Immigration Restriction Act 1901
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| Immigration Restriction Act 1901 | |
Parliament of Australia 
| |
| Long title: | An Act to place certain restrictions on Immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited Immigrants |
| Introduced by: | Edmund Barton (7 August 1901) |
| Dates | |
| Date passed: | |
| Date of Royal Assent: | 23 December 1901 |
| Commencement: | |
| Other legislation | |
| Amendments: | 1905, 1908, 1910, 1912, 1920, 1924, 1925, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1935, 1940, 1948, 1949 |
| Related legislation: | Migration Act 1958 |
| Status: | |
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. It also provided for illegal immigrants to be deported. It granted immigration officers a wide discretion to prevent individuals from entering Australia. The Act prohibited various classes of people from immigrating, but most importantly it introduced the dictation test, which required a person seeking entry to Australia to write out a passage of fifty words dictated to them in any European language, not necessarily English, at the discretion of an immigration officer. The test allowed immigration officers to discriminate against applicants by selecting a language that they couldn't possibly understand.
History of the Act
The Government of Australia did not want to explicitly prevent immigration on the basis of race, because the Government of the United Kingdom would not approve, since it might cause tension with some of Britain's allies, such as Japan. [#endnote_japan_tension] At the time, Australia was still a Dominion of the British Empire, and the British government had substantial authority over Australia. Prime Minister Edmund Barton did not want to risk damaging relations between the newly federated Commonwealth and the British government. Nevertheless, all sides of politics in Australia were opposed to non-white immigration, particularly from China and India. Barton, leader of the Protectionist Party, declared the need "to secure the future of our fair country against the tide of inferior and unequal Asians arriving from the north," Free Trade Party Opposition leader George Reid said that he did not want "the problem caused by coloured people in the United States" to happen again in Australia. [#endnote_barton_and_reid]
There were some politicians who did not support the Act. Senator Edward Pulsford expressed sympathy for foreign citizens who were discriminated against in Australia, and considered the Act "insulting and brutal." Pulsford was himself insulted in the Senate for opposing the Act. [#endnote_pulsford] Some politicians, such as Attorney-General Alfred Deakin, did not necessarily consider non-white people to be inherently inferior. However, they still supported the Act, because they believed that many of them were skilled workers who would work for lower rates of pay, and would take away jobs from white Australians. Most of the other opposition to the Act was from people who did not consider the provisions to be harsh enough; for example Senator Staniforth Smith said that "If the question is not dealt with boldly and fearlessly now when the Asiatic nations are waking up, there will be an influx of coloured people which will mean an alteration in our national destiny." [#endnote_staniforth_smith]
Provisions of the Act
The initial bill was based on similar legislation in South Africa. The Act specifically prohibited various classes of people from immigrating, including people with infectious diseases, people who had recently been imprisoned, prostitutes or pimps, and "idiots" or "insane" persons. However, the Act also made several exceptions, which automatically allowed certain classes of people to enter Australia. All members of the British Army or the Royal Navy, the captain and crew of any ship visiting an Australian port, any person sent on the business of a foreign government, family members of permitted immigrants, and former residents of Australia were allowed to enter the country. Prospective immigrants were also allowed to apply for a Certificate of Exemption, issued by the Minister for External Affairs (or a representative) which would exempt a person from the provisions of the Act for a specified time.
Offences
The Act established a range of federal crimes relating to immigration. Illegal immigrants could be imprisoned for up to six months, and could then be deported. Both the captain and the owners of ships which transported illegal immigrants to Australia could be fined GBP 100 for each immigrant, unless the immigrant was European. The Minister for Foreign Affairs was also able to detain ships which were suspected of carrying illegal immigrants. People who brought ill or insane immigrants into Australia were also liable for the costs of caring for them, on top of other penalties.
The dictation test
The dictation test which was included in the Act was similar to tests previously used in the states of Western Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. The test was a method which enabled immigration officials to exclude individuals on the basis of race without explicitly saying so. The test would be no less than fifty words long, and the passage chosen could often be very difficult, so that even if the test was given in English, a person was likely to fail. Although the test could theoretically be given to any person arriving in Australia, in practice it was given selectively on the basis of race. [#endnote_test_selective]
Czechoslovakian political activist Egon Erwin Kisch, who was exiled from Germany for opposing Nazism, arrived in Australia in 1934. He was fluent in a number of European languages, and after completing passages in several languages, finally failed when he was tested in Scottish Gaelic. The officer who tested him had grown up in northern Scotland, and did not have a particularly good grasp of Scottish Gaelic himself. In the High Court case of R v Wilson; ex parte Kisch the court found that Scottish Gaelic was not within the fair meaning of the Act, and overturned Kisch's convictions for being an illegal immigrant.
Between 1902 and 1903, forty-six people passed the test out of 805 who were given it. Between 1904 and 1909, only six out of 554 passed. No-one was able to pass the dictation test after 1909. [#endnote_dictation_stats]
Changes to the Act
Originally the dictation test could be administered any time within the first year of a person's arrival to Australia, but after 1932, this period was extended to the first five years of residence. Officials were also able to give the test to an individual an unlimited number of times. At first the test had to be given in a European language; however, in 1905, the Act was amended to allow the government to specify any individual language that the test could be given in.
The Immigration Restriction Act was eventually replaced by the Migration Act 1958, which removed the dictation test and many of the other qualifications, although many migrants from southern Europe and Asia were already living in Australia, some of them having arrived as refugees during World War II. The White Australia policy itself was not officially abolished until 1966.
Notes
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References
- – hear a sample dictation test
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