Thread by @e_truman1

🧵 WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY THREAD 🧵

With #WhiteAustraliaParty trending as a charge against the pro-multicultural Liberal Party of 2023 for some reason, let’s take a look at what our Prime Ministers throughout history really thought about the White Australia Policy.

Edward Barton (Protectionist):

“The policy of this Government will be to bring about a white Australia… there is an interest of Australia, not only of labour, but one largely racial… It is Australia we have at heart.”

Alfred Deakin (Protectionist and later the original Liberal Party):

“A white Australia is not a surface, but it is a reasoned policy which goes down to the roots of national life, and by which the whole of our social, industrial, and political organisations is governed.”

Chris Watson (Labor):

“The racial aspect of the question, in my opinion, is the larger and more important one; but the industrial aspect also has to be considered.”

“They [migrants] shall be on a moral and physical level with us… and will be such as we can fraternise with.”

George Reid (Free Trade):

“I believed in making that act [1901 Immigration Restriction Act] speak honestly and straightforwardly the determination of the Australian people that we should have a white Australia.”

Andrew Fisher (Labor):

“the people of Australia… must feel somewhat annoyed, to say the least, at any departure from the principle [WAP] they have established.”

Julia Martinez on Fisher — “The federal Labor government under Fisher was a firm advocate of ‘White Australia’.”

Joseph Cook (Original Liberal Party):

“In the first place our objective is an Australia—white, free, federal.”

Billy Hughes (Labor and later Nationalist):

“We stand for the Empire; for a White Australia; for stable government by the duly elected representatives of the people. We set our faces resolutely against Government by secret juntas and forces outside Parliament.”

Stanley Bruce (Nationalist):

“It is necessary that we should determine what are the ideals towards which every Australian would desire to strive… being to secure our national safety, and to ensure the maintenance of our White Australia Policy…”

James Scullin (Labor):

“The first plank of Labor’s Fighting Platform is the cultivation of an Australian sentiment and the maintenance of a White Australia.
That has always been a plank of the Labor Platform,”

Joseph Lyons (United Australia Party):

Interior Minister Paterson on the Lyons Government’s support of the WAP — “…we are to preserve inviolate the White Australia policy,… to which we all subscribe.”

Robert Menzies (United Australia Party and later contemporary Liberal Party):

“We will continue to maintain Australia’s settled immigration policy, known as ‘The White Australia Policy’; well justified as it is on grounds of national homogeneity and economic standards.”

John Curtin (Labor):

“Our laws have proclaimed the standard of White Australia… We intend to keep it, because we know it to be desirable.”

Ben Chifley (Labor):

On his government’s support of the WAP — “The policy of the Australian Government in connection with this matter, which is generally in line with that pursued by past Australian governments, has been clearly expounded from time to time.”