[Editor: This chapter is part of The White Australia Policy: The Rise and Fall of Australia’s Racial Ideology (2025).]
Newspapers supporting the White Australia Policy
The majority of newspapers published in Australia in the nation’s early years supported the White Australia Policy, as can be seen from the following quotations:
The Brisbane Courier, in 1888, ascribed great importance to the issue of Chinese immigration, and raised the prospect of Australia seeking independence from Britain if the British were to hinder Australia being “kept for the white man”:
“it is sincerely to be hoped that Lord Salisbury will succeed in securing some kind of treaty regarding the restriction of Chinese immigration to Australia. The Australians are convinced that the future of their continent is involved in this question. And the intensity of their conviction causes another thing to be involved, which is no less than the future relation between the Australian Continent and Great Britain. The “independent” school is much stronger in Australia than has yet been realised.
… the importance of the Chinese immigration negotiations is that they will infallibly form in Australia a crucial test whereby to try the two opinions. Is the Imperial connection really best for us, young Australia is asking — best for us and best for the English race at large? We are all of us agreed that Australia must be kept for the white man. Can the Imperial Government do anything to help us to that end? or will its multifarious interests only hinder us? Such are the questions which will be canvassed in every Australian colony, and Lord Salisbury in his negotiations with China, has therefore, in a double sense, the future of Australia in his hands.”[1]
Regarding the 1901 federal elections, The Worker (Brisbane), which, on its masthead, was described as the “Official Journal of the Federated Workers of Queensland”, declared:
“The fight is at hand — for a White Australia, the greatest and most pregnant question that has ever been placed before the Australian people.
… The white men of Queensland must bear in mind that the battle of Saturday is not confined to Queensland alone, but rages right around and throughout the continent. In N.S. Wales and Victoria and W. Australia and S. Australia and Tasmania, all parties are joined in fighting for what the Labour Party in Queensland is strenuously striving to attain.”[2]
The Sydney Morning Herald, in a 1901 article regarding the Immigration Restriction Bill, stated:
“We have not yet acquired a “colour problem” in Australia as it exists in American politics, but for those who care to look about them it is already clear that the preparatory conditions are present.
… the fact has to be faced as it is, and especially so now that the Commonwealth is called upon to deal with this racial question. What would be thought of the founders of the federation a few generations hence if they shirked now the obvious and morally inescapable responsibility to deal with this question before it gets out of hand?
… if the door is left open for an influx of Orientalism at any one point, especially if that be the nearest port to the Far East, there is no means left to prevent the spread of the Asiatic races over the whole of Australia.
… how are we to restrict the stream of Asiatic immigration through this ever open door if the importance of the whole subject is not recognised and legislated for in time?
… It is therefore not sufficient, in dealing with this question, to have regard to the sugar industry in Queensland only; we have the colour question as a whole, and the preservation of the purity of the race-type in Australia to consider, and it is desirable that any efforts we may make at federal legislation on the subject should be shaped with this national and racial end in view.”[3]
The Brisbane Courier, in 1908, contended that the Australian consciousness was increased with the visit of the American fleet to Australian shores, and that Australia needed to join in common interest with the USA to prevent “the flooding” of white countries in the Pacific by the “teeming millions” of Asia:
“The national self-consciousness of Australians had been quickened by their recognition that on the other side of the Pacific there were people like themselves interested in the solution of the same problems, and with identical interests.
… Australia will perish as the home of white men unless the national consciousness is awakened to impending dangers, the need for compulsory military and naval training, and the opportunity for joining hands with America if need be in preventing the flooding of the territories now belonging to white races in the Pacific with teeming millions from the Asiatic mainland.”[4]
In its issue of 17 December 1909, The Benalla Standard gave its opinion regarding the situation of the Northern Territory:
“It is from there that we fear, and not without good reason, the greatest danger to our White Australia policy. At present whatever population is there is that almost entirely of the colored races, and the dangers that threaten us, strategically and otherwise, from that quarter are not only apparent, but they are very real ones. A well settled territory along our northern coast would, therefore, minimise the danger of invasion from Asian hordes to a very considerable degree.”[5]
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), in its 13 February 1922 issue, stated:
“under no circumstances, can we abandon our national right to keep full control of the elements of our population. This control is the more necessary because the population is so small, and is in geographical propinquity to other races of prodigious numerical strength, who might easily destroy our type, if we took no precautions.”[6]
Truth (Sydney), in 1943 (during the Second World War, 1939-1945), in response to a government bureaucrat suggesting that the White Australia Policy should be changed after the war, published an editorial which made clear that it stood firmly behind the existing Policy:
“Our Australian nation, which is showing a strong and fearless front on the battlefields, needs to display an equally bold and resolute spirit in declaration of that fundamental principle of our nationhood — WHITE AUSTRALIA. For our people and for our Commonwealth this principle is the very Ark of the Covenant in national faith.
