WI/AHC: No White Australia Policy

Isaac Beach

Banned
In 1901, following Federation, the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, effectively barring non-Europeans from emigrating to the newly minted Australia. The origins of this lie in a backlash against Chinese miners in the New South Wales goldfields and increasing market penetration from Chinese labourers such as carpenters and boutique operators, as well as a swelling Melanesian population due to the sugar plantations of Queensland. And of course due to the perception of racial purity espoused at the time.

While still making it recognisably British, how would one avoid this policy from coming into affect in the first place and allowing greater non-European immigration? Bonus points for a notably large Indian community in the Kimberly Region, only because that's something I've always liked the idea of. ;)
 
Sort of ironically, if there was less non-white immigration in the first place then the restrictive immigration policies likely never would have been put in place since they would have felt no need to. That way you allow non-European immigration without actually having it. Not what you wanted but it does meet the prompt!

If that can last up until the last twenty years or so then it would become politically much more difficult to implement immigration restrictions based on ethnicity. Then after that you can start bringing in more immigrants from non-European countries.
 
In 1901, following Federation, the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, effectively barring non-Europeans from emigrating to the newly minted Australia. The origins of this lie in a backlash against Chinese miners in the New South Wales goldfields and increasing market penetration from Chinese labourers such as carpenters and boutique operators, as well as a swelling Melanesian population due to the sugar plantations of Queensland. And of course due to the perception of racial purity espoused at the time.

While still making it recognisably British
, how would one avoid this policy from coming into affect in the first place and allowing greater non-European immigration? Bonus points for a notably large Indian community in the Kimberly Region, only because that's something I've always liked the idea of. ;)
That's pretty much the reason why the policy was made. To keep it white British.
 
How did Indians get treated?

Better than the Chinese, but hardly well. There was one case shortly before Federation, in 1898, when the Bucephalus, a ship full of Indian migrants arrived in Australia. The migrants wanted to go to the plantations in Queensland, but the ship was denied docking permission in Sydney... I can't remember if the authorities bothered to come up with an excuse or not, but it was on racial grounds.
Anyway, they finally disembarked in Melbourne when the customs officials pointed out that Indians were imperial citizens just like Australians, at which point the press rather hysterically began running stories about the "Hindoo Host" that was invading the docks.
I'm not sure what happened to them in the end.
 

Isaac Beach

Banned
So less is more in this circumstance. I suppose delaying the gold rush or perhaps having it more strictly regulated -thus dissuading Chinese miners from bothering- would be the easiest way to achieve this. I don't think the sugar plantations are avoidable, however, though they've never been greatly focused upon at least in my education when discussing the White Australia Policy so I doubt it played a particularly key role. They were never as powerful as say, the American or Caribbean plantations.

I wonder what effect this would have; a more ethnically mixed electorate would do some weird stuff to a country that had, until WWII anyway, been cozy and conservative in most everything they did. Would whites possibly become a plurality or even a minority with so much more non-white immigration earlier? Presuming a train of history somewhat similar to OTL there might be more penetration into Asia than OTL which Australia has always struggled with, perhaps a reorientation away from the US and towards China presuming they still become the world's preeminent rivals. Ironically the state might be more conservative overall due to not having the backlash against the policy in the first place.
I imagine the biggest sources of immigration would be, naturally, from China and India. Both are just short of half a million people according to Australian Bureau of Statistic's 2015 report, with much more immigration earlier on they could number well over half a million each, easily. That is a huge bloc when you're talking about elections, for instance. It'd be similar to the Hispanic community in America. If WWII is butterflied for whatever reason or WWI for that matter, then there mightn't be the enormous waves of immigrants and refugees that both wars caused, further detracting from the white population.
 
The idea that Australia was a cozy conservative place is very far from the mark. There was a big divide between those that identified as coming from convict stock/Irish Australians, and those thay were or had integrated with the ethnic English side of things. Think of how many sympathised with Ned Kelly for example. Indeed, the government was genuinely worried about Australia joining WW1 because of how Irish Australians might react.
 

Isaac Beach

Banned
The idea that Australia was a cozy conservative place is very far from the mark. There was a big divide between those that identified as coming from convict stock/Irish Australians, and those thay were or had integrated with the ethnic English side of things. Think of how many sympathised with Ned Kelly for example. Indeed, the government was genuinely worried about Australia joining WW1 because of how Irish Australians might react.

My apologies. That was a bit of a generalisation on my behalf. I meant more the government than the people themselves. There's a really good movie in which the Irish Australian response is touched upon. I can't remember for the life of me what it's called though.
 
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