85
Australia: The Impetus to Receive
After World War 2, as the Italian government dealt with the country’s high
unemployment, the Australian Government faced
its own economic, as well as defence
issues which had emerged closer to home. Australia's leaders were convinced that the
country could no longer rely on Britain for its security because of the Japanese victories in
the Pacific in 1941-42. A larger population, particularly in the north of the country, and a
strong economy with a modern manufacturing sector supported by primary industries were
essential to address these matters.
56
Australia adopted a National Development Scheme to stimulate the country’s post-
war economy.
57
One of the projects under the scheme was the asbestos industry at
Wittenoom Gorge in the north west of Western Australia, which at the same time would
create a presence in the underpopulated north. To implement
their policy the government
introduced an immigration policy to increase the size of the country’s work force, which the
existing population of 7.5 million could not fill.
58
To mitigate working-class Australians’
existing fear and racist attitudes towards immigrants, the first Minister for Immigration, Arthur
Calwell, invoked his now familiar slogan: “Populate or perish”. He warned the Australian
public that "we must fill the country or lose it".
59
Historically in Australia non-British migrants were
personae non gratae. This racist
attitude was consolidated in the Immigration Act of 1901, more commonly known as the
“White Australia” policy. The Act had been introduced in response to the
fear and mistrust of
indentured migrant labour, South Pacific Kanakas and Chinese, recruited to work in the
nascent Queensland sugar industry and the gold rushes during the mid 1850s.
60
By the first
decade of the 1900s this fear and mistrust had extended to Italian people. In the early 1900s
56
Castles, S. (1994), 'Italians in Australia: the Impact of Recent Migration on the Culture and Society
of a Postcolonial Nation', in Tomasi, L. F (ed.),
The Columbus People (New York: Center for Migration
Studies), p. 345.
57
National Archives of Australia, Melbourne: Series number: MP 598/1, Control symbol: 2
Barcode: 942491: Minutes of the first meeting of the Commonwealth Immigration Planning Committee,
18 November, 1949, p. 2.
58
Castles,
Op Cit. p. 349.
59
Ibid. p. 345.
60
Commonwealth of Australia (1994),
Australian Social Trends. Population Growth: Birthplaces of
Australia’s settlers; Australian Bureau of Statistics
86
Italians had replaced the Kanaka workers in the Queensland sugar industry and had joined
the rush to the Western Australian goldfields.
61
Italians were categorized as coming
somewhere between the Chinese and the blacks and therefore “not quite white”.
62
According
to the Italian historian, Cecilia, Italians came in increasing numbers to escape the
approaching threat of the First World War. At this time within union and Labor
parliamentarians’ ranks, accusations of Italians being employed under contract,
taking jobs
from Australians and working for lesser wages in contravention of the 1901 Immigration Act
fuelled racist attitudes in Australian society. The findings of the Western Australian Royal
Commission of 1904 quashed these accusations. Statements from various employers and
unionists decrying these accusations, however, failed to defuse the racist attitudes towards
Italians.
63
In 1919 and again in 1934, riots directed against the Italians flared in the Kalgoorlie
gold fields of Western Australia.
64
The declaration of World War 2
in which Italy had aligned
with Germany did nothing to quell the suspicion and mistrust of Italians. 4,727 Italians, many
now Australian citizens, were declared ‘enemy aliens’ and interned.
65
At the end of the war the announcement of the National Development Scheme,
designed to fill vacancies in jobs Australians refused, continued to stir up racist attitudes.
Given the categorization of Italians as “not quite white”, there was resistance to the
recruitment of southern Europeans considered coarse and ignorant. The Australian
government, accordingly, defined “desirable types” as the British,
followed by the Northern
Europeans, Eastern Europeans and finally southern Europeans, to whom they applied limited
entry quotas.
66
In line with the 1901 Immigration Act, non-Europeans were excluded
altogether. To encourage migration to Australia, in 1949 Calwell visited Oslo,
Copenhagen
61
Cecilia, Op Cit. pp. 232-250, 279-290.
62
Cecilia, Op Cit.
p. 225.
Greenwood, G. (ed.) (1955),
Australia: A Social and Political History
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson), p. 247.
63
Cecilia, Op Cit. pp. 221-225.
64
Bunbury, B. (1997),
Timber for Gold: Life on the Goldfields Woodlines (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts
Centre Press), pp. 35-40. Cecilia, Op Cit.
pp. 228-29.
65
Castles, Op Cit. p. 344. Interview with Sara Merizzi and Rina Tomei, Perth, December 2010. Their
father was interned on Rottnest Island for the duration of the war.
66
Bosworth, Op Cit. p. 613.
87
and Paris, but not Rome. Despite the exclusion of Italians in the Labor government’s initial
plans, Italian migrants continued to arrive independently, albeit in small numbers.
67
As it became evident that Calwell’s policy to target Scandinavian immigrants was
failing to attract sufficient workers, in 1950 the Chairman of the Australian government’s
Immigration Planning Council visited Italy. The northern Italians resembled the fair
Scandinavians, and he had gone to Italy in order to encourage them to come to Australia.
The importance of attracting workers to fill jobs in less desirable industries had forced the
Australian government to actively recruit Italians as one of its main
sources of immigrants,
second only to the British.
68
In March 1951 the government, wary of the Australian public’s
suspicion of Italians, made the announcement of its bi-lateral accord with Italy concurrently
with the Netherlands accord.
69
Italy and the Netherlands were the two countries Australian
Blue Asbestos Limited, the operator of the Wittenoom mine, had approached to recruit
workers for their blue asbestos mine.
70
The Italians who went to Wittenoom arrived in three
discernible waves: in 1950 as displaced persons of World War 2, followed in 1951
by ABA
Limited’s recruits and subsequently the majority who heard about Wittenoom by word of
mouth; many of these were already in Western Australia.
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