Profil du Pays: Australie

The Federation of Australia was the result of the process through which six separate self-governing British colonies (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) agreed to unite to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The proclamation of the Federal Constitution by then Governor-General Lord Hopetoun in January 1901 brought the Commonwealth of Australia into existence. Australia doubled its population through immigration in the space of 50 years following the Second World War. Today, Australia’s current population is over 25 million,
812,728 (3.2 percent) of whom identify as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. People born overseas are now 30 percent of the resident Australian population (most of whom were born in England, 13 percent; India, 9.5 percent; and China, 8.6 percent). Migrants live mostly in Australian cities. The 2021 census found that for the first time in the country’s history, 51.5 percent of the population are either born overseas (29.3 percent) or have one or both parents born overseas (22.2 percent). The most common languages other than English spoken at home are Mandarin (2.7 percent), Arabic (1.4 percent), Vietnamese (1.3 percent), Cantonese (1.2 percent), and Punjabi (0.9 percent). In total 24.8 percent of the population spoke a language other than English at home, an increase by almost 4 percent from the 2016 census. Christianity remains the largest religious affiliation though declining from 57.7 percent in 2016 to 43.9 percent in 2021. This decline coincides with a rapid rise of those indicating ‘no religion’. Indeed, between the 1996 and 2021 censuses, those professing “no religion” increased from 2,9 million to 9.8 million, while identification with faith groups other than Christian grew from 652,210 in 1996 to 2.5 million in 2021. Those identifying as Hindu increased from 440,300 in 2016 to 648,000 in 2021 (2.69 percent), and those identifying as Muslims increased from 604,200 to 813,392 (3.2 percent). In 2020, approximately 773,000 or 4 percent of Australians described themselves as being gay, lesbian or bisexual.

There are approximately 2.17 million temporary visa holders in Australia, of which around 672,000 are New Zealand citizens on Special Category Visas. Long-established migrant communities, including one of the largest Greek populations outside of Greece, combine with temporary residents in establishing a network of transnational ties between groups in Australia and the rest of the world.

However, Australia’s experience with diversity has been an uneasy one. It begins with the British settlers of the eighteenth century holding that the continent was “substantially uninhabited” based on the misperception that Indigenous Australians neither cultivated the land nor were governed by law/lore. This doctrine of terra nullius prevailed in Australian law until as recently as 1992. Furthermore, with the federation of the six colonies, the newly established Commonwealth of Australia passed the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, commonly known as the “White Australia policy,” which sought to exclude people of non-European ethnic origin from the immigration intake. Thus, Australia’s initial response to diversity was racist, intolerant and exclusive.

Towards the end of the Second World War, a federal Department of Immigration was established and charged with formulating a national assimilation policy. In the mid-1960s, it changed focus to integration programs. In 1972, under a reformist government, the White Australia policy officially ended, international human rights protocols were signed and anti-discrimination institutions and laws were introduced. Over the next four decades, governments developed and implemented a set of multicultural policies and programs that sought to ensure equal opportunities for Australians of all backgrounds. Different national governments brought varying degrees of enthusiasm to this task, while state and territory governments have done most of the work incorporating and delivering multicultural policies and practices for the past two decades. The last 10 years have seen considerable regression at the national level. Conservative governments have abandoned affirmative multicultural policies in favour of “mainstreaming” and placing emphasis on the responsibility of individual newcomers to adjust to Australian life. The Albanese Labour government, elected in May 2022, promises a change to a more affirmative multicultural agenda.

The three groupings considered in this report are the following:

• Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples)
• CALD Migrants: culturally and linguistically diverse migrants or those that are from non-European and non-English speaking backgrounds
• Temporary migrants: Those on a temporary visa of some kind, including visitors, international students, New Zealanders on 444 visas, temporary skilled visa holders and working holiday makers, as well as provisional visa holders, such as asylum seekers (refugees are part of permanent residency intake).