Does History Matter? Making and debating citizenship, immigration and refugee policy in Australia and New Zealand

Does History Matter? Making and debating citizenship, immigration and refugee policy in Australia and New Zealand

Does History Matter?

Making and debating citizenship,

immigration and refugee policy in

Australia and New Zealand

172 pages

The Beginning of the End of White Australia

Learn-2018-Winner-St-Mary's-Anglican-Girls-School.pdf

The Beginning of the End of White Australia

By Olivia Nolan

Annie O’Keefe’s successful challenge against deportation marked a significant departure from forty-eight years of White Australia Policy. 

The O’Keefe case marks a turning point because it ignited popular support against prevailing immigration policy. It is recognised as the protagonist for the abolition of The White Australia Policy and creation of multicultural Australia.

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The Beginning of the End of White Australia 

 

  

SOURCE: Annie O'Keefe with her daughter Mary. (1956). [Image] National Archives of Australia, 1501, A429/3. Canberra. 

 

Annie O’Keefe’s successful challenge against deportation marked a significant departure from forty-eight years of White Australia Policy. The O’Keefe case marks a turning point because it ignited popular support against prevailing immigration policy. It is recognised as the protagonist for the abolition of The White Australia Policy and creation of multicultural Australia. 

 

 

 

By Olivia Nolan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

The Beginning of the End of White Australia 

  “The discussion of any turning point or crucial moment in history is always likely to produce analysis that is not sufficiently attuned to the continuities of past experience. In other words, the narrow focus on a moment in time can cut it off from the context and experiences that surround presage and flow out from that moment.” Martin Crotty: Turning Points in Australian History.   

 

The O’Keefe High Court verdict is one such moment in time.  

 

Almost 70 years ago, Annie O’Keefe, a WWII refugee, won a landmark victory against the Australia Government, paving the way for abolition of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. It was a turning point in Australia’s history, marking the beginning of the end of the White 

Australia Policy. Even Immigration Minister, Arthur Calwell, acknowledged the O’Keefe verdict as having “knocked down the central pillar of the White Australia Policy.”   The case made international headlines, highlighting the cruel implementation of Australia’s immigration laws.  The O’Keefe Case (1949) successfully challenged the economic and homogeneity principles of the White Australia Policy, the central tenets of which had long disguised its racist underpinnings.   

 

Annie Maas Jacob, her husband, Samuel, and their family, escaped Japan’s invasion of Dutchcontrolled Aru in the Eastern archipelago of Indonesia in 1942.  SOURCE 1 The couple settled in the Melbourne community of Bonbeach, where Samuel joined the Netherlands Indies Intelligence Service.   Unfortunately, within two years, Samuel was killed in an air crash leaving Annie to raise eight children.    Annie received a widow’s pension from the Dutch Government and was assisted by her landlord John (Jack) O’Keefe.8 

 

Annie, like the other fourteen thousand WWII refugees from Asia, was permitted to remain in Australia only for the duration of war.   When the war ended in 1945, refugees were expected to return to their country of origin. Not wishing to uproot her family, Annie delayed their repatriation by successfully applying for Certificates of Exemption from the Australian Government.   

 

To protect Annie and her children, Jack O’Keefe married Annie in 1947, believing this would enable her to become a British subject preventing the family’s repatriation to Indonesia. SOURCE 2 However, the Australian Government did not accept this, and on 12 February 1949, Annie received a letter requesting her departure from Australia by 24 February (i.e. within 12 days) or face deportation.   Arthur Calwell, Australia’s first Immigration Minister, aimed to return the last eight hundred Asian refugees who remained in Australia after WWII to their home land.  

 

Minister Calwell claimed that Annie was a ‘prohibited immigrant’ under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, one of the first laws enacted by the Commonwealth Parliament following 

Australia’s Federation.  At the root of Australia’s White Australia Policy was the belief that Anglo-Saxons were superior to other races, and that British-Australian cultural homogeneity was crucial for national progress.  There was a deep-seated concern amongst Australia’s policy-makers that “coloured people work for next to nothing, lower the standard of living and cause trouble.”   According to Governor General, Alfred Deakin, Australia needed a “White Australia”.    

 

To be correctly classified as a “prohibited immigrant” required Annie to take and fail a dictation test.  Having escaped from Indonesia during WWII on an Australian naval ship, Annie had never been given this test.19 Consequently, Annie’s legal team argued that if she had never taken and failed the dictation test, she could not be classified as a prohibited immigrant.  

Annie’s case captured widespread media attention, and provoked public outrage both in Australia and internationally. With a groundswell of public support, Annie brought her case to the High Court and won. The verdict shaped immigration policy from this point onwards.  

 

The O’Keefe case is a turning point in Australian immigration policy because it ignited popular support against the removal of a non-European immigrant family.  The Melbourne Herald and Sydney Daily Telegraph set up fighting funds to finance Annie’s High Court challenge.  This represented a significant departure from forty-eight years of White Australia Policy values. Letters to Prime Minister Chifley labelled the Immigration Minister’s treatment of the family as “arrogant and inhumane”.   

 

Many working-class Australians even threatened not to vote Labour in the upcoming election, and Dr Mannix, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, pleaded the case for the O’Keefe family to stay in Australia.24  

 

Both during and after Annie’s favourable verdict, the Government’s White Australia Policy came under scrutiny. Ordinary Australians like Robert Ewing from Canterbury depicted the policy as something that “had been created by fallible men who could not have foreseen the possibilities that have since eventuated. The Australia of 1949 was not the Australia of 1901."  It was this sort of widespread thinking that forced the Government to re-examine prevailing migration laws and policy.  

 

International condemnation of the White Australia Policy also became vocal because of the 

O’Keefe case.   The veneer of White Australia’s economic rationale was successfully challenged. The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) cited Immigration Minister Calwell as a “handicap to his country and world peace.”27 The White Australia Policy even jeopardised the formation of a Pacific Security Pact with the Philippine Government claiming, “Australia was in violation of the United Nations Charter and threatening to freeze Australian passports and close its Sydney consulate.” 28 

 

The Singapore Morning Tribune also reported “Asia’s anger growing faster than Australia’s population, and threatened one day the people of Asia will be compelled to rise and crush this insulting ideology.”  India and China were also strident in their condemnation. Australia’s reputation and relationships with Asia were very clearly compromised by what was revealed in the court case. 30 

 

Annie O'Keefe was not a bread-winner; on the contrary she was supported by a Dutch pension and was fully occupied looking after her family.  It was clear to many that ‘economics had no relation to the case."  Another tenet of the policy, that non-Anglo-Saxons could not assimilate into the “Australian way of life”, was also squashed in the O’Keefe case. All of Annie’s children had been educated in Australia, and in her Affidavits, Annie’s children were described as having “adopted a completely Australia outlook.”  Her children spoke perfect English, lived in an Australia household with an Australian stepfather, had Australian friends, wore western clothes and were at the top of their class at the local Catholic school.  To attest to the fact that the O’Keefe family had assimilated into Australian society, Mr F. Humphries of 

Windsor informed the Prime Minister, ‘To say that they are an asset to our country is underestimating their value. We have never met a finer family. The intelligence and refinement of the children is of high order. We consider ourselves fortunate in our association with them and so have the friendship of this fine family at Bonbeach.’35 He pointed out that the younger children knew no country other than Australia and spoke only English. Humphries told Chifley, ‘Mrs O’Keefe is a British subject and a Christian, and to remove a woman and eight children to a land which would be foreign to the children, where discontent and trouble is rife, would be contrary to freedom and tolerance which we regard as our Australian way of living.’36 

SOURCE 3 

 

By a majority of four to two, on 18 March 1949, the High Court found in Annie O’Keefe’s favour.  The verdict read that “the plaintiff was not a person liable to be prohibited from remaining in the Commonwealth’ since she had not taken the dictation test  upon her arrival in Australia, and five years had passed since she could have taken it so therefore she wasn’t a prohibited immigrant.”   

 

Annie’s success paved the way for many other immigrants to challenge the discriminatory policy. Abdul Samad Amjah, a Malay sea-man who jumped ship to return to Australia to rejoin his wife, eventually failed the dictation test, was prosecuted as a prohibited immigrant and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment pending deportation.  He appealed his prosecution in the High Court after the O’Keefe verdict, and the High Court found in his favour stating among other things that the Department of Immigration had no power to order him to leave originally, for the same reasons as Mrs O’Keefe (i.e. not having taken and failed the dictation test within the prescribed period of time). Following the decision, The Department of Immigration abandoned attempts to deport Abdul. Three hundred and thirty-five Chinese evacuees from 

New Guinea also benefitted from the O’Keefe decision.  

 

Undeniably, the O’Keefe verdict was also a turning point for the entire post-war immigration program, especially The Displaced Persons Program.  This scheme, which brought thousands of European wartime refugees to Australia, obliged refugees to enter into a two-year contract with the Australian Government to perform allocated work. The work was often low-skilled, and refugees were typically steered away from highly-skilled jobs.   Certificates of Exemption were issued for the two-year period. If immigrants broke the contract, the Government could deport them. Following the O’Keefe case, displaced persons were also able to contend that the Commonwealth had no power to deport them.   

 

When the O’Keefe family won, Immigration Minister Calwell quickly introduced retrospective legislation to protect both the Displaced Persons Scheme and White Australia Policy. In advising Cabinet he intended to introduce legislative amendments Minister Calwell noted: “It is abundantly clear… if action is not taken, our Restricted Immigration Policy and purposes, become impossible of application.”   

