The Truth About The White Australia Policy | Tony Robinson

The Commonwealth of Australia was born, but it was a less than auspicious start

One of the first things debated in the House was the Immigration Restriction Act

In time, it became known simply and ominously as the White Australia Policy

At its core is an idea invented by the British and perfected in South Africa

The dictation test. To enter the country, you have only to write down 50 words as read to you by a customs official

But there's a catch. The words can be in any European language

The intention was to keep out non-whites but the test could also be used to exclude anyone deemed undesirable

The whole business of the dictation tests came to a head in 1934

over a bloke called Egon Kish who was kicked out of his home in Nazi Germany

because he was not only a Jew, he was a political activist and an anti-fascist and a communist

So he tried to get into Australia, but when his boat arrived in Fremantle

the government said, no, you're not coming in. So the boat sailed on to Port Melbourne

Once again, the government said, you're not coming in. And there was a little crowd round the boat, and Kish was so excited, he jumped off it

And this was a big ocean liner, and when he hit the harbourside, he smashed his leg in

But the police just carried him back on board. Eventually, he was brought ashore in Sydney on crutches

to sit the infamous dictation test, which had been used to successfully exclude so many

But Egon was fluent in lots and lots of European languages. So what could the government do to keep him out

Come in and have a seat. Thank you very much. OK. And we'll start

OK. Could you say that again, please? Kish was asked to transcribe the Lord's Prayer

from an obscure branch of the Gaelic language, rarely spoken outside the Hebrides Islands of Scotland

Remember this is a test for entry to Australia and Egon is being asked to take a dictation

in one of the least spoken languages in Europe. Amen. Thank you very much

Have a look at it. The public and the media thought this test had been daft

The case went to the courts and eventually Kish was allowed into Australia

So what did he do? He went all around the country attending meetings

telling everyone that Hitler was evil, that the Nazis wanted a big war

and that they'd build huge concentration camps. See, the government was right

He was a radical loony. Did I pass? This is a fail

I did get our men right, didn't I? You got our men right. But I cannot see any other correct words in here

Thank you. Was Australia the only country that was implementing this kind of policy

No, Australia was part of a much larger club, really. But they were very confident that they were leading the world

and they were proud that they were leading the world. The White Australia policy was really Australia's declaration of independence

because on the one hand technically we didn't become completely independent from Britain

but it was Australia's way of saying this is our particular distinctive country

Why did the politicians want to do that? They thought that a white democratic country would have a much higher standard of living

that everybody could be equal, that everybody would share all of these things but the everybody of course, you know, meaning whites only

How long did this stream of what we would think of as racist legislation exist in Australia

Australia continues to proudly define itself as white Australia well into the 1940s

when both through internal domestic protest and sort of a growing sense of shame

and also a lot of external pressure, and we start to retreat from that notion of Australia as a sort of white bastion

And the dictation test is actually repealed in 1958, which I think is some sort of recognition, you know

of what a terrible, dastardly role it played. In the years before World War II

it was said Australia was more British than Britain. Off you go now. Don't be late. Bye, Mummy. Bye-bye

40 years of racially based immigration had created a bastion of white Europe in what remains geographically Asia But the war had an unexpectedly positive effect on the Australian economy

After decades riding on the sheep's back, the country was forced to industrialise for the war effort

$7 off, Liam. Now the young nation desperately needed more people to complete the transformation into a modern industrial society

So under the slogan, populate or perish, she accepted huge amounts of migrants from all over war-torn Europe

and they transformed Australia forever. So how did the government do it

They simply told the Australian people that the new migrants were really just like us

Well, it took a long time, eh? But we're there at last. But in fact, the first group to arrive were from war-ravaged Europe

Refugees grateful to start life anew as far from their old homes as it was possible to be

And they just kept coming. Each new wave making its own unique contribution to an ever-changing society

Many were sent to work on remote public works projects, like the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme

And they tufted out. In so doing, they played a huge role in creating the long period of prosperity

that lasted into the 1970s. The dominance of white Australia was slowly fading away

But there was one group of post-war migrants who were given no choice in starting new lives in the lucky country

They're sometimes referred to as Britain's stolen generation, taken from their parents and shipped to Australia for their own good

10,000 children left the British Isles under the Child Migrant Scheme, which lasted almost 20 years and did untold damage to so many families

Your early years were in an orphanage Right up to the age of 10 so what how did they tell you that you were going to be sent to australia they separated three of us from the other children

and we thought we were something special we were given special food special clothes

and told that we were going to australia and we didn't know we didn't know where australia was

and they'd heard of it. Weren't you worried that you'd never be able to track your parents down? I didn't know anything about my parents

I was told my parents were dead. But 1953, when I was coming to Australia

the first time they'd ever mentioned it, I was told, your parents are both dead

and you have no brothers and sisters. And they put you in another orphanage

Here's the orphanages. This is a photo of me. That was in Glasgow when I was five years old

Yeah, yeah. And then there's... that's the boat that's the ship that I came out on it's the new Australia this

isn't Jerrothan 300 miles north of Perth that's where I grew up till I was 17 and

and this is me when I arrived in general what kind of jobs did you do when you

came back to Australia in the orphanage I was in the kitchen cooking for 200

people three meals a day seven days a week five o'clock in the morning we got

up and eight o'clock we went to bed without a penny pay. Do you think people still have

hang-ups about the experience that they underwent? Yes, a lot of the child migrants do. A lot

of them haven't really been able to talk about it to anybody and so they've bottled it up

inside. It's a bit of a stain on the governments, isn't it? I suppose it is, but I mean, when

When you look into the history of different countries, they've all got these hidden secrets that haven't yet come out

I mean, how long did it take for the Australian government to say sorry to the Stalin generation, the Aboriginals, from Australia

To anyone who lived in Australia at the time of the Second World War

the multicultural face of any modern city would be incomprehensible. Since the middle of the 20th century, more than 7 million people have immigrated to Australia's sandy shores

Many of those post-war migrants now have Australian-born grandkids and consider themselves as Aussie as a Vegemite sandwich

But it's fair to say not every new wave of migrants has been welcomed with open arms