |first=Timothy |title=Within China's Orbit: China through the eyes of the Australian Parliament |url=http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/monographs/kendall/chapterone.pdf |publisher=Australian Parliamentary Library |access-date=24 October 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120407171857/http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/monographs/kendall/chapterone.pdf |archive-date=7 April 2012 }}</ref>

The [[Attorney General of Australia|attorney general]] tasked with drafting the legislation was [[Alfred Deakin]]. Deakin supported Barton's position over that of the Labor Party in drafting the bill (the ALP wanted more direct methods of exclusion than the dictation test) and redacted the more vicious racism proposed for the text in his [[second reading]] of the Bill.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/deakin-alfred-5927|title=Australian Dictionary of Biography|first=R.|last=Norris|chapter=Deakin, Alfred (1856–1919)|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|via=Australian Dictionary of Biography|access-date=11 April 2018|archive-date=31 July 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120731095136/http://www.faktaomfartyg.nu/stockholm_1948.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> In seeking to justify the policy, Deakin said he believed that the Japanese and Chinese<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=REN8gTardCUC&q=Japanese+Chinese+good+qualities&pg=PA12|title=Culture and Customs of Australia|last=Clancy|first=Laurie|date=2004|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32169-6|language=en|access-date=22 November 2020|archive-date=12 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812204304/https://books.google.com/books?id=REN8gTardCUC&q=Japanese+Chinese+good+qualities&pg=PA12|url-status=live}}</ref> might be a threat to the newly formed federation and it was this belief that led to legislation to ensure they would be kept out:<blockquote>It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schaffer|first=Kay |date=June 2001 |url=http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-June-2001/schaffer.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014042017/http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-June-2001/schaffer.html |archive-date=2008-10-14 |title=Manne's Generation: White Nation Responses to the Stolen Generation Report |journal=Australian Humanities Review |access-date=18 December 2008}} ([https://web.archive.org/web/20100427153016/http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-June-2001/schaffer2.html part 2])</ref></blockquote>Early drafts of the act explicitly banned non-Europeans from migrating to Australia but objections from the British government, which feared that such a measure would offend British subjects in India and Britain's allies in Japan, caused the Barton government to remove this wording. Instead, a "dictation test" was introduced as a device for excluding unwanted immigrants. Immigration officials were given the power to exclude any person who failed to pass a 50-word dictation test. At first this was to be in any European language, but was later changed to include ''any'' language.  The tests were given in such a way as to make them impossible to pass. If a person seemed likely to pass in English then a test in another language could be given. Attlee Hunt, the first administrator of the Immigration Restriction Act expressed it clearly in a 1903 memo to all Customs Officers: "It is not desirable that persons should be allowed to past the test, and before putting it to anyone the Officer should be satisfied that he will fail. If he is considered likely to pass the test if put in English, it should be applied in some other language of which he is ignorant."<ref>
{{cite book
 | author= Michael Williams
 | title=  Australia's Dictation Test: The Test it was a Crime to Fail | page= 77
 | publisher= Brill | year= 2021
 | isbn= 978-90-04-47110-8
}}</ref>

The legislation found strong support in the new [[Australian Parliament]], with arguments ranging from economic protection to outright racism. The Labor Party wanted to protect "white" jobs and pushed for more explicit restrictions. A few politicians spoke of the need to avoid hysterical treatment of the question. Member of Parliament Bruce Smith said he had "no desire to see low-class Indians, Chinamen or Japanese...swarming into this country... But there is obligation...not (to) unnecessarily offend the educated classes of those nations"<ref>Bruce Smith (Free Trade Party) Parliamentary Debates cited in D.M. Gibb (1973)'' The Making of White Australia''.p.113. Victorian Historical Association. ISBN</ref> [[Norman Cameron (politician)|Norman Cameron]], a [[Free Trade Party]] member from Tasmania, expressed a rare note of dissension:

{{blockquote|[N]o race on... this earth has been treated in a more shameful manner than have the Chinese.... They were forced at the point of a bayonet to admit Englishmen... into China. Now if we compel them to admit our people... why in the name of justice should we refuse to admit them here?<ref>Donald Norman Cameron (Free Trade Party) Parliamentary Debates, cited in D.M. Gibb (1973)p.112</ref>||source=}}