Minister Calwell removed the five-year limit on the dictation test. Immigrants could, therefore, be forced to sit the dictation test regardless of how long they had lived in Australia. Further, and to deal with the wartime Asian evacuees and displaced persons, certificates of exemption could now be cancelled at the discretion of the Minister.  For Australia’s more than eight hundred wartime refugees, Calwell created The Wartime Refugees Removal Act, which granted The Commonwealth Government blanket rights to remove wartime evacuees at the end of the war.   

Despite Minister Calwell’s best efforts to introduce legislation to strengthen immigration policy, the O’Keefe verdict marked a clear turning point in public opinion and brought to light racist undertones within the Immigration Department, and the lengths the Chifley Government was prepared to go to preserve “White Australia.” 

The O’Keefe case highlighted widespread demand for more humane treatment of immigrants. During an election campaign speech in November 1949, future Prime Minister Robert Menzies stated that the Government “will continue to maintain Australia’s settled immigration policy, known as the White Australia policy…At the same time we believe in humane and commonsense administration. All cases of alien’s resident in Australia should be considered, not as if the law allowed no human discretion but in the light of the circumstances of each case. Nothing has done both the Policy and our relations with Asiatic countries more harm than some of the stupid and provocative decisions of the present government.”   

 

Luckily, before Immigration Minister Calwell could enforce further deportations following his new legislation, The Chifley Government was swept out of office.   When the Menzies Government came to power, Harold Holt, the new Immigration Minister let eight hundred non– European wartime refugees stay in Australia. This marked another step towards less discriminatory immigration policy.  

 

Although it took a further twenty-four years for the Australian Government to abandon its 

White Australia Policy, Annie O’Keefe’s case rallied public opinion to such an extent (both in Australia and overseas) that it marked a clear turning point in immigration policy.   Her case ignited widespread criticism of Australia’s policies, and is credited with dismantling the economic and homogeneity arguments, which had long been used to defend racially motivated policies.  This landmark legal precedent is still relevant today.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary: 

1. Immigration Restriction Act 1901: 

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy which sought to exclude all non-Europeans from Australia. The Act prohibited various classes of people from immigrating and provided for illegal immigrants to be deported.   

2. White Australia Policy: 

Another name for the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. 

3. Netherlands Indies Intelligence Service: 

Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service (also known by the acronym NEFIS), was a 

Dutch World War II era intelligence and special operations unit operating mainly in the Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia).  

4. Homogeneity: 

The quality or state of being all the same or all of the same kind.  5. Prohibited immigrant: 

Any person who when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation test and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in an European language directed by the officer.  

 

6. The Wartime Refugees Removal Act: 

The War-time Refugees Removal Act 1949 was a piece of Australian legislation that formed part of the White Australia policy. It was introduced by the Chifley Government in July 1949, in order to give the federal government the explicit authority to deport non-white foreigners who had arrived in Australia during World War 2.  

 

 

 

 

SOURCES 

Source 1: 

Map of the Aru Islands in the Eastern Archipelago of Indonesia 

 56 

                                                 

56 Blogs.bl.uk. (2018). A Malay document from the Aru Islands - Asian and African studies blog. [online] Available at: http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2014/03/a-malay-document-from-the-aru-islands.html [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018]. 

 

 

 

 

SOURCE 2  

Certificate of Marriage between John O’Keefe and Annie O’Keefe  

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOURCE 3 

Letter to the Prime Minister from Frederick Humphries page 1  

 

 

 

 

 

SOURCE 3 PART 2  

Letter to the Prime Minister from Frederick Humphries page 2  

 

 

 

 

 

   

Annotated Bibliography: 

Primary Sources 

-Archives 

Australia - Immigration - "White Australia" Policy - Press and other Comments. (1945). [Paper Files and Documents] National Archives of Australia, A4144. Canberra. 

These archives contain document news clippings from the press, and letters (from 19441945) regarding the “White Australia Policy” or Immigration Policy of 1901.These clippings present the racist opinions of some Australians while also revealing he opinions of those affected by such policy (i.e. Asians). It also presents a shift of some Australians to condemning the policy. These archives were useful in presenting what both Australians, the press and Asians thought of the White Australia policy and illustrated the racist underline of many. 

 

Australian Parliament House (1949). Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives vol. 201. Canberra, p.66. 

This parliamentary debate is of Mr Calwell, Immigration Minister at the time. speaking to the 

House of Representatives in relation to the O’Keefe case. In such parliamentary debate, Calwell provides defence to the White Australia Policy and believes that “if we allow these people to stay we shall open the flood gates.” This debate was vital in capturing the racist opinions of politicians and their determination to keep the policy intact. 

China - Political relations with Australia - Chinese attitude to White Australia Policy. (1950). [Paper Files and Documents] National Archives of Australia, A1838. Canberra. 

This contains multiple news clippings from different Asian media outlets and letters to politicians from multiple Asian politicians and Australia citizens. These archives present the negative opinions of the policy and reveal the impact of the O’Keefe case on opinions from overseas. It reveals that such case caused there to be outrage internationally particularly in Asian countries such as Singapore nod Indonesia. And how such case revealed to the Asian countries the underlying racist intentions of the policy. 

[Personal Papers of Prime Minister Chifley] Correspondence 'O' [Oakville Progress Association - Owen, Thomas and Company Ltd, includes representations from C Ogilvie relating to Trans-Oceanic Airways Pty Ltd, Miss A O'Hare relating to Katoomba cafes, NSW Omnibus Proprietors Association, representations relating to deportation of Mrs Annie O'Keefe and children]. (1952). [Letters] National Archives of Australia, M1455. Canberra. 

These archives contain Immigration Department files and the personal papers of Prime Minister Ben Chifley containing letters written by private citizens and organisations expressing their opposition to the family’s deportation. Many of the letters argued that Calwell’s administration of the policy was causing harm to Australia’s reputation in Asia. 

Other letters from friends or neighbours of O’Keefe defended her and pleaded to let her stay. Given that 1949 was an election year, some correspondents threatened Chifley and Calwell with their voting intentions. These letters reveal that Australians were beginning to question the well-worn defence that the policy was informed by issues of economics (protecting the working conditions of Australians) and homogeneity. 

 

Immigration Restriction Act 1901. (1901). [Paper Files and Documents] National Archives of Australia, A1559. Canberra. 

These archives contained documents of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901- An Act to place certain restrictions on Immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited Immigrants. This provided a needed insight into the roots of 

Mrs O’Keefe deportation notice and showed the racism apparent in 1901 of Asians and other “colour people.” 

Mrs Annie O'KEEFE, formerly Jacob and eight children - Indonesians - Return to Indonesia. (1949). [Affidavit to Plaintiff] National Archives of Australia, A432. Canberra. 

This contains the high court of Australia’s transcript of proceedings of the O’Keefe case. It contains the affidavit of Mrs O’Keefe, her marriage certificate, the deportation notice and other vital documents in relation to the proceedings of the case. This was useful and reliable in providing an insight into the background of Mrs O’Keefe life before the case and the events causing the deportation. 

O'Keefe, A M and family. (1949). [Paper files and documents] National Archives of Australia, 441426. Canberra. 

 

This provides an insight into the public reaction of Mrs O’Keefe’s deportation. It provides multiple press clipping and letters to politicians condemning or supporting her deportation. It is useful in providing a range of opinions on the case and shows the shifting of people’s opinions on the policy. 

 

O'KEEFE Annie Maas versus CALWELL Arthur Augustus; PRIEST Alan Hewitt; The Commonwealth of Australia. (1949). [Paper Files and Documents] National Archives of Australia, A10075. Canberra. 

This file contains the arguments of both the defence team and prosecution (Mr Calwell). Thus, illustrating the racist policies and arguments against Mrs O’Keefe. It also provided vital information regarding the Citizenship Test, the rules surrounding such test and the reason why the high court ruled in Mrs O’Keefe’s favour. 

O'KEEFE Annie Maas versus CALWELL Arthur Augustus; The Commonwealth of Australia. (2018). [Paper Files and Documents] National Archives of Australia, A10075. Canberra. 

O'Keefe v Calwell [1949] A432/82 3 (High Court of Australia). 

From the High Court, this provided the High Court proceedings of the case and the ruling of the 7 judges. The proceedings illustrated the arguments of both parties and the eventual ruling in her favour. 

O'KEEFE, Annie Maas - Immigration Act 1901-40 - prosecution. (1949). [Paper Files] National Archives of Australia, MP401/1. Canberra. 

From the National Archives, this file contains the correspondence of the prosecution team and shows the arguments against Mrs O’Keefe. The file was helpful in showing the underlying racist views of Australians at the time including within the High Court. 

Newspapers, Reports 

 

Adelaide (1949). Flaws in the Policy. [online] p.4. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130245875?searchTerm=here%20the%20sum mary%20ejection%20of%20Asiatics%20from%20this%20country%20has%20roused% 20active%20resentment&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||notWords|||requestHan dler|||dateFrom=1949-01-01|||dateTo=1950-12-31|||sortby [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This editorial newspaper takes about how Mrs O’Keefe can has caused Australia to start to examine its migration laws and policy. The newspaper talks about the case, the Immigration policy and the reactions of both Australians and Asian countries. 

Canberra Times (1949). Singapore Attack on Calwell. [online] p.1. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rendition/nla.newsarticle2789657.3.pdf?followup=8c28e5c59f754219a97502a08f770541 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

From the Canberra Times, this newspaper reports of the reaction from Singapore of the O’ Keefe case. It thoroughly reports the negative opinions of Asian politicians of the Immigration policy. It highlights the detrimental impact of the O’Keefe case on the international relationships with Singapore and Australia. The newspaper was instrumental in indicating in the research the effect Annie had not just in Australia. 

