WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.240 Imagine, just for a second, that you are tasked 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:06.980 with intentionally engineering the entire demographic 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:09.339 makeup of a continent. Right. And I don't just 00:00:09.339 --> 00:00:11.140 mean, you know, nudging it a little bit to the 00:00:11.140 --> 00:00:12.800 left or right. I mean, essentially trying to 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:14.439 build it from the ground up. Like a blank slate. 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:18.359 Exactly. Deciding exactly who gets to come, where 00:00:18.359 --> 00:00:22.000 they're originally from, and what specific jobs 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.760 they're going to do once they step off the boat. 00:00:24.010 --> 00:00:26.350 It really does sound like the plot of some dystopian 00:00:26.350 --> 00:00:28.250 science fiction novel, doesn't it? It totally 00:00:28.250 --> 00:00:32.270 does. But we are doing a deep dive today into 00:00:32.270 --> 00:00:35.969 a time and a place where... this massive societal 00:00:35.969 --> 00:00:38.909 engineering project actually happened. Our mission 00:00:38.909 --> 00:00:42.909 today is to explore how a really potent mix of 00:00:42.909 --> 00:00:46.250 post -war panic, some truly massive logistical 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:49.289 failures, and, well, one of the most ambitious 00:00:49.289 --> 00:00:51.710 construction projects in human history, completely 00:00:51.710 --> 00:00:54.409 and entirely accidentally transformed Australia's 00:00:54.409 --> 00:00:56.729 national identity. It really is a staggering 00:00:56.729 --> 00:00:59.350 sequence of events to look back on. And to guide 00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:01.229 our discussion, you know, help you understand 00:01:01.229 --> 00:01:03.899 how this all unfolded, we are drawing on... a 00:01:03.899 --> 00:01:07.219 highly comprehensive historical overview. Specifically, 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:10.159 we're looking at Wikipedia's heavily sourced 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:13.000 article covering post -war immigration to Australia. 00:01:13.319 --> 00:01:16.180 It gives us this meticulous timeline and a really 00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:19.200 deep demographic breakdown of how this unprecedented 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:22.359 shift actually played out on the ground day by 00:01:22.359 --> 00:01:25.140 day, year by year. It is such a wild layered 00:01:25.140 --> 00:01:27.840 story, too, because it involves everything from 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.359 catchy marketing slogans to literal boats just 00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:33.840 not being available. when a government needed 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:36.400 them. Right. Okay, let's unpack this. We really 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:38.819 have to start our timeline in the immediate aftermath 00:01:38.819 --> 00:01:42.340 of World War II. The globe is trying to put itself 00:01:42.340 --> 00:01:44.319 back together and Australia is looking at its 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.620 own borders with a profound sense of vulnerability. 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:49.560 Absolutely. Set the scene for us. Why was the 00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:53.219 Australian government so on edge in 1945? Well, 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:55.340 to understand anything about modern Australia, 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:57.719 you really have to understand the sheer terror 00:01:57.719 --> 00:01:59.959 that gripped the country during the war. Yeah. 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:01.799 It's easy to look back now and think of it as 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:03.980 just, you know, economic anxiety. But it was 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:05.900 much more visceral than that. You have to remember 00:02:05.900 --> 00:02:08.219 the attacks on Darwin. Right. Because a lot of 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:10.990 people. globally might not realize that the war 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:13.909 actually reached Australian shores. Exactly. 00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:17.330 Imperial Japanese forces actually bombed the 00:02:17.330 --> 00:02:19.509 northern coast of Australia, mainland Australia, 00:02:19.750 --> 00:02:22.729 multiple times. Wow. So within the government 00:02:22.729 --> 00:02:25.310 of Prime Minister Ben Shifley, there was a very 00:02:25.310 --> 00:02:29.169 real palpable fear of a full scale invasion. 