The first inhabitants in Australia were the ancestors of the present indigenous people. Whether these first migrations involved one or several successive waves and distinct peoples is still subject to academic debate, as is its … See more

The discovery of gold, beginning in 1851 first near Bathurst in New South Wales and then in the newly formed colony of Victoria, transformed … See more

One of the motives for creating a federated Australia was the need for a common immigration policy. There was much resistance to Chinese immigration and the use of indentured … See more

During the 1970s and 1980s around 120,000 southern Asian refugees migrated to Australia. During that twenty years, Australia first began … See more

After the loss of the United States, Britain experienced overcrowding of its prisons and sought to ease the problems by transportation of its prisoners. In 1787 the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 1350 people under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip sailed … See more

After World War II, Australia believed that it must increase its population to avoid the threat of another invasion and launched an immigration program whose goal was to increase Australia's population with the slogan "populate or perish". Hundreds of thousands of … See more

In the early 1990s Australian immigration legislation was changed dramatically, introducing the concept of mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals, who were popularly referred to as boat people. With a sharp rise in unauthorised boat arrivals in the late … See more