Daily Advertiser (1950). •White Australia Policy “Racial Not Economic. [online] p.4. 

Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145353941?searchTerm=White%20Australia %20Policy%20Racial%20Not%20Economic&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||no tWords|||requestHandler|||dateFrom=1950-01-01|||dateTo=1951-12-31|||sortby [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper indicates the changing opinions of the Australia press and public towards the White Australia Policy during the O’Keefe case. The case has shown to demonstrate the racial underlying features of the Immigration (White Australia) policy and defeated the economic excuse that had been used prior to the case. This newspaper was reliable and useful in highlighting the evolving opinion of the public. 

Daily Examiner (1950). White Australia Policy Attacked. [online] p.4. Available at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/192829239?searchTerm=(white%20australia% 20policy)%20date%3A%5B1950%20TO%201955%5D&searchLimits=q-field0|||qtype0=all|||q-term0=white+australia+policy|||q-field1=title%3A|||q-type1=all|||qterm1|||q-field2=creator%3A|||q-type2=all|||q-term2|||q-field3=subject%3A|||qtype3=all|||q-term3|||q-year1-date=1950|||q-year2-date=1955# [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

The Daily Examiner reports of the opinion of the Church of England regarding the White Australia Policy. The newspaper details the declarations of the Anglican newspaper in which they attack the White Australia Policy. The newspaper, despite being a secondhand account, illustrates how the policy wasn’t being attacked only by the public by also by institutions such as the church.  

Daily Telegraph (1945). Curtin Silent on White Australia. [online] p.3. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/194545247?searchTerm=curtin%20silent%20 on%20white%20australia&searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||notWords|||requestHa ndler|||dateFrom|||dateTo|||sortby [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper illustrates the rumours of demands to modify the ban on coloured immigrants to the Australian government. It illustrates the harshness of the Government to sustain the ban and the reaction of rumours from the public. It was useful in showing the opinions of the policy prior to the case and the rigidity of the Australia Government. 

Morning Bulletin (1949). O'Keefe Case: Minister Explanation in Heated Debate. [online] p.1. 

Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/56893918?searchTerm=Ministers%20hamfisted%20methods%20had%20inflamed%20ill-will&searchLimits=dateFrom=1949-0101|||dateTo=1950-12-31# [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper outlines the debate between Harold Holt and Calwell in the House of Representatives regarding the O’Keefe case. The recollection of the debate underlines the racist views of Mr Calwell, the Immigration Minister and the arguments for her deportation. It indicates the racism which existed within the Australian Government and further out. 

Sydney Morning Herald (1949). Court Ruling in O'Keefe Case. [online] p.6. Available at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18107661?searchTerm=our%20to%20two%20 majority%20granted%20Mrs%20O%27Keefe%20an%20injunction%20restraining%20 %20Calwell&searchLimits=dateFrom=1949-01-01|||dateTo=1950-12-31 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

Published the day after the ruling, this newspaper details the court ruling by the Full High Court allowing Mrs O’Keefe today in Australia. The newspaper details the reason for the ruling and the reaction of the Australia public and within the O’Keefe household. 

Sydney Morning Herald (1949). High Court Rebuff for Mr. Calwell. [online] p.pg 2. 

Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18107727?searchTerm=Whereas%20intelligen t%20Asiatics%20were%20willing%20to%20concede%20that%20Australia%20had%20 a%20justifiable%20economic%20basis%20for%20her%20immigration%20%20policy& searchLimits=exactPhrase|||anyWords|||notWords|||requestHandler|||dateFrom=1949-0101|||dateTo=1950-12-31|||sortby# [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

The Herald talks about the ruling of the O’Keefe case and the repercussions this has for the White Australia Policy. The newspaper articles mention the positive public reactions to the ruling and how, due to this, many people are questioning the policies’relevance. The newspaper also gives some background information about the White Australia Policy. It also negatively speaks of politicians, Mr Calwell, who was involved in the prosecution of the case. The newspaper was useful in showing the positive opinions of the Australia public on the O’Keefe case and the impact it had on people’s perspective of the immigration policy. It also demonstrates the dislike many had for Mr Calwell, the Immigration Minister at the time. Furthermore, the newspaper is shown to have an extreme bias towards Mrs O’Keefe, further reflecting the approving thoughts many had for Mrs O’Keefe and the lack of racism. 

The Adelaide Mail (1949). Church Leaders Oppose Deportation Order. [online] p.pg 32. 

Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55924047?searchTerm=(dangerous%20for%2 0the%20Government%20to%20use%20the%20White%20Australia%20policy%20as%2 0a%20weapon%20for%20racial%20discrimination%20rather%20than%20as%20an%20 economic%20safeguard)%20date%3A%5B1949%20TO%201952%5D&searchLimits=q

-field0|||q-type0=all|||q-

term0=dangerous+for+the+Government+to+use+the+White+Australia+policy+as+a+we apon+for+racial+discrimination+rather+than+as+an+economic+safeguard|||qfield1=title%3A|||q-type1=all|||q-term1|||q-field2=creator%3A|||q-type2=all|||q-term2|||qfield3=subject%3A|||q-type3=all|||q-term3|||q-year1-date=1949|||q-year2-date=1952 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper talks about the Church Leaders such as Reverend A.S. Houston, condemning the deportation of Mrs O’Keefe. It highlights the distaste many had towards the 

Immigration policy and Calwell’s actions. It also reports the negative views Mr 

Calwell has in relation to Mrs O’Keefe and his rigidity to deport her. The newspaper was vital as it illustrated the opposition towards the deportation but also the racist views of some people such as Calwell.  

The Age (1949). Minister Fears Opening Migration Flood Gates. [online] p.pg 3. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205351872?searchTerm=assimilation%20o%2 7keefe&searchLimits=dateFrom=1949-01-01|||dateTo=1950-12-31|||l-advstate=Victoria# [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper reports the debate within the House of Representatives between Mr Calwell and Mr Holt in relation to the O’Keefe case. It illustrates the stark contrast between Mr Holt and Mr Calwell: one believing in letting  Mrs O’Keefe stay while the other believing “it will open the flood gates. However, despite Mr Calwell’s racist comments, he does mention that this case could “weaken the policy. This comment foreshadows the impact the O’Keefe case, being the first of its kind, had on the White Australia Policy, destabilising the foundations of the policy, this newspaper was useful and reliable, giving a non-bias view on the debate, highlighting the impact the case would have soon after. 

The Barrier Miner (1949). Mr Calwell Has A Big Problem. [online] p.4. Available at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48584912?searchTerm=If%20the%20Govern ment%20persisted%20with%20its%20attempt%20to%20deport%20Mrs.%20Annie%20 O%27Keefe%2C%20in%20view%20of%20her%20apparent%20Australian%20citizens hip%2C%20it%20might%20strike%20a%20legal%20uproar.&searchLimits=dateFrom= 1949-01-01|||dateTo=1950-12-31 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

The newspaper commentates on the case, illustrating the legal uproar it caused within the Government and Australia. The newspaper was useful in giving background information on the case and showing the impact of such case politically. 

The Courier (1949). Australia's White Curtain. [online] p.4. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rendition/nla.newsarticle49674964.3.pdf?followup=07ce7f69878a78711cfbcbaf0539eba3 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This brief article released only a week after the ruling of the O’Keefe case, talks about the embedded racism within Australian society and within Australia’s laws. It commentates on the White Australia Policy and its discriminatory rules and the effects it is having on our international relationship with Asian countries. The article, although heavily bias, demonstrates the negative opinion towards the immigration policy. 

The Mercury Hobart (1949). Indonesian Family Must Leave. [online] p.pg 6. Available at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26491264?searchTerm=(the%20woman%27s %20Australian%20husband%20saw%20him%20before%20his%20marriage%2C%20an d%20boasted%20that%20he%20would%20marry%20the%20woman%20to%20make% 20her%20a%20British%20subject%2C)%20date%3A%5B1949%20TO%201952%5D& searchLimits=q-field0|||q-type0=all|||q-

term0=the+woman%27s+Australian+husband+saw+him+before+his+marriage%2C+and +boasted+that+he+would+marry+the+woman+to+make+her+a+British+subject%2C|||qfield1=title%3A|||q-type1=all|||q-term1|||q-field2=creator%3A|||q-type2=all|||q-term2|||qfield3=subject%3A|||q-type3=all|||q-term3|||q-year1-date=1949|||q-year2-date=1952 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This article outlines the O’Keefe case and the reason behind her deportation. This was useful in giving some legal background behind the case; 

Truth (1952). The White Australia Policy. [online] p.3. Available at: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167978748?searchTerm=(white%20australia% 20policy)%20date%3A%5B1950%20TO%201955%5D&searchLimits=q-field0|||qtype0=all|||q-term0=white+australia+policy|||q-field1=title%3A|||q-type1=all|||qterm1|||q-field2=creator%3A|||q-type2=all|||q-term2|||q-field3=subject%3A|||qtype3=all|||q-term3|||q-year1-date=1950|||q-year2-date=1955# Truth Sydney [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This newspaper thoroughly details everything about the White Australia Policy. This includes the creation of it, the actual policy itself, cases in relation to it and the opinions of it in 1952, 51 years after it was written and passed. This two-page research of the White Australia Policy was useful in demonstrating the roots of the policy (why it was created, who created it etc.) and shows how cases, such as the O’Keefe case, have caused many to, in 1952, begin to attack the policy for its racist features. 

 

 

Interviews and Speeches 

 

Neumann, K. (2018). Interview with Klaus Neumann regarding O'Keefe case. 