00:02:29.629 --> 00:02:32.069 They commissioned a report on their population 00:02:32.069 --> 00:02:35.810 and the conclusion was incredibly stark. Which 00:02:35.810 --> 00:02:39.090 was what? The logic was that Australia was essentially 00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:42.909 a massive empty landmass and they urgently needed 00:02:42.909 --> 00:02:46.110 a larger population simply to survive. It was 00:02:46.110 --> 00:02:48.409 fundamentally about defense. They needed bodies? 00:02:48.689 --> 00:02:50.530 They needed bodies to defend the continent and 00:02:50.530 --> 00:02:53.050 they needed labor to develop the heavy infrastructure 00:02:53.050 --> 00:02:55.389 required to sustain that defense. But they didn't 00:02:55.389 --> 00:02:57.449 just put out a vague call for more people, did 00:02:57.449 --> 00:02:59.870 they? The Chifley government actually set a very 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.449 specific and frankly kind of terrifying mathematical 00:03:02.449 --> 00:03:05.039 goal for the country. They did. They set an an 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:08.819 incredibly ambitious target, a 1 % annual increase 00:03:08.819 --> 00:03:11.460 in the national population. And that was to be 00:03:11.460 --> 00:03:14.219 achieved entirely through immigration. If you 00:03:14.219 --> 00:03:17.180 think about what a 1 % compounding increase means 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:20.340 year over year. It's massive. It places an unbelievable 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:23.219 strain on a nation's housing, its roads, its 00:03:23.219 --> 00:03:26.349 hospitals, its entire society. Right. To try 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:29.389 and manage this chaos, in 1945, they established 00:03:29.389 --> 00:03:31.530 the first ever Federal Department of Immigration. 00:03:31.789 --> 00:03:34.229 And the man they put in charge of this monumental 00:03:34.229 --> 00:03:37.090 task was Arthur Caldwell, the first minister 00:03:37.090 --> 00:03:39.650 for immigration. I have to imagine Caldwell had 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:42.830 a nearly impossible job. He has to somehow sell 00:03:42.830 --> 00:03:46.789 this massive, unending influx of human beings 00:03:46.789 --> 00:03:49.469 to an Australian public that up until that point 00:03:49.469 --> 00:03:52.509 was historically very insular. Very. Very isolated 00:03:52.509 --> 00:03:55.110 and predominantly a British descent. How do you 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:57.289 even... begin to market that kind of disruption 00:03:57.289 --> 00:04:00.069 to everyday people who are probably quite prejudiced 00:04:00.069 --> 00:04:02.250 against outsiders. We lean heavily on fear, to 00:04:02.250 --> 00:04:04.370 be perfectly honest. Oh, wow. Okay. Caldwell 00:04:04.370 --> 00:04:06.270 had to hammer home the existential threat to 00:04:06.270 --> 00:04:08.729 get the public on board, so he utilized a slogan 00:04:08.729 --> 00:04:11.229 that left absolutely no room for debate. The 00:04:11.229 --> 00:04:14.509 phrase was, populate or perish. Populate or perish. 00:04:14.530 --> 00:04:16.589 It does not get much more dramatic than that. 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.019 No, it doesn't. It sounds like a movie tagline. 00:04:19.180 --> 00:04:21.279 Though looking through the source material, I 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:23.220 noticed Caldwell didn't actually invent that 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:25.639 phrase himself, right? That's correct. It was 00:04:25.639 --> 00:04:28.279 originally coined back in the 1930s by Billy 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:30.920 Hughes, who was a former prime minister and the 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:33.639 minister for health and repatriation at the time. 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:36.839 But Caldwell is the one who really weaponized 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:40.040 it for this specific post -war migration push. 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:42.819 But even if you scare the public into agreeing 00:04:42.819 --> 00:04:45.759 that they need more people, you still have the 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.560 issue. of local prejudice. You can't just drop 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:50.939 hundreds of thousands of foreigners into small, 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:54.220 insular towns and expect everything to go smoothly. 