international migration to and from australia

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION TO AND FROM AUSTRALIAAuthor(s): Charles PriceSource: Journal of the Australian Population Association, Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 1984), pp.9-17Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41110669 .

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INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION TO AND FROM AUSTRALIA

Charles Price

The demographic aspects of international migration are often difficult to separate out from the political, social and economic; nor will this article try to do so. The important thing is that in recent years there have been marked changes in the pattern of international migration to and from Australia and that these changes have had considerable demographic, political, social and economic consequences ♦

The first major change has been the adoption of a humanitarian immigration policy which on the one hand rejects discrimination against potential immigrants on grounds of "race, colour, nationality, descent, national or ethnic origin or sex" (Mackellar, 1978), and on the other hand accepts that Australia has a responsibility to held families become reunited and refugees become resettled« Abolition of racial discrimination (the old White Australia Policy) began with moves by the Liberal- Country coalition to allow non -European refugees and business folk in Australia to stay, become citizens and sponsor relatives (1949-56), and to admit numbers of professionally and technically qualified newcomers (1966). But the coalition would extend to non-Europeans neither its normal assisted passage facilities nor its special refugee arrangements; it was left for the Whitlam government to do this by officially adopting non-discriminatory admission policies, subsequently endorsed by both the Fraser and Hawke governments* (We should note that since the 1890s Middle Eastern peoples such as the Armenians, Assyrians and Lebanese have usually been counted as Europeans, largely because of their predominately Christian background.)

This non-discriminatory admission policy also involved the abolition of British preference, hitherto existing in three main areas. First, Britons had been almost the only beneficiaries of government assistance programmes between 1820 and 1940; then, when assistance was extended to continental Europeans in 1947, Britons received better assistance than others until strong Italian protests forced Australia to give everyone the same benefits in 1966-67. Second, Britons received entry permits, or were able if visitors to stay permanently, much more easily than others; the Whitlam government effectively abolished this. Third, British subjects could quickly obtain all the privileges of Australian citizenship without actually becoming citizens - this has been phased out bit by bit since Whitlam days. Now, all immigrants are virtually on the same footing, whatever their origin or nationality; a change which has greatly upset conservative groups such as the Victorian Returned Servicemen's League.

At present, the only preference left is for New Zealanders; this reflects the long-standing Trans-Tasman Agreement whereby Australia and New Zealand agree to let each other's citizens - at times even non-citizen residents - not only enter each other!s territory without restriction but freely compete for employment. Though immigration

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and employment officials have sometimes pressed for abolition of this preference, foreign affairs and trade officials say Australia draws considerable advantages from it, and that the New Zealand net influx, well over 20,000 a year in the late seventies, is now (mid-1984) only 5,000 or so a year. Abolitionists, therefore, had to be content with a 1982 decision to abolish undocumented travel (by requiring New Zealanders to carry passports but not visas) and to confine free movement to New Zealand citizens.

Refugee policy has seen similar changes« Before 1947 there were no special assistance programmes for refugees« Then the Chifley and Menzies governments created assistance arrangements for European refugees such as the 1947-52 Displaced Persons, the 1956 Hungarians and the 1968 Czechs, and also allowed relatives and voluntary societies to bring in Russians from China, Armenians from Egypt, and various groups from the Middle East, under an early form of today's Special Humanitarian Programme. The Whitlam government, though clear in its non- discriminatory policy, was reluctant to do much about the 1975 refugees from Timor and Vietnam - partly because it did not want to upset Jakarta or Hanoi - so simply issued the 1500 or so Timorese boat and plane refugees with temporary permits and selected 500 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Fraser government did more, granting the Timorese permanent residence and lifting Indochinese intake at first to 4,000 a year, then 9,000 (1978) and, after the 1979 Geneva Convention, to 14,000 a year. At the same time it agreed to take some 4,000 refugees from eastern Europe and 1,000 or so more from other parts of the world. It only started to reduce intake - to 12,500 Indochinese in 1982-3 and 2,500 or so eastern Europeans - when refugee numbers abroad began to fall. Meanwhile it made Australia's international position clear by announcing the country's first general refugee policy: "Australia fully recognizes its humanitarian committment to admit refugees for resettlement" and to help international bodies with refugee welfare and repatriation (J. Mackellar to House of Representatives 24.5.1977).