This interview was conducted between via email. Mr Neumann, a professor at Deakin University has done extensive research on Mrs O’Keefe case and multiple other deportation and refugee crisis including it in his book ‘Across the Seas: Australia's Response to Refugees. Via email, I asked him about the significance of her case, the impact it had on Australia and the abolishment of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s.This interview provided me with useful information in relation to the impact it had for other cases in the future and the parallels of the case with today’s society. 

Tavan, G. (2018). Interview with Gwenda Tavan talking about the O'Keefe case and White Australia Policy. 

This interview was conducted via email.  Gwenda Tavan is Associate Professor and the current Head of the Department of Politics and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include the politics and history of immigration and multiculturalism in Australian, global and transnational contexts. She has in-depth researched Mrs O’Keefe case mentioning it multiple interviews and writing about it in her book “The Long, Slow Death of White Australia.” . In the interview she mentioned the impact the O’Keefe case socially, politically and economically and o provided a difference perspective on Mr Calwell. Furthermore, the interview also gave a great insight into the political repercussions it had for the Government. 

Zubrzycki, P. (1994). Arthur Calwell and the origin of post-war immigration. 

This speech was given by Professor Zubrzycki to the Migration Division Seminar, Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Canberra, on 6 October 1994.In this speech she speaks about Mr Calwell and the impact he had on immigration policy while in tenure as Immigration Minister. She briefly mentions the O’Keefe case and the harsh criticism he received for her deportation. This speech was useful in shining light upon the backlash Mr Calwell received for the case. 

Secondary Sources: 

 

Books, Reports and Journal Articles 

Ashton, P. and Anderson, M. (2012). History 10. South Yarra, VIC: Macmillan. 

This book provided the features of a government policy that affected immigration to Australia, such as the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and use of the dictation test to restrict the immigration of non-Europeans it also explains the reasons for the abolition of such policies. It illustrates the evolving views Australians had on immigrants, foreign citizens from 1901, the creation of the White Australia Policy to 2012.This book is reliable with a wide variety of primary sources to support its statements. 

Brawley, S. (1995). The white peril. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, p.pg 259 

This book, written by Sean Brawley, is about the changing positions towards Asian migration in Australia. In detail, Brawley talks about the O’Keefe case and the effect it had in Asian most specifically talking about the reactions of Malay and its leader Tahu Kalu. Brawley illustrates how the O’Keefe case challenged both the economic and homogeneity arguments of the White Australia Policy. Using a range of primary sources, including interviews with experts in the field and secondary sources, this was a very useful book that I used throughout my essay in relation to the impact of her case. 

Brawley, S. (2014). Finding Home in White Australia. History Australia, 11(1), pp.128-148. 

Brawley  

Drawn from archival research, this article examines the legal arguments that both sides brought to the court. The article talks about how the case raised several issues that went far beyond narrow legal and technical arguments. Under what circumstances could a foreign-born non-European individual call Australia home? The thesis of the article is if 

the fate of one Indonesian family but the White Australia Policy and Australia’s entire post-war migration program. A reliable source, this article was instrumental in my research process, giving an in-depth analysis of the legal intricacies of the case and the impact these intricacies had for future immigration policy.  

Brawley, S. (2018). [online] Multiculturalaustralia.edu.au. Available at: 

http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/Brawley_AnnieOKeefe.pdf [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018]. 

Published by the National Archives of Australia, this looks at the archives about the case. They include Immigration Department files documenting the family’s time in Australia, and their efforts to stay. Attorney-General’s Department records show the government’s efforts to defend its position in the High Court case, and cables from Australian diplomats in Asian capitals report on the harm the case was doing to the nation’s reputation in the region. Immigration Department files and the personal papers of Prime Minister Ben Chifley contain letters written by private citizens and organisations expressing their opposition to the family’s deportation. The article talks about the letters to the Prime Minister from neighbours and friends of Mrs O’Keefe arguing that that Calwell’s administration of the policy was causing harm to Australia’s reputation in Asia and the Mrs O’Keefe deserved to stay in Australia. The letters also reveal that Australians were beginning to question the well-worn defence that the policy was informed by issues of economics (protecting the working conditions of Australians) and homogeneity (maintaining the racial and cultural integrity of the nation to prevent social dislocation). 

 

Europarl.europa.eu. (2012). Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy. [online] Available at: 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/danz/dv/0220_13_1/02 20_13_1en.pdf [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This short article gives the history of the White Australia policy and the racist views of Australia’s in the early 20th century. It also details the timeline leading to the policies ultimate demise. Although detailed, it doesn’t ‘reference its research to any primary or secondary sources, deeming the information unreliable. 

Goldsworthy, D. (2001). Facing North. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, p.pg 88. 

Facing North is the first substantial history of Australia's relations with Asia since Federation. 

Through the research, two volumes of the book were used. Volume 1 chronicles AustralianAsian relations from 1901 to the 1970s and Volume 2 (in preparation) will carry the story through the last decades of the century just ended. Both make extensive use of official government sources and of the private collections of ministers and public servants. Ever since Federation, Australians in public life have expressed diverse views on our foreign policy and on areas with major domestic consequences, such as immigration. In detail Goldsworthy, talks about the evolution of Asian immigration in Australia and how this has affected Australia and Asia’s relationship. It was a great book, using a range of primary and secondary sources to back up its interesting findings. 

 

Meadows, E. (2018). ‘He No Doubt Felt Insulted’: The White Australia Policy and Australia’s Relations with India, 1944–1964. [online] Hdl.handle.net. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/12451 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This book briefly mentioned the O’Keefe case and the negative reaction Nehru, the Indian prime minister had at the time. It talks about the speech he gave to the Australia 

Associated Press criticising the Immigration Policy. Through the use of primary and secondary sources, the book demonstrated the tensions caused between Asia and Australia during the O’Keefe case. 

Meaney, N. (2018). The end of ‘white Australia’ and Australia's changing perceptions of Asia, 1945–1990. 

This article explores a central, question in Australian history, namely, how the Federation's ideal of 'White Australia' and its perception of Asia as the alien other have in the early to mid 20th century came to be discarded and replaced by the notion of the 'multicultural' society and Australia as integrally part of Asia and prospectively a 'Eurasian' nation. In this, Meaney mentions how the O’Keefe case was a turning point for the relationship. Thoroughly researched, the book provided an insight into the international impact of the case. 

 

Neumann, K. (2015). Across the Seas: Australia's Response to Refugees: A History. Melbourne: Black Inc., pp.65-67. 

In this eloquent and informative book, historian Klaus Neumann examines both government policy and public attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers since Federation. He places the Australian story in the context of global refugee movements, and international responses to them. Neumann examines many case studies, including the resettlement of displaced persons from European refugee camps in the late 1940s and early 1950s,the O ’Keefe case  and the panic generated by the arrival of Vietnamese asylum seekers during the 1977 federal election campaign. By exploring the ways in which politicians have approached asylum-seeker issues in the past, the books aims to inspire more creative thinking about current refugee and asylum-seeker policy. Neumann illustrates how the O’Keefe case had implications for cases thereafter 

 

Nicholls, G. (2007). Deported. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, pp.pg 28-29. 

. Drawing on archival material, case studies, court decisions and parliamentary debates, ‘ Deported’ presents the previously untold story of the use and misuse of deportation powers in Australia over the past 105 years. ‘Deported’ briefly mentions the O’

Keefe case and the support Ms O’Keefe had from media outlets such as The Herald who set up a fund for her support. 

Nma.gov.au. (2018). End of the White Australia policy | National Museum of Australia. 

[online] Available at: 

http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/end_of_the_white_a ustralia_policy [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

Using interviews by immigration experts, primary sources and university papers, the National Museum of Australia, provides an comprehensive report of the abolition of the White Australia Policy, giving some information about immigration policies leading up to the abolition and after it. 

Parlinfo.aph.gov.au. (2018). ParlInfo - Title Unavailable. [online] Available at: 

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=_fragm ent_number,doc_date-

rev;query=Dataset%3Ahansardr,hansardr80%20Decade%3A%221940s%22%20Year%3 A%221947%22%20Month%3A%2212%22;rec=2;resCount=Default [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

This parliament document provides only the date and time of the debate in the House of Representatives between Mr Calwell and Mr Holt. 

Power, P. (2014). How one refugee signalled the end of the White Australia policy | Paul Power. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/annie-white-australia-policy [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018]. 

Only published recently, this secondary source goes into detail in the O’Keefe case, including the backstory to the case, the case itself and the support during the case. It also talks about the repercussions of the case and the reaction of the verdict. 

Sharkey, L. (1949). Race Theory and the Labor Imperialists. Communist Review, 2(71), p.pg 

20. 

This review from the Australia Communist Party reflects upon the deportations of several 

“coloured peoples” and refutes the economic foundations of the policy. The review believes rather that the deportations have nothing to do with employment, but it is due to racism of “coloured peoples. This review highlights the true incentive of the Australia immigration Policy. However, much of this review wasn’t based upon cases or evidences rather on personal opinion. Therefore, although useful for evidence of condemnation of the policy, it wasn’t backed up with clear, primary source findings. 

Stewart, I., Hohmann, J. and Robertson, K. (2005). Dictating to One of 'Us': The Migration of Mrs Freer. Macquarie Law Journal, 5(2), pp.241-275. 

Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, this journal article, In detail, talks about the racist purpose of the White Australia Policy and the purpose of the Dictation Test. Going into the legal and ethical implications of the policy, this was a reliable and useful resource which was used throughout the essay. 