00:04:54.420 --> 00:04:56.339 Which leads us to one of the most deliberate 00:04:56.339 --> 00:04:59.160 public relations campaigns in the country's history. 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:02.920 Caldwell knew that if everyday Australians were 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:05.740 openly hostile to the immigrants, the whole 1 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.079 % project would collapse under the weight of 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:11.019 social unrest. What's fascinating here is how 00:05:11.019 --> 00:05:13.100 the government recognized the power of language 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:16.449 in shaping public perception. Caldwell officially 00:05:16.449 --> 00:05:19.370 coined and pushed the term New Australians. New 00:05:19.370 --> 00:05:22.290 Australians. Sounds very welcoming, very optimistic. 00:05:22.569 --> 00:05:25.170 And that was precisely the intended psychological 00:05:25.170 --> 00:05:28.660 effect. The explicit goal of introducing new 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:31.519 Australians to the national vocabulary was to 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.500 actively suppress and replace the derogatory 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:36.720 slurs that locals were throwing around at the 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:41.300 time. Words like balt, palmy, and wog were highly 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.379 prevalent. And the government realized they had 00:05:44.379 --> 00:05:47.519 to linguistically engineer acceptance. You have 00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:50.360 to train the locals on how to view these arrivals 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:53.480 not as foreign threats, but as future citizens. 00:05:53.779 --> 00:05:55.560 But let's be clear about who the government actually 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:57.800 is. wanted these new Australians to be. Because 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.399 at this time, Australia was operating under what 00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:02.360 was known as the White Australia Policy, right? 00:06:02.459 --> 00:06:05.420 They had a highly curated vision for their demographics. 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:07.839 Absolutely. The White Australia Policy was a 00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:10.360 deeply entrenched set of historical policies 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:13.540 that essentially restricted non -white, non -European 00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:15.740 immigration. Okay. So under the Chifley government, 00:06:15.939 --> 00:06:18.319 the absolute overwhelming preference was for 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:21.759 British migrants. Their initial rigid target 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:24.139 was that nine out of every 10 immigrants had 00:06:24.139 --> 00:06:26.730 to be British. Nine out of ten. Nine out of ten. 00:06:27.029 --> 00:06:29.370 They even set up an assisted passage migration 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:32.970 scheme to heavily subsidize the journey for Britons 00:06:32.970 --> 00:06:35.529 just to hit that quota. Here's where it gets 00:06:35.529 --> 00:06:38.490 really interesting, because you can draft all 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:40.610 the rigid policies you want in a government office, 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:44.850 but reality completely collided with their neatly 00:06:44.850 --> 00:06:46.970 drawn plans. Yeah, it really did. They had this 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:49.089 strict nine out of ten rule. Yeah. But what was 00:06:49.089 --> 00:06:52.509 the massive logistical failure that threw a wrench 00:06:52.509 --> 00:06:55.399 into everything? It comes down to maritime logistics. 00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:59.339 Britain had just survived a devastating years 00:06:59.339 --> 00:07:02.319 -long war. Their shipping capacity, their merchant 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:05.120 navy, was severely diminished from pre -war levels. 