WI Fiji were a part of Australia?
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I don't think Fiji would alter the history of Austrailia that much. Fiji has not been involved in any major wars, so Austrailia would take it's same course.
Thande
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Wars, wars, wars! Not to sound like Kit, but history isn't all battleships and trenches!
Fiji's main influence on Australia will be the presence of a majority-Polynesian state (presumably) and the questions of indigenous rights. This will be particularly interesting if we're considering a greater Australian confederation in general, with New Zealand and some more Pacific islands included. It's not like adding Hawaii to the US, because the Australian population was much smaller to begin with and thus adding the Fijians gives a proportionately much greater impact.
Importantly, Fiji being part of Australia means you can't have a White Australia immigration policy, because it would be internal movement of Polynesian and Indian people from Fiji to mainland Australia if they came there to work. Not without apartheid-style laws anyway, which seems fairly unlikely.
It could go either way - either Australia becomes a less racially divided place earlier on due to having to accept the Fijians, or alternatively the public perception could separate the 'civilised native' Polynesians from the 'barbaric native' Aborigines and lead to as bad or worse than OTL...
Fiji's main influence on Australia will be the presence of a majority-Polynesian state (presumably) and the questions of indigenous rights. This will be particularly interesting if we're considering a greater Australian confederation in general, with New Zealand and some more Pacific islands included. It's not like adding Hawaii to the US, because the Australian population was much smaller to begin with and thus adding the Fijians gives a proportionately much greater impact.
Importantly, Fiji being part of Australia means you can't have a White Australia immigration policy, because it would be internal movement of Polynesian and Indian people from Fiji to mainland Australia if they came there to work. Not without apartheid-style laws anyway, which seems fairly unlikely.
It could go either way - either Australia becomes a less racially divided place earlier on due to having to accept the Fijians, or alternatively the public perception could separate the 'civilised native' Polynesians from the 'barbaric native' Aborigines and lead to as bad or worse than OTL...
Actually the White Australia policy, originally, had little to do with race but was rather an economic measure in order to stop cheap labour flooding into the country putting working class people out of a job. It was later on when it gained its racist elements & following.
Now if Fiji was brought into Australia, the Fijians, assuming they are an original state, would enjoy equal representation in both law & politics. However, their presence would completely change the economic-political policy of the country in regards to the White Australia policy, insofar as they would provide cheap labour by their very membership of the Federation.
Now if the ALP thus wanted to repeated their "no cheap labour at the cost of workers jobs" policy, Australia wouldn't get the infamous White Australia Policy, but may introduce a Minimal Wage Policy which would be a proto-industrial awards set-up which took place anyway some time later. So possibly Australia would be less racist as a result, whilst being more towards the left in matters such as industrial relations (in many respects this wouldn't be out of step with the historical pattern of the period).
None of this, however, would help the Aboriginal situation as they were always treated separately. So I'd still expect the infamous Section 51, Para xxvi to be included in the Constitution, although things may change much earlier, for their situation, should the MPs of an original state, ie Fiji, start kicking up a fuss over the Aboriginal's plight.
Now if Fiji was brought into Australia, the Fijians, assuming they are an original state, would enjoy equal representation in both law & politics. However, their presence would completely change the economic-political policy of the country in regards to the White Australia policy, insofar as they would provide cheap labour by their very membership of the Federation.
Now if the ALP thus wanted to repeated their "no cheap labour at the cost of workers jobs" policy, Australia wouldn't get the infamous White Australia Policy, but may introduce a Minimal Wage Policy which would be a proto-industrial awards set-up which took place anyway some time later. So possibly Australia would be less racist as a result, whilst being more towards the left in matters such as industrial relations (in many respects this wouldn't be out of step with the historical pattern of the period).
None of this, however, would help the Aboriginal situation as they were always treated separately. So I'd still expect the infamous Section 51, Para xxvi to be included in the Constitution, although things may change much earlier, for their situation, should the MPs of an original state, ie Fiji, start kicking up a fuss over the Aboriginal's plight.
It all depends whether you look like the privileged class/race or like the second rate group. In this particular case, the Fijians will look like Aboriginals, especially to the vast majority of ignorant whites. Yet if the Fijians have equal political & legal power to Whites, being members of an original state, yet racially are treated like Aboriginals, it'll only be a matter of time before they start using their political & legal power as a response. Consequentially the plight of the Aboriginal Peoples will be scrutinised as a result. But granted all that will come after the fact of Federation, with its infamous Constitutonal Section intact, not before it.
That's an interesting insight DMA.
So tell me something. IIRC there is an Indian community in Fiji, mainly descended from contract labourers that the British brought over in the 19th century. Would their treatment be similar to the Chinese if Fiji were part of Australia? Also, how would the presence of Fiji change Australia's WW2 policy?
So tell me something. IIRC there is an Indian community in Fiji, mainly descended from contract labourers that the British brought over in the 19th century. Would their treatment be similar to the Chinese if Fiji were part of Australia? Also, how would the presence of Fiji change Australia's WW2 policy?
Thande
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Were any Indian labourers used in Australia? I don't recall mention of a major Indo-Australian community... (just thinking about precedent)
Well during the gold rush in Australia there were Chinese labourers, which created a lot of upheaval in the white community (cf. Chinese labourers also in Canada during the building of the CPR, who were treated as second-class citizens and had to pay a "Head Tax"; eventually all Chinese immigration to Canada was stopped, only to restart after WW2). I'm wondering if something similar would happen to the Indian community.
I don't see how. I could understand if it was New Zealand, because the Fijians are somewhat akin to the Maori, but the Australian Aborigines??
Now we, today, maybe well aware of the differences, but not in relation to how ignorant whites in 1900 will preceive what an Aboriginal looks like. Afterall a Fijian doesn't look like an Englishman or an Irishman. In fact most white Australians, in 1900, had not even seen an Aboriginal. All they know is that they have dark coloured skin, black hair, & brown eyes. Consequentially that is how most Australians will view Fijians, Maoris, & just about everyone else equalling the description, unless they're convinced otherwise. Sadly, & a true story, many Aboriginals started claiming that they were Indians, in order to avoid the despicable treatment many Australians gave to Aboriginals, as against Indians who were given favourable treatment.
I'd hate to offer a level of acceptance, but in 1900 it'd probably be something like this:
At the bottom of the list are Aboriginals
Next at the bottom would be Chinese
Because Fijians & Maoris kind of look like Aboriginals, they'd come in third.
Indians, for whatever reason I've never understood, would be the most acceptable of these groups.
Pathetic I know, & sadly it still goes on in my country
There were some, but again they were viewed as cheap labour as were the Chinese. So the White Australia Policy pretty much saw a stop to their employment let alone immigration.
Depends. As I said before, Federation is as much about economics as anything else. They certainly, however, wouldn't be given special regions for numerous reasons - sovereignty over land, politics, & law being a chief one, not to mention that there simply weren't overly too many white Australians are back then, not to mention even fewer non-whites.
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