Documentaries 

 

Immigration Nation. (2008). [film] Australia: SBS. 

 

This is a landmark series that explores Australia's untold immigration story; a century long struggle to overcome the White Australia Policy that resulted in one of the world's most multicultural nations. Cut up into 3 sections: Federation, WW2,and post-WW2 , this documentary demonstrates the rise of the White Australia Policy and the events which led to its eventual fall. 

 

Sir Robert Menzies on the White Australia Policy. (1951). [film] Australia: Australian Broadcasting Commission 

 

This one on one interview illustrates Sir Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister at the time racist and discriminatory views of “Asiatics”. By showing politicians views of immigrants, it alludes to the views of the outer Australia public. 

The Rise and Fall of the White Australia Policy. (1997). [DVD] Directed by P. Kelly. Canberra. 

Created in Canberra 30 years after its abolition, this documentary reflects upon the events, including the O’Keefe case that lead to its abolition. Using interviews with experts of the field, this factual documentary presents that its abolition was due to several deportation cases that changed the opinions of the public and Australia’s politicians 

 

The Voice of the People : The White Australia policy. (1952). [video] Australia: ABC. 

Only produced a few years after the O’Keefe case, this four corners report asks people on the street their opinions of the White Australia Policy. Although some are racist, many hold the belief that the policy in unfair, unjust and racist towards those of different ethnicities. This report was helpful in highlighting the public’s condemnation and disgust of the policy post O’Keefe case. 

 

Websites: 

 

Aaac.100megsfree5.com. (2018). The O'Keefe case. [online] Available at: http://www.aaac.100megsfree5.com/calwellokeefecase.htm [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This website looks into the O’Keefe case and the reaction it had from Mr Calwell, the Immigration Minister at the time. The article, also talks about the reason or argument for her deportation and the history surrounding wartime refugees. By giving background information to the O’Keefe case, it provided a starting step for further research. However, it doesn’t mention or footnote any sources, therefore deeming it as unreliable. 

 

Adb.anu.edu.au. (2018). Biography - Arthur Augustus Calwell - Australian Dictionary of 

Biography. [online] Available at: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/calwell-arthur-augustus9667 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018] 

. 

This unbiased biography is of Arthur Calwell, an Australia politician who served as Immigration Minister and then Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1960 to 1967.Although only briefly mentioning the O’Keefe case this biography provides context to his harsh treatment of Annie and her family. But, also, shows the powerful impact his later policies had for immigration including the “populate or perish” slogan. This biography, in detail, talked every aspect of Mr Calwell’s life from political, social and mental. 

 

 

Buchanan, K. (2015). On This Day: Establishment of the “White Australia” Policy. [Blog] Law Library. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/12/on-this-day-establishment-of-thewhite-australia-policy/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This blog provides the written word of the Dictation Test and Immigration Act of 1901 and explains meaning behind the legal terminology. It also refers to court cases related to the application of the policy and then the abolition of the policy. This blog footnotes all of its sources (of which there are many), providing a reliable and useful source. 

 

Destinationaustralia.gov.au. (1949). Annie Maas O'Keefe vs Arthur Augustus Calwell and the Commonwealth of Australia | Destination Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.destinationaustralia.gov.au/stories/challenges/annie-maas-okeefe-vs-arthuraugustus-calwell-and-commonwealth-australia [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018]. 

This website provides a brief outline of the case and its implications for the policy. Furthermore, it also provides a few newspapers from the National Archives of Australia  written during the time of the O’Keefe case. 

 

Electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au. (2018). Election Speeches · Robert Menzies, 1949 · Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. [online] Available at: https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1949-robert-menzies [Accessed 3 Apr. 2018]. 

This website provides the transcript of Robert Menzies election speech against Ben Chifley in 1949.His speech illustrated that although he believed in the White Australia Policy he did find that the way it was implemented to be inhumane and unfair and also disrupting our relationship with Asia. 

 

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2018). White Australia policy | Summary & Facts. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/event/White-Australia-Policy [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This website published by encyclopaedia Britannica looks at the history of the White Australia Policy and the reasons for its implementation. The website also shows anti-immigration cartoons prior to the policy, highlighting the once racist views of Australians. 

 

Homeaffairs.gov.au. (2018). Fact sheet – Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy. [online] Available at: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/corporate/information/factsheets/08abolition [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This fact sheet looks at the history of the policy, the infringements of the policy during the Second World War. It also looks at the small changes that amalgamated into the eventual abolition of the policy. Furthermore, it also looks at the present immigration policy and the multicultural society that we have now transformed into. 

 

Ironbarkresources.com. (2018). The Demise of the White Australia Policy - The Media; and Their Use of "Tear-Jerker" Stories to Change Immigration Policies. [online] Available at: http://www.ironbarkresources.com/demise/demise04.htm [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This biased website illustrates the power the media has to change government policy, more specifically immigration policy. It looks at the O’Keefe case and the sympathy gained for her by the support of the media. Furthermore, the website also illustrates that the actions of the media caused, slowly, the abolition of the White Australia Policy. Although slightly biased (against the media) in its views, it illustrates the impact the O’Keefe case and the support for her case had on the Immigration policy. 

 

Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. (2007). White Australia policy – the beginning of the end 50 years ago. [online] Available at: 

https://www.moadoph.gov.au/blog/white-australia-policy-the-beginning-of-the-end-50-yearsago/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This government website published by Dr Barry York start of the adjustments of the policy during the 1950s and then the steps leading to its abolition in 1973 by the Whitlam Government. It also talks about the implications of the abolition for immigrants and for Australia’s relationships with other countries. 

Myplace.edu.au. (2009). 1960s | My Place for teachers. [online] Available at: http://www.myplace.edu.au/decades_timeline/1960/decade_landing_4.html?tabRank=2&sub TabRank=4 [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This educational website talks about the abolition of the White Australia Policy. It talks about the legislative changes that Holt implemented to aid in the abolition of the policy. 

 

Naa.gov.au. (2018). [online] Available at: 

http://www.naa.gov.au/Images/Brawley%20Oct%202007%20edit_tcm16-35888.pdf [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This lecture from Sean Brawley, an expert in relation to the O’Keefe, examines the challenges made to the White Australia Policy during the Pacific War and early post-war period. Dr Brawley’s study focused on two extraordinary Australians: Mrs Annie Maas Jacob O’Keefe, the first victorious legal challenger of the White Australia Policy, and Arthur Calwell, the then Immigration Minister and a staunch defender of the policy. By utilising life history as a methodological approach, Dr Brawley intends to close the gap between biography and history and allow the life stories to become the vehicle for his historical pap. Dr Brawley has made extensive use of Dutch sources and has studied early Australian–Dutch–Indonesian relations. This thoroughly researched paper was beneficial to both the research and writing of this essay. 

 

Southaustralianhistory.com.au. (2018). Displaced Persons. [online] Available at: https://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/displaced.htm [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This website looks at the Immigration Program, directed by Arthur Calwell, that opened the door for thousands of displaced persons (or refugees) after the second world war. However, as mentioned in the website, they were only allowed to stay here for a small period of time. This scheme is in which Mrs O’Keefe deportation is based. 

 

Splash. (2012). Resources for Primary and Secondary Students - ABC Education The White 

Australia Policy. [online] Available at: http://education.abc.net.au/home#!/digibook/613054/the-white-australia-policy [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018]. 

 

This educational resources uses archival resources, to retell the story of the White Australia Policy, its implementation and later its abolition. Using archival resources, ABC had demonstrated the processes refugees during the 20th century had to embark upon during the White Australia Policy and after. 

 

 

 

 

  

Guarding the Flood Gates: The Removal of Non-Europeans, 1945–491 Klaus Neumann

histfict1p

C H A P T E R 1 2

Guarding the Flood Gates: The Removal of Non-Europeans, 1945–491

Klaus Neumann

Mavis Anderson,GwendolineWestbury, Joyce Cain and John O’Keefe had two things in common: they were British subjects living in Australia, and between 1943 and 1947,they all married somebody seemingly not eligible for Australian permanent residence. The great mistake explored in this chapter – the deportation and attempted deportation of non-Europeans in the immediate postwar years – had serious consequences for those who were separated from their new families.Arguably,the mistake also involved a serious error of judgment on the part of some of those to be deported: they did not expect the authorities to disregard their marriage to an Australian. But could they be blamed for following their hearts?

d

Mavis Anderson was a waitress in Sydney when she married Abdul SamadAmjah in November 1943.He had been born in 1920 in Malacca (Melaka), Malaya, and thus was a British subject.A seaman and member of the Royal NavalVoluntary Reserve, he had initially come to Australia in early 1942 as a crew-member of the SS Klang, which had sailed from Batavia to Broome to avoid capture by the Japanese. Later he served on the MV Gorgon, which ferried Australian troops and supplies to New Guinea. On 12 April 1943, Japanese aircraft attacked the Gorgon in Milne Bay.Abdul Samad Amjah was wounded and lucky to survive after drifting unconscious in the water for more than two hours. He was evacuated first to an American field hospital and then to hospitals in Townsville and Brisbane.After his discharge,he moved to Sydney where he met his future wife. He worked as a factory hand and, for six months, as a seaman on the SS Marella. Mavis (who embraced Islam and became also known as Minah) and Abdul Samad Amjah had their first child on Christmas Day 1945, followed by a second child in 1947.2