The Hawke government has continued this refugee responsibility. Though declining numbers in refugee camps have enabled it to reduce Indochinese intake to 10,000 in 1983-4 and 8,200 in 1984-5, and east Europeans to 1,000 or so, it is striving to extend the range of refugee work by taking more from Africa and Latin America; also by extending the range of the Special Humanitarian Programme (whereby Australia accepts persons who are not technically refugees but, as victims of civil war and other disaster, are living in refugee conditions, as with many Lebanese and others from the Middle East). The projected intake for 1984-5 is 11,000 refugees, 3,000 S HP and 2,000 contingency reserve for Lebanese, some 16,000 in all.

The other humanitarian programme - family reunion - also has a complex history. Always available to Britons, often with government assistance, and also to Europeans, though with little assistance until the 1950s, it was completely closed to non-European residents between 1902 and 1956; it then became available to them but without assistance until 1973. The categories have also changed. For instance, the wider family sponsorships available to southern Europeans in the late

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1940s was restricted to close dependent relatives in the mid 1950s when the government discovered that more southern Europeans were settling in Australia than Britons; so also with migration from the Middle East a few years later«

With the solid immigration cut-back of Whitlam days all family reunions were restricted to close dependent relatives (spouses, dependent children, aged parents) but, after an enquiry in 1981 and much pressure from large Mediterranean groups in Australia, the Fraser government widened the categories to cover non -dependent children, parents and siblings. Family reunion is now the major immigration category, totalling about 37,000 in 1983-4 and projected for 42,000 in 1984-5.

With this increase in family reunion has gone a marked decrease in economic migration, both in the general eligibility category covering skilled and business immigration and in the special eligibility category covering certain special cases (e.g. foreign-born children of Australians settled abroad) but mainly New Zealand er s entering under the Trans-Tasman agreement; most New Zealand er s come for economic reasons and can conveniently be considered with persons in the general eligibility category as economic migrants. Things now are certainly very different, not only from the great days of economic migration, 1966-71 say, when settler arrivals averaged 161,000 a year, relatively few being refugee and family reunion cases with the great majority being economic migrants and their families coming under a policy avowedly concentrating on increasing Australia's workforce for development (see Australia's Immigration ProRramme , 1968). Things are even very different from the situation three years ago, as evidenced from the statistics of Table 1.

TABLE 1 Settler Arrivals» 1981-2. 1983-4 «ad 1984-5

1981-2 1983-4 1984-5 Nos. % Nos. % Nos. %

Family Reunion 21,766 18.3 37,000 52,8 42,000 52.5

Refugees, SHP 21,917 18.5 16,500 23.6 16,000 20.0 General Eligibility 57,616 48.5 9,500 13.6 16,000 20.0

Special Eligibility 17,410 14.7 7,000 10.0 6,000 7.5

Total 118,709 100.0 70,000 100.0 80,000 100.0

The differences between the 1981-2 and 1983-4 statistics in part reflect the different migration philosophies of the Australian Labor Party and Liberal-National coalition parties. Labor governments are usually more conscious of the Trade Union movement and have drastically cut immigration in times of severe recession, because they wish both to reduce competition for scarce jobs and to discourage employers from importing skill instead of training Australian apprentices; the present Hawke government envisages a new settler intake of 80,000 or so a year. The Liberal- Country coalition argues that new settlers stimulate demand, create more jobs than they take, and should number 100,000 or more a year.

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Here we must note the difference between settler arrivals and net migration: not only do some settlers change their minds and leave, taking their Australian-born children with them, but many third and later generation Australians drift abroad for reasons of marriage, better-paid jobs, greater scope for artistic talent, and so on. In the decade 1966-76 about 1,34 million new settlers arrived and 0.53 million former settlers departed (that is, 53,000 a year) while the excess of Australian- born persons leaving permanently over those returning permanently averaged 17,000 a year - a total loss of 70,000 a year against an annual permanent intake of 134,500* Such heavy loss in part reflects the high settler intake (departing settlers tend to go two to four years after arrival so that peaks in arrivals are soon followed by peaks in departures) and in part reflects easy job opportunities for Australians going abroad. Whatever the reasons it became necessary to allow for a loss of at least 50,000 a year when considering the difference between settler intake and net migration •

Settler loss is now much less, partly because new settler intake is lower and partly because persons entering in the refugee or family reunion categories are less likely than others to leave again. In the seven year period 1976-83 settler loss averaged only 24,300 a year. Likewise Australian-born loss was much lower, partly because of employment difficulties abroad; indeed in the period 1976-83 more Australians returned permanently than departed, about 1170 a year. In these circumstances we can work with a rough 25,000 a year difference between settler intake and net migration; and adjust official estimates of 80,000 or so new settlers down to a net of 55,000 a year.

