Summary

Note: This object includes derogatory slurs and derogatory depiction of a particular cultural group. Such depictions are not condoned by Museums Victoria which considers them to be racist. Historical distance and context do not excuse or erase this fact.

Alternative Name(s): Leaflet

Grey photocopied newsletter titled 'White Australia News, no.12, 'Fitzgerald Immigration Enquiry A Fraud'.

Published by National Action, a right-wing organization that promoted, amongst other things, a return to a White Australia policy, and was particularly against immigration from Asia. This issue slams the 1988 Fitzgerald Inquiry as encouraging the 'Asianization' of Australia (although the tenure of the recommendations was actually about a shift from humanitarian to skills-based migration selection). Undated, but would be about 1988 when the Fitzgerald Report was released.

Physical Description

Grey two-sided photocopied sheet with black type, entitled: 'White Australia News. No.12. Fitzgerald Immigration Enquiry A Fraud'. Includes cartoon with Chinese man holding an outline of Australia and Bob Hawke with caption 'the handover is almost complete'. Reverse includes list of National Action state branches.

Significance

This acquisition is drawn from material selected from the Ecumenical Migration Centre library collection at the Immigration Museum Discovery Centre by Maria Tence and Moya McFadzean. The items selected are considered to be more appropriate as heritage collection than library material.

Immigration Debate-Related Material: This small but diverse set of items present differing community viewpoints on issues relating to Australian immigration. The 2 Current Affairs Bulletins (which compliment the 1960 'Control or Colour Bar' publication produced by the Immigration Reform Group and in the MV collection) pick up the White Australia debate that was gaining momentum from the late fifties into the 1960s while the Migrant Worker conference proceedings reflect the growing problems relating to the migrant workforce being exposed in the 1970s. The National Action newsletter reflects (at its most extreme) the anti-Asian immigration debate that was occurring during the mid to late 1980s, including the Blainey debate and statements about 'absorption'; being made by the then Liberal Party leader John Howard. It is complimented by a very small collection of material form the period from 'Australians Against Further Immigration' and the later material produced by the One Nation Party also in the collection.

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