Joyce Cain was an eighteen-year-old working in a Melbourne biscuit factory. Lorenzo Gamboa was wearing a US Army uniform when in March 1942 she first met him on a local train and invited him to her parents’ house for tea. He was from Pangasinan in the Philippines. Serving with the American forces in his native country, he had been evacuated to Australia in January 1942 when the Philippines had been occupied by the Japanese. From November 1942 to April 1943, he was stationed in New Guinea. On 9 October 1943, Joyce Cain and Lorenzo Gamboa married in Melbourne. One month later, Lorenzo once more left for New Guinea,and then took part in the American military’s push north.In 1944,while serving with General Douglas MacArthur’s staff in the Philippines, his wife gave birth to their son Raymond in Melbourne. The end of the war found Lorenzo Gamboa in Japan. In November 1945, he was discharged in Australia, joined his wife and baby son, and took a job with theVictorian Railways.3

Gwendoline Westbury was also from Melbourne. Less than two weeks afterVE Day she married Soeka Soemitro, a 36-year-old Javanese. Having lost her status as a British subject due to her marriage, she had to apply for registration as an alien under the wartime National Security Regulations. Asked to state her date of entry into Australia, she wrote, ‘Lived here all my life’.4 Soeka Soemitro was in Australia not of his own volition but because the authorities of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) had considered him a troublemaker.As he belonged to the central executive of the Indonesian nationalist organisation Pendidikan, the Dutch had exiled him to Tanah Merah, a malaria-infested settlement in West New Guinea. In late May 1943, the Dutch evacuated more than 500

Tanah Merah exiles to Australia.After a request by the NEI authorities, the Australians imprisoned these political exiles, who included women and children, in internment camps at Cowra and Liverpool, NSW. Soeka was one of the first Indonesian internees to be freed when he was released from Cowra on 3 November 1943. Ironically, he ended up working for the government that had been responsible for his internment: he took a job with the Indonesian-language newspaper Penjoeloeh, which was published by the NEI Government Information Service in Australia.After his marriage,he left the Penjoeloeh and found employment first in a South Melbourne knitting mill, and then with an engineering firm. In April 1946, Gwendoline gave birth to their daughter.5

In September 1942, 33-year-old Annie Maas Jacob – originally from Celebes (Sulawesi) – was evacuated from the Aru Islands in the

Moluccas on HMAS Warrnambool, accompanied by her husband, Samuel, and their seven children.They were first taken to Darwin, and from there to Melbourne. Another child was born to the couple in Australia. In 1944, Samuel died in a plane crash while returning from New Guinea on a mission for the NEI Intelligence Service.Three years later, Annie married John O’Keefe, who had been the Jacobs’ landlord since 1943.The family continued to live at John’s house in Bonbeach on the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne.6

During World War II, thousands of non-Europeans were allowed to enter Australia. They included evacuees like Annie Jacob from SouthEast Asia and from Australia’s colonial territories (Papua, New Guinea and Nauru); seamen like Abdul Samad Amjah;Allied military personnel like Lorenzo Gamboa; internees like Soeka Soemitro; and Japanese prisoners of war.Their stay in Australia was never meant to be permanent.

It is unlikely that any of the approximately 7000 non-European evacuees and seamen who were allowed intoAustralia – nor the POWs,internees and soldiers who entered the country involuntarily or in the line of duty – came with the intention of settling permanently.After Abdul Samad Amjah was discharged from hospital,he wrote to the immigration authorities:

I would like to have a rest on shore for a while,and would therefore request you to be good enough to allow me to look for shore work. I do not intend to settle down in Australia, as I have got my home with my mother, sister and brothers in Malacca, to where I intend to return as soon as the war is over.7

The overwhelming majority of non-Europeans left Australia as soon as conditions in their homelands permitted their return. Shipping capacities were limited in the immediate postwar years, and as priority was given to the repatriation of Allied soldiers, the authorities were unable to remove all non-European temporary entrants as promptly as they would have liked. At the end of the war, probably only a few hundred non-European wartime arrivals would have opted to remain in Australia. But the longer they stayed, the greater was the chance that they would prefer to stay. Contrary to their initial intentions, many of the temporary entrants did ‘settle down’ in Australia, and their willingness to depart was tempered by the attachments they formed. Those who found steady employment or who fell in love with an Australian and established a family were most reluctant to leave,particularly if their Australian partner was unable or unwilling to accompany them.

But the Labor government was determined to uphold the principles of the White Australia policy and effect the departure of all nonEuropean temporary entrants.The minister responsible for their removal was Arthur Calwell, Minister for Information since 1943 and Australia’s first Minister for Immigration from 1945. He was committed to enforcing the policy, and categorically refused to allow any exceptions. Those who were reluctant to leave Australia had three obvious options: they could go into hiding, wait to be deported, or pre-empt a deportation order by departing voluntarily. A minority was able to evade the Immigration Department: in mid-1950, the department knew of, but could not locate, 99 non-European wartime arrivals.8 But the majority only had the choice between a voluntary and an enforced departure.

The immigration authorities contacted Lorenzo Gamboa in early 1946 and told him that he must leave within three months. Gamboa complied and departed in June 1946 for the USA, believing that he would be able to return once he had taken out American citizenship. On 26 July 1946, he became a naturalised US citizen. He rejoined the US Army and was once more posted to Japan. The Gamboas’ second child was born in January 1947. In October 1948, Lorenzo applied through the Australian mission in Tokyo for permission to re-enter Australia. Aware that the Immigration Department might refuse him a permanent visa, he was prepared to compromise.The Australian mission in Tokyo reported to Canberra:‘If Corporal Gamboa is not eligible for permanent admission to the Commonwealth he requests admission for a limited period to see his wife and children prior to making definite plans for their future’.9 But he was denied even a visitor’s visa.

Most former internees, evacuees and Allied soldiers from the

Indonesian archipelago were repatriated in 1946. In early 1947, the Australian government made arrangements for the repatriation of the remaining Indonesians, including Soeka Soemitro, on HMAS Manoora. At around the same time, conflicting reports appeared in the Australian press about the living conditions that awaited the Australian wives of Indonesian repatriates. In March, the Australian consul general in Batavia told the Department of Immigration that‘it is wiser that women should not come yet’,for‘[l]ife in a native village would be just unthinkable and many towns are overcrowded so that they might have to live in a room or two that they must find unpalatable’.10 So Calwell announced that Australian women and children would not be allowed to accompany their Indonesian husbands and fathers when the latter were repatriated on the Manoora. Understandably, Soeka and others in his position now wanted to remain in Australia to avoid being separated from their families, but they had little choice. They left the country on the

Australian troopship.

Calwell’s ban only affected ‘white’ women and children, for when the Manoora left Brisbane on 3 May 1947, the Immigration

Department’s Queensland office reported that ‘349 Indonesian and 23 Australian-born coloured women, wives and children of Indonesians departed’.11 Gwendoline Soemitro was one of four Melbourne-based white women who were forced to remain behind. She and her daughter were left in a precarious position, as the Indonesian authorities did not permit Soeka to remit money for her maintenance, andVictorian legislation did not allow for the payment of social security benefits to her, thus forcing her initially to rely on her parents for support. In 1949 Gwendoline finally joined Soeka in Macassar.

Abdul Samad Amjah received his first notice to leave Australia in October 1947. He was then one of 14 Malayans who had married or entered into de facto relationships while living in Australia,and who had not yet returned to Malaya or Singapore. In January, Arthur Calwell signed deportation orders against 18 Malayans, including Abdul Samad Amjah, even though the latter’s employer had offered to deposit a bond with the immigration authorities should he be allowed to stay, and Mavis Amjah was expecting another child. Samad and 15 other

Malayans, among them at least six men married to Australians, left

Australia on 7 February 1948 aboard the Japan-bound SS Westralia. FromTokyo,the men were transferred to Singapore.Here,Samad Amjah joined the auxiliary police force. Anxious to return to Australia at the earliest opportunity, he sought the help of the Australian commissioner in Singapore, who supported his application for a visa. But as in Gamboa’s case, the Immigration Department was not even willing to grant him a visitor’s visa. In September 1948, Samad Amjah signed on as crew on the SS Marella, and upon reaching Sydney deserted the ship to rejoin his family.Working first under an alias, and then under his own name, he avoided the attention of the immigration authorities for three months until he was given a dictation test in French.12 After predictably failing it, he was charged with being a prohibited immigrant.

Annie O’Keefe took an exceptional course of action which affected the cases of other wartime entrants determined to remain in Australia. Told to leave Australia or face deportation, she challenged the government in the High Court. In March 1949, the court ruled that in order for the Department of Immigration to control her stay in Australia by means of certificates of exemption, she needed to have been declared a prohibited immigrant, which would have required her to have failed a dictation test. But the immigration authorities had not administered the dictation test to either the wartime evacuees or the discharged seamen. The court further ruled that she could not become a prohibited immigrant by means of the administration of the dictation test five years or more after her arrival. The judges therefore upheld Annie O’Keefe’s appeal against Calwell’s deportation order.

The government responded by drafting the Wartime Refugees Removal Bill, allowing it to deport wartime refugees regardless of the circumstances under which they had been admitted.When the bill was debated in parliament in mid-1949, only the former NSW premier, Jack Lang (who called it the ‘Reprisals Against Mrs O’Keefe Bill’), and the left-wing independent, Doris Blackburn, spoke against it. The opposition, led by Robert Menzies, did not object in principle to the government’s attempt to close a loophole in the administration of the White Australia policy. The Act came into force in July 1949, six months before the federal election that saw Ben Chifley’s government voted out of office.