00:07:05.259 --> 00:07:07.300 So the boats just weren't there. There literally 00:07:07.300 --> 00:07:09.860 were not enough physical boats in existence to 00:07:09.860 --> 00:07:12.060 transport the sheer volume of British people 00:07:12.060 --> 00:07:14.180 required to meet the Australian government's 00:07:14.180 --> 00:07:16.680 massive quota. That is such a profound historical 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:19.490 irony. The policy is legally set. The desire 00:07:19.490 --> 00:07:21.589 from the government is there. But the physical 00:07:21.589 --> 00:07:24.149 reality of boats on the water simply cannot accommodate 00:07:24.149 --> 00:07:26.290 it. Exactly. So if Britain couldn't send the 00:07:26.290 --> 00:07:28.529 ships, where did Australia look? How did they 00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:31.730 keep that 1 % dream alive? This shipping snag 00:07:31.730 --> 00:07:34.389 forced a monumental pivot. To maintain their 00:07:34.389 --> 00:07:36.230 numbers, they had to look beyond Great Britain. 00:07:36.589 --> 00:07:39.389 They turned to the international refugee organization, 00:07:39.730 --> 00:07:42.649 the IRO. And to solve the boat problem, the United 00:07:42.649 --> 00:07:45.029 States stepped in to provide the necessary shipping. 00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:49.129 Suddenly, Australia began bringing in... tens 00:07:49.129 --> 00:07:51.649 of thousands of displaced persons from Eastern 00:07:51.649 --> 00:07:54.350 Europe. And the scale of this pit is just staggering. 00:07:54.610 --> 00:07:56.310 Give us a sense of the numbers we are talking 00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:58.449 about here with these European refugees. To give 00:07:58.449 --> 00:08:00.829 you an idea of the sheer velocity, from the end 00:08:00.829 --> 00:08:04.129 of World War II up to the end of 1954, Australia 00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:09.170 resettled 182 ,159 people sponsored by the IRO. 00:08:09.389 --> 00:08:12.129 Wow. To put that in historical perspective, that 00:08:12.129 --> 00:08:14.290 is more people than the total number of convicts 00:08:14.290 --> 00:08:16.589 transported to Australia in the entire first 00:08:16.589 --> 00:08:18.910 80 years of European... settlement. Wait, more 00:08:18.910 --> 00:08:21.829 Eastern European refugees in less than a decade 00:08:21.829 --> 00:08:24.050 than eight decades of British convict ships. 00:08:24.290 --> 00:08:27.189 Yes. That is a mind blowing statistic. But why 00:08:27.189 --> 00:08:29.389 these specific refugees? Did the government just 00:08:29.389 --> 00:08:32.100 take anyone the IRO offered? Not at all. It's 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:33.740 important to view this through the political 00:08:33.740 --> 00:08:36.120 lens of the era. The source highlights that the 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.299 government wasn't just looking for warm bodies. 00:08:38.500 --> 00:08:41.360 They applied a very deliberate political filter. 00:08:41.620 --> 00:08:44.259 Which was? Many of these displaced persons from 00:08:44.259 --> 00:08:46.799 Eastern Europe were actively fleeing the Red 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:50.100 Army. Because of that experience, they were staunchly 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:52.840 anti -communist. From the perspective of the 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:55.120 Australian government, which was heavily gripped 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:58.139 by Cold War anxieties, this made them highly 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:00.600 politically acceptable. Okay, so picture... you 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:02.720 this for a moment. You were one of these displaced 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:04.700 persons. You survived the war in Europe. You 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:07.000 boarded a U .S. ship and you finally arrive in 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.220 Australia. What actually happens when you get 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:11.100 off the boat? It's not like you just stroll into 00:09:11.100 --> 00:09:13.259 a suburb, get a mortgage and start working at 00:09:13.259 --> 00:09:15.820 the local bakery. Far from it. The government 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:19.440 established a massive, sprawling system of migrant 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:21.860 reception and training centers to process these 00:09:21.860 --> 00:09:25.000 arrivals. The very first one, and ultimately 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.820 the most famous and largest, opened in December 00:09:27.820 --> 00:09:31.620 1947 in rural Victoria. It was called Bonagilla. 