The Press SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1966. Race And Colour In Australia

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1966. Race And Colour In Australia

Although the new rules governing the migration of non-Europeans to Australia will not lead to a flood of Asian immigrants, they represent a significant retreat from the “ White Australia ” policy of earlier years. The announcement by the Minister for Immigration (Mr Hubert Opperman) of the new rules should do much to answer the criticisms in Asian countries of Australia’s immigration policy. Curiously, these criticisms are not all directed towards the restrictions on immigrants; several countries have protested at their loss of skilled or professional workers to Australia. While opening its doors to more non-Europeans, therefore, Australia will take care not to offend the governments of developing countries by robbing them of too many skilled skilled workers.

The new immigration policy will do much to improve Australia's “ image ” abroad, as will the new awareness of Australians of the problems of the aboriginals. The decision of the Commonwealth Arbitration Commission that full-blooded aboriginals employed in the Northern Territory’s cattle industry shall receive, by gradual improvement over three years, the same pay and privileges as white workers receive, represents an important advance toward the goal of full racial integration. The aboriginals are gradually becoming more widely dispersed in Australia; but the largest aggregation of full-blooded aboriginals—about 20,000 —is in the Northern Territory. It is an odd feature of the Constitution that the Federal Government is unable to legislate for the aboriginal people as a whole. According to their place of abode, they are subject to laws enacted by the six State Governments; and these vary in such startling degree, as has frequently been pointed out, that a person who legally is an ordinary citizen in one State may be classed as a native in another.

South Australia appears to be leading the civil rights movement, aimed at the political and social emancipation of the coloured people. Progress on a nation-wide scale, however, is likely to be slow because of public apathy on the one hand and, on the other, the divergent aims of policy in the various States. In South Australia there are provisions for the transfer of Crown lands to an Aboriginal Land Trust and for the allotment to native owners or leaseholders of 20-acre blocks for growing citrus fruits. The New South Wales Government is endeavouring to improve native housing, on the reserves and in fringe areas around country towns, where natives live in conditions often described as deplorable. The problem of social improvement is not made easier by the fact that the native groups differ widely in character and in aspirations. Some are apparently content to live in the primitive environment of the reserves. Others, an increasing minority, are seeking education at university level and revealing considerable talent in art and music.

Many in the latter category do not wish the processes of assimilation to be carried to the stage where their aboriginal identity might virtually disappear in a more or less common mould. Last year a conference of State and Federal Native Affairs Ministers looked closely at this aspect of the problem, and concluded that the natives should have the right to fix for themselves the manner and degree of their absorption into the general community. The South Australian Government, for instance, has said that its aim will be integration rather than assimilation. This principle appears to be finding fairly general acceptance throughout the Commonwealth, not merely as affecting the native peoples, but as embracing the coloured population as a whole. Australia now has a coloured or part-coloured population estimated as high as 160,000. Immigration has resulted in the creation of a sizeable Asian community. Development programmes in New Guinea and Papua are also improving the education and skills of the natives, to the extent that they are seeking the right to find employment in Australia. No doubt the process of liberalising the old “ White Australia ” policy will continue. Thousands of Asian students have gone through Australian universities in recent years; but a major aim of policy will obviously be to ensure that white immigrants continue vastly to exceed the non-white. Quite apart from the special case of her aboriginal people, Australia clearly has the right to determine her own ethnic composition.