Outside parliament, Australia's first Catholic [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|cardinal]], [[Patrick Francis Moran]] was politically active and denounced anti-Chinese legislation as "un-Christian".<ref>{{cite book|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moran-patrick-francis-7648|title=Australian Dictionary of Biography|first=A. E.|last=Cahill|chapter=Moran, Patrick Francis (1830–1911)|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|via=Australian Dictionary of Biography|access-date=11 April 2018|archive-date=25 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525224814/http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moran-patrick-francis-7648|url-status=live}}</ref> The popular press mocked the Cardinal's position and the small European population of Australia generally supported the legislation and remained fearful of being overwhelmed by an influx of non-British migrants from the vastly different cultures of the highly populated nations to Australia's north.

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 imposed a dictation test, in any European language, for any non-European migrant to Australia. The immigration officer (Customs until 1949) could choose any language, which effectively meant that the officer had the power to restrict the immigration of any individual.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 {{!}} naa.gov.au|url=https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-citizenship/immigration-restriction-act-1901|access-date=2022-02-11|website=www.naa.gov.au|archive-date=22 April 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220422235143/https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-citizenship/immigration-restriction-act-1901|url-status=live}}</ref> Further discriminatory legislation was the Postal and Telegraph Services Act 1901 (1 Edward VII 12 1901), which required any ship carrying mail to and from Australia to only have a white crew.<ref name="BRL10-3">{{cite book |last1= Lawrence |first1= David Russell |title= The Naturalist and his "Beautiful Islands": Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific |date= October 2014 |publisher= ANU Press |isbn= 978-1-925022-03-2 |page= 287 |chapter= Chapter 10 The critical question of labour |chapter-url= http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch102.pdf |access-date= 31 March 2019 |archive-date= 12 August 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190812061619/http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch102.pdf |url-status= live }}</ref>

====Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901====
In 1901, there were approximately 9,800 Pacific Islander labourers in Queensland. In 1901, the Australian parliament passed the [[Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901]] (1 Edward VII 16 1901).<ref name="BRL9-1" /> The result of these statutes was that 7,500 Pacific Islanders (called "[[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanakas]]") working mostly on plantations in Queensland were deported, and entry into Australia by Pacific Islanders was prohibited after 1904.<ref name="BRL10">{{cite book |last1= Lawrence |first1= David Russell |title= The Naturalist and his "Beautiful Islands": Charles Morris Woodford in the Western Pacific |date= October 2014 |publisher= ANU Press |isbn= 978-1-925022-03-2 |pages= 295–296 |chapter= Chapter 10 The critical question of labour |chapter-url= http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch102.pdf |access-date= 31 March 2019 |archive-date= 12 August 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190812061619/http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p298111/pdf/ch102.pdf |url-status= live }}</ref> Those exempted from repatriation, along with a number of others who escaped deportation, remained in Australia to form the basis of what is today Australia's largest non-indigenous black ethnic group. Today, the descendants of those who remained are officially referred to as [[South Sea Islanders]].<ref name="AHRC">Tracey Flanagan, Meredith Wilkie, and Susanna Iuliano. [http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/Erace/south_sea.html "Australian South Sea Islanders: A Century of Race Discrimination under Australian Law"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110314080249/http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/Erace/south_sea.html |date=14 March 2011 }}, Australian Human Rights Commission.</ref>