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:35.159 Bonagilla. I try to imagine the sensory shock 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:38.639 of that experience for you. Coming from a freezing, 00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:41.919 war -torn European city, and suddenly you are 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.580 placed in a former military camp in the Australian 00:09:44.580 --> 00:09:47.600 bush. Yeah. Corrugated iron huts, oppressive 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:51.129 heat, dust everywhere. What was the actual processing 00:09:51.129 --> 00:09:54.059 routine like inside these camps? It was essentially 00:09:54.059 --> 00:09:57.120 an assimilation factory. Bonagilla operated all 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:00.799 the way until 1971, and over 300 ,000 migrants 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:02.919 passed through its gates. That's a lot of people. 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:05.559 The routine was strict. You would receive a general 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:08.139 medical examination and an x -ray. They would 00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:10.159 issue you necessary clothing if you had none. 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:12.120 You'd receive your initial social service payments. 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:14.539 Makes sense. But most importantly, this is where 00:10:14.539 --> 00:10:16.700 you received mandatory instruction in the English 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:19.200 language and the so -called Australian way of 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:21.830 life. Finally, you were interviewed to determine 00:10:21.830 --> 00:10:24.029 your employment potential, and the government 00:10:24.029 --> 00:10:26.309 would effectively assign you a job. I read in 00:10:26.309 --> 00:10:28.710 the source notes that the sheer volume of arrivals 00:10:28.710 --> 00:10:31.090 was actually tearing families apart logistically. 00:10:31.370 --> 00:10:35.299 Yes. By 1951, the government had established 00:10:35.299 --> 00:10:38.059 three of these major reception centers, specifically 00:10:38.059 --> 00:10:40.659 for non -English -speaking displaced persons. 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:43.539 But they also had to build 20 separate holding 00:10:43.539 --> 00:10:46.059 centers. Why holding centers? These were primarily 00:10:46.059 --> 00:10:48.340 used to house non -working dependents' mothers 00:10:48.340 --> 00:10:50.820 and children because the men were immediately 00:10:50.820 --> 00:10:53.740 sent off to remote areas for labor, and the infrastructure 00:10:53.740 --> 00:10:56.179 just didn't exist to house whole families together 00:10:56.179 --> 00:10:58.279 at the work sites. So you have families separated, 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:00.659 hundreds of thousands of non -English speakers 00:11:00.659 --> 00:11:03.820 arriving, and local towns hearing foreign languages 00:11:03.820 --> 00:11:06.740 in their shops for the first time. How on earth 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:08.980 did the government keep the Australian public 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:11.259 from completely turning against this program? 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:14.500 They ran a highly calculated, continuous public 00:11:14.500 --> 00:11:17.080 relations campaign. They knew large numbers were 00:11:17.080 --> 00:11:19.139 intimidating, so they constantly humanized the 00:11:19.139 --> 00:11:21.399 migration scheme by celebrating very specific 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:24.139 historical milestones in the press. I found the 00:11:24.139 --> 00:11:26.059 marketing of this to be so fascinating. It was 00:11:26.059 --> 00:11:28.789 incredibly strategic. It was. For example, in 00:11:28.789 --> 00:11:32.250 August 1949, there was massive media fanfare 00:11:32.250 --> 00:11:36.370 surrounding the 50 ,000th New Australian, specifically 00:11:36.370 --> 00:11:39.870 the 50 ,000th displaced person sponsored by the 00:11:39.870 --> 00:11:42.830 IRO. And who was it? It wasn't a burly laborer. 00:11:42.850 --> 00:11:45.549 They chose a little girl from Riga, Latvia. You 00:11:45.549 --> 00:11:47.629 can imagine the sympathetic photos in the newspapers. 00:11:48.389 --> 00:11:51.730 Then, a few years later, in 1954, they threw 00:11:51.730 --> 00:11:54.110 a massive celebration for the arrival of the 00:11:54.110 --> 00:11:57.309 50 ,000th Dutch migrant. but the real crowning 00:11:57.309 --> 00:11:59.610 PR achievement. The one that really shows the 00:11:59.610 --> 00:12:02.009 government's underlying anxieties happened the 00:12:02.009 --> 00:12:03.590 following year, right? When they hit the one 00:12:03.590 --> 00:12:06.830 millionth post -war immigrant. Exactly. In 1955, 00:12:07.070 --> 00:12:09.629 Australia welcomed its one millionth post -war 00:12:09.629 --> 00:12:12.490 immigrant. But for this massive milestone, the 00:12:12.490 --> 00:12:14.269 government did not choose a displaced person 00:12:14.269 --> 00:12:16.730 from Eastern Europe. They chose Barbara Porritt, 00:12:16.830 --> 00:12:19.049 a 21 -year -old newlywed from the United Kingdom. 