In August, the High Court rejected a challenge mounted by several Chinese seamen against theWartime Refugees Removal Act,but despite Calwell’s determination to rid Australia of the ‘recalcitrant minority’ of non-European wartime refugees, the Act had little effect because the Immigration Department deferred the serving of deportation orders.13 While the federal opposition had not resisted the Act, its leaders repeatedly attacked Calwell over the uncompromising administration of Australia’s non-European immigration policy. In doing so, they joined newspaper editors,church leaders (including the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and Calwell confidant, Daniel Mannix), unionists and many ordinary Australians who were appalled by what they perceived as

Calwell’s heartlessness.

The first deportation case to attract considerable public attention was that of the 14 Malay seamen married to Australian women and threatened with deportation in late 1947. It became major news in Singapore and Malaya, and was also picked up by the Australian press. But it was the case of Annie O’Keefe that put the issue at the top of the political agenda.The plight of the O’Keefe family first featured prominently in the Australian press in January 1949. In February, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph set up a fighting fund to finance her High Court appeal, arguing that‘the people of this country,whatever their politics,will want her to have every chance to prove the rights she thinks she possesses’.14 Within five days, readers had offered a total of £747.

While the O’Keefe case was before the High Court, the Australian public learnt of Samad Amjah’s impending court case over his alleged illegal entry into Australia. In early March, several newspapers ran sympathetic articles, illustrated by photos depicting him and his wife, and sometimes also his Australian children. Samad Amjah was strongly supported by his union,theTanning and Gelatine Union.He was sentenced to six months gaol pending deportation, but this was overturned on appeal on the grounds that the Immigration Department had no power to order him to leave Australia because he had not failed a dictation test within five years of arriving, and because Amjah had by now ‘been absorbed into the community’ and was, therefore, no longer an immigrant in the meaning of the Immigration Act.15 Following advice from the solicitor general, the Immigration Department decided against appealing to the High Court. Amjah’s victory was complete when the Marella’s owners declined to pursue their own case against him for deserting the ship.

Calwell’s defeat in the High Court was closely followed by the public furore over his refusal to grant a visa to Lorenzo Gamboa.The Gamboas’ story broke after a Tokyo-based journalist, Denis Warner, heard of the case.In an interview in 2001,Joyce Gamboa recalled having been woken at two o’clock one morning by Melbourne journalists wanting to confirm and follow upWarner’s story.As in the case of Annie O’Keefe, the newspapers played a key role in mobilising public support: ‘The reporters were very good to me’, Joyce Gamboa remembered. ‘Actually the reporters did everything. I didn’t have to do a particular lot.’16 Lorenzo also had a prominent international backer: ‘MacArthur asks Australia to Help Gamboa’, the Melbourne Sun announced in a front-page headline on 25 March 1949.

d

The Amjahs, the Gamboas and the O’Keefes enjoyed much popular support because the non-European adults in these families were respectable,spoke English and were married toAustralians.Abdul Samad Amjah, Lorenzo Gamboa and Annie O’Keefe’s first husband, Samuel Jacob,had actively supported Australia during the war.Samad Amjah was a member of the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA, which was the precursor of the RSL – Returned and Services League of Australia).There was no tangible evidence for Calwell’s claim that granting permanent residence in some individual cases would irredeemably compromise Australia’s immigration policies.Public sentiment was also the result of a skilful media campaign, which was partly motivated by an agenda unrelated to the government’s immigration policy. As Minister for Information in the final two years of the war, Calwell had been in charge of censorship and experienced a difficult relationship with sections of the Australian press. Besides, 1949 was an election year, and the government’s opponents in the media and in parliament milked the deportation controversies for all they were worth.

In spite of the public outcry, Calwell remained unwavering in his commitment to refuse exceptions. He was convinced that he was right, and that the Australian public, if not already behind him, would eventually recognise that. He variously suspected communists, journalists, newspaper proprietors and the Dutch government of orchestrating the campaign against him. Defending his stance, he frequently used language that could be considered offensive, even by the standards of the time. On 9 February 1949, in response to criticism by the Liberals’ Harold Holt over his treatment of Annie O’Keefe, Calwell declared: ‘We can have a white Australia, we can have a black Australia, but a mongrel Australia is impossible, and I shall not take the first steps to establish the precedents which will allow the flood gates to be opened’.17 He also frequently cast aspersions on the integrity of some of the ‘recalcitrants’. Thus he insinuated that the only rationale for Annie O’Keefe’s second marriage was to foil the Immigration Department’s attempt at making her leave the country.

Throughout his political career, Calwell was a populist. By taking a populist approach to issues of colour and race, however, he effectively legitimised racist and xenophobic sentiments. During the 1949 federal election campaign, Calwell defended his decision not to allow Lorenzo Gamboa to join his wife and children by telling a crowd at the Brunswick town hall:‘If we let in any US citizen, we will have to admit US negroes. I don’t think any mothers and fathers want to see that’. According to a newspaper report, Calwell ‘was cheered when he said that he was not going to take the responsibility of turning any Australian community into the unsatisfactory state of affairs which existed in Harlem in America’.18

Calwell’s uncompromising stance was a mistake for at least five reasons. First, his determination to repatriate or deport all nonEuropeans who had arrived in Australia during World War II severely damaged Australia’s reputation overseas, particularly in South and South-East Asia.19 Two days after the threatened deportation of the 14 Malay seamen became front page news in Singapore, the Australian commissioner in Singapore wrote to the Department of Immigration: ‘Hostile reaction here upon the reported decision to deport 14 Malayans, is the most extreme we have yet had to face, and has already largely undone the goodwill towards Australia of the local Asian population resulting from our initiative in supporting the Indonesian Republic’. The commissioner urged the department to reconsider its approach, thinking it ‘wiser from a long term point of view to make judicious exceptions to the immigrant regulations than give occasion to criticism of staff policy which may very likely reach the United Nations Assembly’.20 Like many other diplomats at the time, he was sceptical about the merits of the White Australia policy.

As Calwell’s determination to rid Australia of all non-European wartime arrivals was reported prominently in South and South-East Asia,Malayans,Filipinos and others felt insulted and expected their governments to retaliate against Australia’s discriminatory policy. In 1949, the parliament in Manila passed a Reciprocity Immigration Bill, which, if it had been enacted, would have prevented Australians from entering the Philippines. It took years to restore the goodwill towards Australia in Asia.In the Philippines,in particular,Australia remained first and foremost associated with its non-European immigration policy. In 1956, the Australian ambassador in the Philippines wrote in a briefing paper for Prime Minister Menzies:

The attitude of the Philippines towards Australia is a bit hard to define.The vast majority of the people know only that there is a big country somewhere or other down south which, a few years ago, was nasty to a man called Gamboa. The rather few who know very much about us still, I am afraid, when they think of us also recall Gamboa.21

Eight years later, another Australian ambassador in Manila noted that ‘Reporting from this post has frequently mentioned the starring role that Sergeant Gamboa still plays in Philippine mythology, and his unfortunate influence on Australia’s image amongst the Philippine masses’. Having been ‘confronted with this popular if misunderstood character by almost everybody I meet, from near-naked tribesmen to important government officials and congressional personalities’, the ambassador suggested that the Department of External Affairs prepare a leaflet presenting Australia’s side of the story and drawing attention to its happy ending.22 External Affairs rejected this proposal out of fear that such publicity would only draw further attention to Australia’s discriminatory immigration policies.

Second, by its unwillingness to countenance exceptions to the existing policy, the government missed a golden opportunity to gradually reform its non-European immigration regime, which had become a liability in Australia’s relations with its Asian neighbours and was increasingly seen as an anachronism as other settler nations adjusted their immigration policies.

Third, the deportation of men such as Abdul Samad Amjah and

Lorenzo Gamboa was arguably not in Australia’s economic interest. Calwell himself was one of the principal advocates of a dramatic increase in Australia’s population.The government had recognised that its preferred options – a higher birth rate and an increase in British immigration – would in themselves be insufficient for reaching the target of a two per cent annual increase. From 1947, the Immigration Department recruited significant numbers of non-English speaking migrants from Europe. Given the costs involved in resettling Europeans in Australia, and the fact that men like Amjah spoke English and had no problem in finding employment, it made little economic sense to incur more costs by deporting them.

Fourth, the government failed to act responsibly and to show leadership on an issue that appealed to racist rabble-rousers. Instead,Arthur Calwell employed the politics of fear by suggesting that the granting of permanent residence to comparatively few non-Europeans – in 1949, the number of non-European wartime arrivals wanting to stay in Australia amounted to less than one per cent of all non-British European migrants arriving that year – would lead to uncontrolled Asian immigration.

Finally, by exercising no discretion when implementing the policy, Calwell failed to take into account the human rights of the individuals affected by it. It is by no means self-evident that the national interest ought always to be accorded precedence over the welfare of individuals.

In this case, the latter should have been given particular weight, especially because some of the individuals concerned were Australian-born.

While the strength of these five arguments is more apparent in the early twenty-first century thanks to the benefit of hindsight, each of them also was, or could have been, convincingly put forward in the second half of the 1940s. Besides, in at least three respects Calwell committed a tactical blunder. His rigid enforcement of the White Australia policy detracted from his achievements as Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, most notably his negotiation of an agreement with the International Refugee Organization in 1947, which paved the way for the arrival of 180,000 European displaced persons in Australia over the next six years. His handling of the O’Keefe and Gamboa cases, in particular, provided ammunition to his political opponents and allowed them to portray him as uncaring and inflexible. Lastly, Calwell’s decision to refuse exceptions effectively undermined the very policy that he wanted to uphold, because its critics were able to use the hardship caused by its implementation in individual cases to attack the whole policy.