====Exemption for Māori====

Māori generally benefited from the same immigration and voting rights as [[New Zealand European|European New Zealanders]] in Australia, making them a notable exception to the White Australia Policy. In 1902, with the ''[[Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902|Commonwealth Franchise Act]]'', Māori residents in Australia were [[Māori voting rights in Australia|granted the right to vote]], a right denied to [[Indigenous Australians]]. During that same period, their right to settle in Australia was facilitated by their shared status as [[British subjects]].<ref name="Emigration">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/MaoriOverseas/2/en|title=Māori overseas: Emigration to Australia|encyclopedia=[[Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand]]|access-date=28 January 2020|archive-date=9 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209113512/http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/MaoriOverseas/2/en|url-status=live}}</ref> The Australian government granted equal rights to Māori only reluctantly. In 1905, the New Zealand government made a formal complaint about the exclusion of two Māori shearers, after which the Australian government changed its customs regulations to allow Māori to freely enter the country. Other Pacific Islanders were still subject to the White Australia Policy.<ref name=hamer>{{cite news|url=https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/unsophisticated-and-unsuited|title=Unsophisticated and unsuited|first=Paul|last=Hamer|publisher=National Library of New Zealand|date=27 August 2015|access-date=23 March 2019|archive-date=28 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128023403/https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/unsophisticated-and-unsuited|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Paris Peace Conference===
[[File:Keep Australia White.jpg|thumb|right|"Keep Australia White" poster used during the [[1917 Australian conscription referendum|1917 conscription referendum]]. The "No" campaign claimed that conscripted soldiers sent overseas would be replaced by non-white labour. ]]
At the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|1919 Paris Peace Conference]] following the [[First World War]], Japan sought to include a [[Racial Equality Proposal|racial equality clause]] in the [[Covenant of the League of Nations]]. Japanese policy reflected their desire to remove or to ease the immigration restrictions against Japanese (especially in the United States and Canada), which Japan regarded as a humiliation and affront to its prestige.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Best We Forget. The War for White Australia,1914–1918|last=Cochrane|first=Peter|publisher=TextPublishing|year=2018|location=Melbourne|pages=201–210}}</ref>

Australian Prime Minister [[Billy Hughes]] was already concerned by the prospect of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Australia, Japan and New Zealand had seized the [[German colonial empire|Germany's Pacific territories]] in the early stages of the war and Hughes was concerned to retain [[German New Guinea]] as vital to the defence of Australia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Printer/D879E4837E327092CA256A99001B7456?OpenDocument|title=Remembering the war in New Guinea – Why were the Japanese were in New Guinea|website=ajrp.awm.gov.au|access-date=22 October 2017|archive-date=10 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110050620/http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Printer/D879E4837E327092CA256A99001B7456?OpenDocument|url-status=live}}</ref> The treaty ultimately granted Australia a League of Nations Mandate over German New Guinea and Japan to the [[South Seas Mandate]] immediately to its north – thus bringing Australian and Japanese territory to a shared border – a situation altered only by Japan's Second World War invasion of New Guinea.

Hughes vehemently opposed Japan's racial equality proposition. Hughes recognised that such a clause would be a threat to White Australia and made it clear to British prime minister [[David Lloyd George]] that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted. Hughes wrote in 1919: "No Govt. could live for a day in Australia if it tempered with a White Australia".<ref name="MacMillan319">{{cite book|last=MacMillan|first=Margaret|author-link=Margaret MacMillan|title=Paris 1919: Six Months that changed the World|title-link=Peacemakers (book)|year=2002|publisher=Random House|location=New York|isbn=0-375-50826-0|page=319|chapter=Japan and Racial Equality}}</ref> Hughes wrote a note to Colonel [[Edward M. House]] of the American delegation: "It may be all right. But sooner than agree to it I would walk into the Seine-or the Folies Bergeres-with my clothes off".<ref name="MacMillan319"/> Hughes did offer the compromise that he would support the Racial Equality Clause provided that it did not affect immigration, an offer the Japanese rejected.<ref name="MacMillan319"/> When the proposal failed, Hughes reported in the Australian parliament:<blockquote>The White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please, but at any rate, the soldiers have achieved the victory and my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back to you from the conference, as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted.<ref name="australian_story">{{cite web
|url=http://www.abc.net.au:80/100years/EP2_3.htm
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101071337/http://www.abc.net.au:80/100years/EP2_3.htm
|archive-date=1 January 2017
|date= 21 March 2001
|title=100 Years: The Australia Story. Episode 2: Rise and Fall of White Australia
|publisher =Australian Broadcasting Commission
|access-date =29 January 2007
}}</ref></blockquote>