00:12:19.230 --> 00:12:21.990 It was a deeply calculated choice intended to 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:24.129 reassure a nervous public that the traditional 00:12:24.129 --> 00:12:26.210 British connection was still the ultimate priority, 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:28.399 even though the actual... demographics of who 00:12:28.399 --> 00:12:30.159 was arriving were rapidly shifting away from 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:32.700 that. And those demographics really were shifting 00:12:32.700 --> 00:12:35.620 dramatically. As we move out of the Chipley era 00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:38.299 and into the 1950s, Prime Minister Robert Menzies 00:12:38.299 --> 00:12:42.019 takes over in 1949. That original 9 out of 10 00:12:42.019 --> 00:12:44.580 British plan completely falls apart, doesn't 00:12:44.580 --> 00:12:46.620 it? It completely fractures. The British did 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:48.980 remain the largest single component of arrivals 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:53.610 until about 1953. But between 1953 and late 1956, 00:12:54.169 --> 00:12:56.629 migrants coming from southern Europe, places 00:12:56.629 --> 00:13:00.870 like Italy and Greece, actually began outnumbering 00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:02.590 the British arrivals. And how did the government 00:13:02.590 --> 00:13:05.649 react to their own policy suddenly outpacing 00:13:05.649 --> 00:13:08.190 their cultural comfort zone? With genuine alarm, 00:13:08.529 --> 00:13:11.200 the government panicked. In response to this 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:13.580 demographic shift, they actively placed harsh 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:15.879 restrictions on Southern Europeans who were trying 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:17.539 to sponsor their family members to come over. 00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:20.220 Concurrently, they poured money into aggressive 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:22.700 marketing campaigns specifically designed to 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:25.039 boost British numbers. This is when you see the 00:13:25.039 --> 00:13:27.440 launch of the Bring Out a Britain campaign. This 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:29.379 is also the era of the famous 10 -pound palms, 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:31.419 right? Explain what that actually means for someone 00:13:31.419 --> 00:13:33.980 who has never heard that term. Palm, or palmy, 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:36.919 is colloquial Australian slang for a British 00:13:36.919 --> 00:13:40.190 person. The 10 pound part refers to an assisted 00:13:40.190 --> 00:13:43.289 passage scheme where British citizens could migrate 00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:45.669 to Australia for the heavily subsidized costs 00:13:45.669 --> 00:13:48.370 of just 10 British pounds. That's nothing. The 00:13:48.370 --> 00:13:50.450 government was practically paying them to come 00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:53.169 just to balance out the southern Europeans. So 00:13:53.169 --> 00:13:56.049 what does this all mean? The government is panicking 00:13:56.049 --> 00:13:58.370 about the influx of Southern Europeans. They 00:13:58.370 --> 00:14:00.629 are actively restricting their entry and they 00:14:00.629 --> 00:14:03.289 are practically begging British people to come 00:14:03.289 --> 00:14:06.450 for 10 pounds. Yet they continue to bring the 00:14:06.450 --> 00:14:08.850 Europeans in. Why keep bringing them if it's 00:14:08.850 --> 00:14:11.690 causing such immense political anxiety? It comes 00:14:11.690 --> 00:14:14.370 down to the brutal, unforgiving reality of nation 00:14:14.370 --> 00:14:17.529 building. The source material is quite explicit 00:14:17.529 --> 00:14:20.610 about the government's internal logic. A 1958 00:14:20.610 --> 00:14:23.129 government leaflet was distributed to assure 00:14:23.129 --> 00:14:26.370 nervous voters, and it bluntly stated that unskilled 00:14:26.370 --> 00:14:28.590 non -British migrants were absolutely necessary 00:14:28.590 --> 00:14:31.690 for what they termed rugged projects. Rugged 00:14:31.690 --> 00:14:33.350 projects. That sounds like code for something 00:14:33.350 --> 00:14:36.909 awful. It was code for backbreaking labor. The 00:14:36.909 --> 00:14:39.230 leaflet stated these migrants were brought in 00:14:39.230 --> 00:14:41.490 to do the work that was, quote, not generally 00:14:41.490 --> 00:14:43.750 acceptable to Australians or British workers. 