There are numerous reasons why Calwell made this mistake. He was driven by a sense of mission, genuinely believing that Australia needed to be quarantined from non-European immigration. Among Australia’s senior politicians he was consistently the most passionate postwar advocate of the White Australia policy. He believed that he was merely defending a long-standing principle, time and again referring to this policy as one ‘that has been carried out by every Australian government since federation’.23 Finally, he believed that the Australian public overwhelmingly supported his stance.He correctly assessed the community’s general mood with regard to the White Australia policy’s broader principles, but misjudged both the extent to which ordinary Australians could sympathise with individual victims of this policy, and the power of the printed word when advocating such compassion.

Calwell tried to enforce the White Australia policy not just with respect to non-European wartime arrivals. He controversially ordered the deportation of other long-term non-European residents, including the African-American boxer, Clarence Olin Reeves (‘Alabama Kid’), who also had an Australian wife, and he unsuccessfully tried to deport others such as North Queensland potato farmer, Frank Jang, who had lived in Australia for 19 years. In response to the arrival of hundreds of Anglo-Indians and Ceylonese Burghers, Calwell tried to tighten the regulations governing the entry of people of mixed descent.And motivated both by Australian wartime experiences and his commitment to established immigration policy,he prevented Australian servicemen who had married local women while serving with the Allied occupation forces in Japan from bringing their Japanese wives to Australia. During his tenure as Minister for Immigration, Calwell reserved his most vitriolic public comments for Japanese women, claiming in 1948 that they would pollute Australia’s shores if allowed into the country.24

In December 1949, the Chifley government lost office after the

Australian Labor Party (ALP) suffered a heavy defeat in the polls. On 16 February 1950, the Liberal Party’s Harold Holt, Calwell’s successor as Minister for Immigration, approved Lorenzo Gamboa’s application to migrate to Australia subject to the usual health and character requirements. Lorenzo visited his wife in 1951,moved permanently toAustralia the following year, and has lived in Australia ever since. Gwendoline Soemitro returned to Australia in 1951. She then obtained a visa for her husband to re-enter Australia. In November 1954, Soeka Soemitro joined his wife in Melbourne.

The Menzies government did not repeal the Wartime Refugees Removal Act 1949 (that was done by the Whitlam government in 1973), but it did not use it to deport those non-Europeans who had come to Australia during the war and preferred to remain rather than return ‘home’. Of the 853 non-European wartime arrivals whose whereabouts in Australia were known in July 1950, 832 were allowed to stay. Most of them were either evacuees from the Pacific Islands or former seamen. By softening Australia’s approach to non-European wartime arrivals who had substantial ties in Australia, the government was able to partly remedy its predecessor’s mistake. Political leaders and media in South and South-East Asia welcomed the policy reversal, although they did not easily forget the earlier approach and the rhetoric Calwell and others had employed to justify it. By removing the most visible bones of contention associated with the White Australia policy, over the next two decades the Australian Government was able to change its non-European immigration policies on its own terms, rather than purely in response to public pressure overseas. Holt’s humanitarian gestures proved that the scenario invoked by Arthur Calwell – namely, that the creation of precedents would open the ‘flood gates’ to Asian immigration – was unfounded scaremongering. In the long term, exceptions to the rule strengthened rather than weakened that rule.Thus the Menzies government’s decision to reverse its predecessor’s decisions served as retrospective evidence that Calwell had, indeed, committed a mistake.

d

Unlike some other cases of non-Europeans separated from their

Australian families in the aftermath of World War II, the stories of the four couples featured in this chapter had happy endings. But the hardship they endured was nevertheless considerable. Mavis Amjah, Gwendoline Soemitro and Joyce Gamboa had to care for their children without the support of their husbands.The enforced separation of the three young couples inevitably resulted in heartache. Even the lives of Annie and John O’Keefe were thrown into turmoil while Annie and her children were threatened with deportation.

During the 1950s, successive Liberal immigration ministers were more circumspect when overseeing the implementation of the nonEuropean policy.The first to once again insist on the inviolability of the

White Australia policy, regardless of the backlash, was Alexander R Downer, Minister for Immigration from 1958 to 1963. In 1961, he signed deportation orders against two Darwin-based Malay pearl divers, who had been in Australia since 1949 and 1955 respectively. Due to a crisis in Australia’s mother-of-pearl industry, they had been unable to find a master pearler willing to employ them. Like Annie O’Keefe before them, they challenged the minister’s orders in the High Court. They were backed by the majority of Darwin residents, and they were supported by several newspapers, unions and many members of the public in the southern states. In May 1962 Downer gave in and allowed the two men (as well as other pearling operatives in similar circumstances) to stay. In this case, too, the minister’s initial decision to enforce the White Australia policy at all costs had attracted much media and public criticism in South-East Asia. On the domestic front it also provided welcome ammunition to the newly emerging immigration reform movement.25

But at the time,the case of the Malay pearlers and another cause célèbre

– that of the Fijian-Indian girl Nancy Prasad, who was forced to leave Australia by Downer’s successor, Hubert Opperman, in 1965 – were isolated incidents. It was only in the late 1990s that an Australian immigration minister consistently adopted a stance similar to that of Arthur Calwell. Like Calwell’s, Philip Ruddock’s term as Minister for Immigration (1996–2003) was marked by controversies over the government’s deportation policy.While Calwell had tried to enforce the White Australia policy, Ruddock tried to remove people who were in Australia illegally because they had overstayed their visas, and to enforce an increasingly hardline policy on asylum seekers.The latter provided for the mandatory detention of all asylum seekers entering Australia without a visa, for the removal of asylum seekers whose protection claims Australia had denied, and for the granting of temporary protection visas to asylum seekers recognised as refugees, which prevented them from sponsoring their families or even from visiting them overseas.

In 1989 the Hawke government had introduced legislative changes that had transformed Australia’s immigration regime from one largely based on discretion to one relying almost entirely on rules.Yet unlike Calwell, and more so than his immediate Labor predecessors, Ruddock was willing to exercise ministerial discretion. In fact, in the wake of the so-called ‘cash-for-visas scandal’ in 2003, a Senate select committee strongly criticised the minister’s liberal use of his discretionary powers. But like Calwell in his approach to non-European immigration, Ruddock did not want publicly to be seen as compassionate towards asylum seekers and overstayers, however much he was willing to exercise his discretion on the quiet. Publicly he equated compassion with weakness, which, he believed, could be exploited by people trying to circumvent Australia’s immigration regime. He repeatedly warned that Australia risked becoming a soft target for illegal immigrants, just as Calwell had conjured the spectre of uncontrolled immigration from countries to Australia’s north. Like Calwell, Ruddock tried to justify his hardline stance by claiming to have the majority of Australians behind him. Unlike Calwell, who in 1949 became a liability for the Chifley government because of the deportation controversies, Ruddock did not misjudge the electorate’s mood. His implementation of the Howard government’s asylum seeker policies contributed substantially to the Liberal–National coalition’s success in the 2001 federal election.

Both Calwell and Ruddock argued that to allow aliens or noncitizens to remain in Australia on compassionate grounds made little sense, because on its own Australia would never be able to adequately address the world’s humanitarian crises. In July 1949, Calwell rejected the opposition’s demand to make exceptions on compassionate and humanitarian grounds:

It is impossible to run a government policy of this kind unless it is run entirely impersonally. If we were to allow compassionate considerations to influence our judgment we should never refuse entry to this country to anybody from the poverty-stricken areas to the north of us. ...We do not adopt compassion towards these peoples, in the mass, simply because they are out of sight, and, apparently, ‘out of sight is out of mind’. But when a particular case crops up the Opposition says,‘Let them stay’. If we keep on establishing precedent after precedent of that kind very soon we shall have all precedents and no policy.26

Both Calwell and politicians defending the Howard government’s asylum seeker and deportation policies have belittled critics whose arguments are informed by compassion as ‘bleeding hearts’.‘Maudlin sentimentalists’ was one of the labels used by Calwell.27

Ruddock’s stance was arguably a mistake, for reasons similar to those cited against Calwell.As it had in the late 1940s,Australia’s international reputation in the late 1990s and early 2000s suffered as a result of the government’s uncompromising approach to ‘unauthorised arrivals’. Australia was condemned by reputable non-government organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, reprimanded in international fora such as the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and criticised in overseas media.At a time when Australia was seeking to attract new immigrants,the costly detention and removal of failed asylum seekers and overstayers, many of whom were willing to work in unattractive industries and locations, was arguably not in the national interest. As had happened in the late 1940s, the government’s failure to exercise responsible leadership encouraged racists and led to a general hardening of community attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers. Finally, the government’s policy has had a significant impact on the lives of many individuals,including the Australian-born children and spouses of deportees. Because of its insistence to remove all overstayers and all asylum seekers not accorded protection as refugees under the 1951 Refugees Convention, the government has put the lives of many deportees at risk.28

d

It could be argued that the broader policies of the Chifley and Howard governments – the White Australia policy and the post-1992 asylum seeker policies, both of which, incidentally, have had cross-party support – were, or are, in themselves great mistakes.While I am sympathetic to such an argument, I leave it for another occasion. Here I merely suggest that governments ought to pay attention to humanitarian considerations and to allow ‘judicious exceptions’ to immigration policy – if only because the national interest does not automatically outweigh the human rights of individuals.

In a 2001 interview, Joyce Gamboa mused that she would not have married Lorenzo if she had known how difficult it would be for him to join her in Melbourne. But Australian governments should allow for and be able to accommodate the mistakes some individuals make when following their hearts, rather than sow fear in people’s minds about the alleged consequences of ‘precedents’. Government policy that is run ‘entirely impersonally’, as Calwell demanded it should, is often simply inhuman.