This becomes important when projecting the total population towards, say, the year 2001. Fertility and mortality can change markedly and unexpectedly but, except in conditions of complete disaster, are nothing like as changeable as net migration. Because immigrants and their children have contributed nearly sixty per cent of Australia's post-war population growth, it is clear that immigration is a major demographic element and that it is with net migration, not settler targets or intake, that we must deal. Uncertainties in government policies, in world economic and refugee conditions, in changing patterns of settler loss, all make projections a chancy business. Personally I prefer to work with three migration projections: a long-terra low of about 40,000, a medium of about 75,000-80,000 and a high of about 110,000 a year; unless there are major upheavals long-term net migration will almost certainly be between the high and the low.

Settler loss has other demographic results: it affects single males more than others, so removing the occupationally more mobile and reducing the sex imbalance. But an increase in refugee and family migration has this effect also: compare the age-sex distribution of the economic migration of 1959-71 with that of 1978-82 when refugee migration and family reunion were more prominent (Table 2).

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TABLE 2 Percentage Distribution of Settler Arrivals by Age and Sex; 1959-1971 and 1978-1982

Period Age Group

1959 m 6.1 5.4 3.9 13.7 7.6 9.4 4.3 1.6 1.3 53.3 to f 5.8 5.1 3.7 11.6 5.7 7.6 3.3 1.9 2.0 46.7 1971 p 11.9 10.5 7.6 25.3 13.3 17.0 7.6 3.5 3.3 100.0

1978 m 6.5 5.4 4.6 10.6 6.6 9.8 3.8 1.6 2.3 51.2 to f 5.4 4.8 3.9 10.4 6.6 8.7 3.1 2.0 3.3 48.8

1982 p 11.9 10.2 8.5 21.0 13.2 18.5 6.9 3.6 5.6 100.0

Aust- m 4.5 4.7 4.6 9.0 4.3 6.7 5.7 5.0 5.6 50.1 ralla f 4.4 4.5 4.4 8.6 4.1 6.3 5.3 5.0 7.3 49.9 1976» p 8.9 9.2 9.0 17.6 8.4 13.0 11.0 10.0 12.9 100.0

m = mates; f * females; p * population * Census population by sex and age

Sources: Consolidated Statistics 1971, 1982; Australian census 1976.

As contrasted with 1959-71, the 1978-82 statistics show the closer sex balance, the higher proportion of the age groups 10-14, 30-39 and 60+, and the lower proportion of these aged 15-24 and 40- 49, all signs of less economically-oriented immigration« The 1978-82 age-sex distribution, moreover, is closer to that of the total population. In general, the Table illustrates the heavy impact on Australia's age-sex structure which large-scale migration can have over a long period.

TABLE 3 Settler Arrivals and Levels of Skill

Professional Total Executive Other Total Semi- (excluding Numbers

Period Technical Skilled Skilled Skilled Unskilled dependants) (annual)

1960-9 13.1 26.1 39.2 35.5 25.3 100.0 56100 1974-6 29.4 22.4 51.8 28.7 19.5 100.0 33100 1977-82 29.8 20.0 49.8 25.7 24.5 100.0 39600

Sources: Consolidated Statistics 1982

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Another important matter is levels of skill. In the prosperous 1950s and 1960s industrial demand was as much for low-skilled labour as skilled; unskilled immigrants sometimes exceeded a quarter of worker immigration and semi-skilled a third (Table 3) . With the advent of depression, and the Whitlam immigration cut-backs, however both unskilled and serai-skilled intake fell in relation to professional and skilled; then, in Fraser days, professional and skilled intake remained high, but unskilled migration staged a slight recovery, at the expense of semi-skilled. Some argue that this unskilled recovery - due largely to refugee and family re-union migration - is bad. This argument is based on the view that Australian industry, so long protected by tariffs, wrongly relied on cheap low-skilled immigrant labour, was then in the 1970s forced to substitute more efficient machinery and practices, and so dumped their unskilled labour (particularly Turkish and Lebanese) on to the unemployment pool; continuing refugee and family reunion programmes simply aggravate the problem (see Birrell, 1981, 1984).