00:14:44.110 --> 00:14:46.669 The government needed a captive workforce that 00:14:46.669 --> 00:14:49.549 was in no position to say no to dangerous, isolated 00:14:49.549 --> 00:14:53.110 labor. And there is absolutely no project more 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:56.210 rugged, more dangerous or more emblematic of 00:14:56.210 --> 00:14:58.710 this entire era than the Snowy Mountains scheme. 00:14:59.129 --> 00:15:01.649 Without a doubt. The Snowy Mountains scheme remains 00:15:01.649 --> 00:15:04.490 the largest engineering project ever undertaken 00:15:04.490 --> 00:15:08.370 in Australia. Constructed between 1949 and 1974, 00:15:08.830 --> 00:15:11.769 it is a massive hydroelectricity and irrigation 00:15:11.769 --> 00:15:14.570 complex located in the freezing mountainous southeast 00:15:14.570 --> 00:15:16.730 of the country. Right. We are talking about the 00:15:16.730 --> 00:15:19.809 construction of 16 major dams, seven power stations, 00:15:19.909 --> 00:15:23.330 and over 140 kilometers of tunnels blasted through 00:15:23.330 --> 00:15:26.110 solid granite. The scale of human capital required 00:15:26.110 --> 00:15:28.570 to build something like that in the 1950s is 00:15:28.570 --> 00:15:30.450 hard to wrap your head around. How many people 00:15:30.450 --> 00:15:32.789 did it take? It required the employment of over 00:15:32.789 --> 00:15:35.490 100 ,000 people over its lifespan. And these 00:15:35.490 --> 00:15:38.009 workers were living in incredibly isolated, often 00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:40.470 freezing, makeshift camps. And they came from 00:15:40.470 --> 00:15:42.730 over 30 different countries. Incredible. You 00:15:42.730 --> 00:15:45.110 had men who had been shooting at each other in 00:15:45.110 --> 00:15:47.809 Europe just a few years prior now working shoulder 00:15:47.809 --> 00:15:49.950 to shoulder in the mud. And this is where the 00:15:49.950 --> 00:15:52.889 demographic reality hits the hardest. Of those 00:15:52.889 --> 00:15:56.330 100 ,000 workers blasting tunnels and pouring 00:15:56.330 --> 00:16:01.259 concrete, 70 % of them were migrants. 70%. That 00:16:01.259 --> 00:16:03.820 statistic is precisely why the snowy mountain 00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:06.559 scheme is widely considered by historians to 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:09.259 denote the actual birth of multicultural Australia. 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:11.940 The government may have desperately wanted a 00:16:11.940 --> 00:16:14.700 purely British migration wave, but it was the 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:17.120 sweat and labor of southern and central Europeans 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.820 that literally powered the modernization of the 00:16:19.820 --> 00:16:22.000 country. Yeah. They overcame immense language 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.679 barriers and brutal conditions to build the infrastructure 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:27.240 of the future. It is the ultimate example of 00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:29.519 policy intentions meeting ground level reality. 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:32.690 The post -war wave of predominantly European 00:16:32.690 --> 00:16:35.850 immigration kept reshaping the country's food, 00:16:35.929 --> 00:16:39.009 its culture, and its cities for decades. But 00:16:39.009 --> 00:16:41.549 eventually, this specific, heavily curated era 00:16:41.549 --> 00:16:44.750 of policy had to come to an end. When does the 00:16:44.750 --> 00:16:47.049 book close on this chapter? The historic shift 00:16:47.049 --> 00:16:51.279 occurred in 1973. By this time, Gough Whitlam 00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:53.899 is the prime minister. Under his government, 00:16:54.059 --> 00:16:57.299 Australia finally adopted a completely non -discriminatory 00:16:57.299 --> 00:17:00.279 immigration policy. A huge change. This effectively 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:03.360 and officially put an end to long -standing white 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:05.519 Australia policy that had historically restricted 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:08.359 people from non -European or mixed race backgrounds. 