page_title: White Australia policy
section_title: Relaxation of restrictions
hierarchical_section_title: White Australia policy / Abolition of the policy / Relaxation of restrictions
caption_attribution_description: Robert Menzies
context_page_description: The term White Australia policy was widely used to encapsulate a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders from immigrating to Australia, starting in 1901. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973.
  Competition in the gold fields between British and Chinese miners, and labour-union opposition to the importation of Pacific Islanders into the sugar plantations of Queensland, reinforced demands to eliminate or minimise low-wage immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands. From the 1850s colonial governments imposed restrictions on family members joining Chinese miners already in Australia. The colonial authorities levied a special tax on Chinese immigrants that other immigrants were exempted from. Towards the end of the 19th century labour unions pushed to stop Chinese immigrants working in the furniture and market garden industries. Australian furniture had to be labelled "Made with Chinese Labour".
context_section_description: Australian policy began to shift towards significantly increasing immigration. Legislative changes over the next few decades continuously opened up immigration in Australia.
  Labor Party Chifley Government:
  1947 The Chifley Labor Government relaxed the Immigration Restriction Act allowing non-Europeans the right to settle permanently in Australia for business reasons.
  Liberal-Country Party Menzies Government (1949–1966):
  1949 Immigration Minister Harold Holt permitted 800 non-European refugees to stay, and Japanese war brides to be admitted.
  1950 External Affairs Minister Percy Spender instigated the Colombo Plan, under which students from Asian countries were admitted to study at Australian universities.
  1957 Non-Europeans with 15 years' residence in Australia were allowed to become citizens.
  1958 Migration Act 1958 abolished the dictation test and introduced a simpler system for entry. Immigration Minister, Sir Alick Downer, announced that 'distinguished and highly qualified Asians' might immigrate.
  1959 Australians were permitted to sponsor Asian spouses for citizenship.
  1964 Conditions of entry for people of non-European stock were relaxed.
  
  This was despite comments Menzies made in a discussion with radio 2UE's Stewart Lamb in 1955, where he appeared to be a defender of the White Australia Policy. 
  (Menzies) "I don't want to see reproduced in Australia the kind of problem they have in South Africa or in America or increasingly in Great Britain. I think it's been a very good policy and it's been of great value to us and most of the criticism of it that I've ever heard doesn't come from these oriental countries it comes from wandering Australians."
  (Lamb) "For these years of course in the past Sir Robert you have been described as a racist."
  (Menzies) "Have I?"
  (Lamb) "I have read this, yes."
  (Menzies) "Well if I were not described as a racist I'd be the only public man who hasn't been."
  In 1963, a paper "Immigration: Control or Colour Bar?" was published by a group of students and academics at Melbourne University. It proposed eliminating the White Australia policy, and was influential towards this end.
caption: Sir Robert Menzies. The Menzies Government abolished the dictation test in 1958.
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