There is here a real conflict between economic and humanitarian principles. The Hawke government is trying to control things by reducing refugee intake as conditions ease in south-east Asia and eastern Europe, and by controlling certain aspects of family reunion; for instance, while not restricting family reunion categories A and B (spouses, dependent children and parents) it insists that category C immigrants (non-dependent children, brothers and sisters) have assured jobs before entering Australia; it has also limited category C intake to 14,000 a year (S.J. West to House of Representatives 30 «5 .84). It is too early to see the effects of this policy.

The final matter of importance is the changing ethnic composition of immigration, and the current debate about it. Disregarding extremists on both sides, some apparently unable to conduct a rational discussion, there are three main positions. Geoffrey Blainey and his supporters, while not opposed to a certain amount of non- European immigration, argue that Asians in particular, because they make up such a high proportion of the refugees and family reunion categories, are arousing considerable public unease and may, if things go unchecked, trigger off a real outburst of racial hostility. The Liberal-National coalition, reluctant to denounce the humanitarian policy they did so much to establish, advocates a larger settler intake (100,000 a year or more) within which the Asian intake of 20,000- 30,000 a year would not look so prominent and which would not only restore the traditional "balance11 in Australia's immigration but stimulate the economy and reduce that unemployment from which racial antagonism so often arises. The Labor government, asserting that the notion of "balance" is an "abhorrent philosophy" and that an increase in total intake would simply "place tens of thousands of new settlers on unemployment queues" (S.J. West to House of Representatives 24.5.84), rejects its opponents1 arguments as racist and completely unacceptable, particularly as Asians now make up only two per cent of the Australian population and , even if present trends continued unchanged, would be not more than four per cent in the year 2000.

A demographer, qua demographer, can do no more than assess the statistics. The main ones appear in Table 4.

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TABLE 4 Asian I Batgrat Ion as a Proportion of Total I Migration

1967-7 77-8 78-9 79-80 80-1 81-2 82-3 Average 83-4

SA's Total (000's) 70.9 73.2 68.7 81.3 111.2 118.7 93.2 88.2 69.8

Asia* (Ippr) 37.1 28.4 29.4 28.5 22.4 22.4 26.3 27.0 36.3 Asia % (b/p) 39.2 30.6 34.3 32.9 26.3 27.1 30.2 30.8 41. 3e

Net (b/p) Asia % 43.4 30.2 37.8 28.8 32.3 33.3 45.5 35.0 46. 9e Total (000's) 64.9 64.5 60.6 84.1 135.1 115.8 65.6 84.4

Notes: SA's « Settler Arrivals so stated (I.e. declaring an Intention to settle when arriving); Total » all SA's; Asia % (Ippr) » Asian proportion In settler arrivals by last place of permanent residence; Asia % (b/p) * Asian proportion In settler arrivals by birthplace; Net (b/p) »Total arrivals less total departures by birthplace (Australian-born excluded); e * estimates derived by applying average differences between SA's (Ippr) and birthplace SA's and Net.

The government usually uses statistics showing settlers arriving from Asian countries where they have been resident for at least a year - the "Asia % (lppr)" line of Table 4; these include European settlers temporarily living in Asia and exclude Asians living in Europe, Africa or Oceania« Also they do not lend themselves to reliable net statistics as former settlers frequently leave Australia for a country other than that from which they came. This, too, is the weakness of citizenship statistics as settlers frequently acquire Australian citizenship before departing permanently. For net purposes, birthplace statistics are best as birthplaces do not change and are easily related to census and vital statistics; which is why I prefer them, even though they too include British and European persons born in Asia and exclude Asians born outside Asia, as instance our Indian settlers from Uganda and Fiji. (One reason for government using settler arrival by last place of residence statistics is that these are quickly available from the Department of Immigration^ computer working tapes, whereas birthplace and net figures have to await careful editing and processing by the Commonwealth Statistician«)