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:12.140 The 1973 policy change closed the book on the 00:17:12.140 --> 00:17:15.140 strictly European -focused post -war wave, and 00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:17.180 it permanently opened the door to the contemporary 00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:19.740 wave of predominantly Asian immigration that 00:17:19.740 --> 00:17:22.460 continues to shape the country today. If we connect 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:24.819 this to the bigger picture, looking at where 00:17:24.819 --> 00:17:27.240 Australia is right now really makes those early 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:30.180 post -war numbers look like just a prologue to 00:17:30.180 --> 00:17:32.259 a much larger story. Remember that terrifying 00:17:32.259 --> 00:17:35.579 Chifley era goal of a 1 % annual increase. What 00:17:35.579 --> 00:17:37.380 does the scale of immigration look like in the 00:17:37.380 --> 00:17:39.799 modern era? The numbers today dwarf those early 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.880 years. In September 2022, the Albanese government 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:45.000 increased the permanent migration intake cap 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.920 to 195 ,000 hours a year, primarily to ease post 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:51.279 -pandemic workforce shortages. But the actual 00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:54.799 net overseas migration figure for the 2022 -23 00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:59.420 period hit a staggering 536 ,000 people. That 00:17:59.420 --> 00:18:02.079 is the highest in Australian history. Half a 00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:04.640 million people in a single year. It demonstrates 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:07.460 how deeply ingrained immigration has become in 00:18:07.460 --> 00:18:09.539 the economic DNA of the country. Absolutely. 00:18:09.779 --> 00:18:12.519 From the existential dread of invasion in 1945 00:18:12.519 --> 00:18:15.579 to the complex workforce shortage calculations 00:18:15.579 --> 00:18:19.059 of 2022, the reliance on overseas arrivals to 00:18:19.059 --> 00:18:21.779 sustain, build, and grow the nation has remained 00:18:21.779 --> 00:18:24.599 a constant. The origins of those arrivals have 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:27.440 drastically, wonderfully shifted, but the fundamental 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:30.000 need for people has not. It is an incredible 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.019 journey for you to think about. An initiative 00:18:32.019 --> 00:18:34.539 that was born entirely out of wartime fear, a 00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:37.480 rigid defense strategy, and a deeply held prejudiced 00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:39.799 desire to remain completely British accidentally 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:41.640 seeded one of the most vibrant multicultural 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:43.720 societies on the planet. Yeah, it really did. 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:46.400 And it was all heavily driven by the sheer unyielding 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:48.900 labor demands of nation -building projects so 00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:51.859 massive, so necessary, that they simply overrode 00:18:51.859 --> 00:18:53.799 the very prejudices of the people who commissioned 00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:56.869 them. It's a profound historical irony. And as 00:18:56.869 --> 00:18:59.369 we wrap up our analysis of these sources, this 00:18:59.369 --> 00:19:01.109 raises an important question for you to mull 00:19:01.109 --> 00:19:03.809 over. Think back to that crucial turning point 00:19:03.809 --> 00:19:07.089 early in our timeline, the shipping snag. If 00:19:07.089 --> 00:19:09.670 post -war Britain had not suffered such severe 00:19:09.670 --> 00:19:11.950 shipping shortages, Australia might have easily 00:19:11.950 --> 00:19:15.470 met its strict 9 out of 10 British quota. Could 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:17.849 it be that a simple lack of available boats is 00:19:17.849 --> 00:19:20.670 the true accidental architect of modern Australian 00:19:20.670 --> 00:19:23.049 multiculturalism? And it makes you wonder what 00:19:23.049 --> 00:19:25.589 other massive defining cultural shifts in human 00:19:25.589 --> 00:19:28.329 history were actually just the result of a logistical 00:19:28.329 --> 00:19:28.750 failure.