… White Australia — a white continent with one overmastering faith and purpose — has been the palladium which we proudly will keep as our very own. If blood be the price of the ideal, “Lord God, we have bought it fair.”
… Everything that Australia holds to-day, everything that we have fought and fight to preserve, has come to us as the result of the White Australia policy and the protection policy. Under those guiding principles we have become a virile people. Under those two banners the workers of Australia have been enabled to reach a standard that is not surpassed anywhere in the world.”[7]
The Gundagai Independent published the following opinion in 1943:
“Any move by any post-war authority to throw overboard our White Australia policy and admit colored races to settle within the Commonwealth must be opposed vigorously and fought to a standstill.
… Australia must be kept for the white races.
… Properly planned, immigration should prove a small problem; with immigrants properly chosen from among the oppressed white races of the world it should be of immense benefit to Australia”.[8]
An editorial published in The Australian Worker, on 1 December 1943, defended the White Australia Policy against the “capitalist exploiters” of the Right and the “feather-brained” radicals of the Left:
“No principle of the Australian Labor Movement since it was first inscribed on the Labor Party’s platform has been more jealously guarded and so sedulously observed as that of a White Australia.
No principle has been more viciously assailed by our capitalist exploiters; but down through the years no principle has been more widely and generously recognised by our friends.
The policy of White Australia was written into the first statement of the Labor Party’s Platform, and from the very commencement it has been fervently and resolutely stated and restated at each succeeding Conference.
… Sometimes it has been suggested, unhappily, by dilettante statesmen and mischievous divines, in the interests of big pastoral companies and other exploiters, that our policy of White Australia should be jettisoned or watered down to serve their avaricious ends.
On occasions also it has been ridiculed by feather-brained and reckless “proletarians” pandering to the international prejudices of Pan-Pacific Conferences, but, generally speaking, the principle has been accepted by people who have been able to appreciate its economic significance and background as well as its racial advantages.
… quite a number of prominent Trade Union leaders and parliamentary representatives made vigorous public protects against the suggestion that Australia’s White Australia Policy must be thrown into the melting-pot.
Away back in the eighteen sixties and seventies miners and pastoral workers, in nearly every Australian colony, fought with great grit and determination against the attempt of the mineowners and wool kings to replace white men with Chinese coolies and Asiatics.
The White Australia Policy, it will thus be seen, has its roots deep down in our soil and deep down in the hearts of our people”.[9]
An editorial published in The Westralian Worker, in 1944, stated its opposition to those who would use the problematic circumstances of the Second World War (1939-1945) as an excuse to undermine the White Australia Policy:
“It is true as the Minister for External Territories, Mr. Ward, said this week, that the White Australia Policy has never been accepted willingly by vested interests, either here or abroad. Mr. Ward also said that the war and its effects are being seized upon by these interests and their satellites as an opportunity to stab Australia in the back while appearing to serve her interests.
But whatever extent those interests are now attempting to break down the White Australia Policy they will be faced by the full strength of the Labor Movement. The White Australia Policy is now being tested in war and it will not be discarded in the coming peace at the desire of those who see in it an obstacle to the supply of cheap labor.”[10]
Whilst there were some newspapers in the early history of Australia which opposed the White Australia Policy, the vast majority of newspapers supported the Policy. The unequivocal support given by the mainstream newspapers for a White Australia seemed to diminish in the late 1940s, with a substantial turnaround in ideological direction occurring by the 1960s.
References:
[1] “Nationalism in Australia”, The Brisbane Courier (Brisbane, Qld.), 20 October 1888, p. 9
[2] “A White Australia”, The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 30 March 1901, p. 3
[3] “The Immigration Restriction Bill”, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 3 September 1901, p. 4 (Second Edition)
[4] “Australian consciousness”, The Brisbane Courier (Brisbane, Qld.), Wednesday 26 August 1908, p. 4
[5] “Beef export trade”, The Benalla Standard (Benalla, Vic.), 17 December 1909, p. 2
[6] “White Australia”, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW), 13 February 1922, p. 4
[7] “Editorial: White Australia must stay white”, Truth (Sydney, NSW), 28 November 1943, p. 12
[8] “Current topics”, The Gundagai Independent (Gundagai, NSW), 2 December 1943, p. 3
[9] J.S.H., “Editorial: Not for the Melting Pot”, The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 1 December 1943, p. 1
[10] “White Australia”, The Westralian Worker (Perth, WA), 7 January 1944, p. 1
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