Table 4 shows that with Settler Arrivals the place of residence statistics give a slightly lower Asian proportion than the birthplace statistics. But the most striking difference is in the birthplace statistics, between the settler arrival and net total proportions, the Asian proportion being appreciably higher in the net statistics. This is because the settler loss of Asians is much lower than that of most other immigrants; for the seven year period 1976-83 the percentage relationship between settlers departing and settlers arriving was 24.0 for the U.K. and Eire, 45.0 for Europe, 9.0 for Asia and 20.0 for Other. But it is these higher net proportions, rather than the settler arrival proportions, which affect the ethnic composition of the population in the long run.

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This is one reason why my own projection to the year 2001 is higher than the four per cent of the government; using net migration proportions raises the Asian intake relative to other groupings. The other reason is that my projections are based not on estimates of persons born in, or coming from, Asian or other countries abroad as are the government's two per cent and four per cent - but on estimates of ethnic composition; that is, they deduct persons of British or European ethnic origin born in Asia but add on Asians born in Australia or born in non-Asian countries such as Fiji. This kind of working suggests that, ethnically speaking, Asians are now 2.5 per cent of the Australian population and, if present trends continue, will be about 7.0 per cent in 2001. This is certainly not enough to constitute "Asianization" on a national scale, though it is sufficient to cause tension in certain areas of Asian concentration. Not that "Asianization11 is a very happy term - invented by The Age, not by Blainey - as there are very great cultural, linguistic and religious differences between the different Asian groups in Australia; these number now about: Turkish and Arabic (including Lebanese) 186,000; Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, 77,500; Chinese 77,500, south-east Asian 94,000; total 435,000. (In these estimates persons of mixed descent are counted as half or quarter Asian as the case may be.)

The other important point about Table 4 is its clear demonstration that this relatively high intake of "Asians" is not something which has happened in the last year or so. Indeed, the highest net Asian proportions included 1976-7 and 1982-3, the first and last years of the Fraser government. The present political problem, in short, is one which the Hawke government has inherited from the humanitarian policies of its Liberal-National predecessors.

In sum, Australia's immigration policy has swung from an earlier emphasis on economic and population growth to an emphasis on humanitarian considerations such as family reunion and refugee resettlement. While somewhat easier to cope with in prosperous times this new emphasis raises real problems in times of economic difficulty, especially in terms of unskilled immigration and of competition for scarce resources by immigrants of very different social and ethnic backgrounds from that of the Anglo-Celtic majority. So far the new "non-discriminatory" policy is holding firm in terms of nationality, race and sex, and there are occasional references to religion. But discrimination still exists in other areas, particularly age, marital status and occupation. Apart from family reunion and refugee cases there is still a loading against older persons, members of polygamous marriages and persons whose occupations are already well covered in Australia. It will be indeed interesting to see how far the policy of non-discrimination will be extended and what the demographic results of such extensions will be*

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REFERENCES

BIRRELL, R. and T.Birrell (1981) An Issue of People, Longman Cheshire , Melbourne •

BIRRELL, R. (1984) "A new era in Australian Migration Policy", International MiRration Review, 18 (Spring): 65-84.

DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION AND ETHNIC AFFAIRS, Australian Immigration : Consolidated Statistics (produced most years since 1966).

MACKELLAR, J.R. Ministerial Statement to House of Representatives on "Refugee Policy and Mechanisms11, 24 May 1977.

MACKELLAR, J.R. Ministerial Statement to House of Representatives on "Immigration Policies and Australia's Population", 7 June 1978.

PRICE, C.A. (1979) "The ethnic composition of the Australian population " , Australian Immigration: a Bibliography and Digest, No. £: 68-97, (ed. C.A. Price) Australian National University, Canberra.

PRICE, C.A. "Australian Immigration: social consequences", paper to the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Workshop on Immigration, Australian National University, Canberra, 19 July 1984 (especially Tables 3 and 4).

WEST, S.J. Ministerial Statement to House of Representatives on "Australia's 1984/5 Immigration Programme", 30 May 1984.

WEST, S.J. Ministerial Statement to House of Representatives on Australia's Immigration Programme, 7 September 1984.

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