Summary

Booklet with orange cover entitled 'Integration: A Task for all Australians', published in 1973. Address to Good Neighbour Council of South Australia AGM by R.E. Armstrong, Secretary, Deptment of Immigration, on immigration through migrant education and language services.

The booklet begins with a quote: 'Australians generally must come to a better understanding of the social and cultural backgrounds of our migrants - their needs, their problems, and ways in which community and individual action can assist in their successful integration.'

Physical Description

12 pp plus cover, staple bound, orange cover with red title text.

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.

Immigration Policy Material: This collection provides a snapshot of the evolution of immigration and multicultural policy in Australia from 1968 through Whitlam years 1972-75 and the early Fraser government in 1976. They document various Immigration ministers over time. Most are by Al Grassby, a key figure during the Whitlam Labor Government from 1972 to 1975. They are valuable both for the information they contain regarding issues relating to immigration and multicultural policy, citizenship, language and national identity, but also for the material expression of this critical and far reaching shift on Australian cultural policy over this time. Phillip Lynch's letter captures the gradual shift in policy in relation to non-European migration and offers a rare opportunity to collect correspondence from an Immigration Minister. The Auditor-General's report on Prohibited Immigration provides an interesting counterpoint to the debate underway in the 2000s regarding detention, terrorism and tightened security and the re-raising of issues from this report of 20 years ago such as an national identity card. The Theophanous report captures the political mood of the early 1990s to support a cultural diversity society, distance from the Blainey and Howard debates, while moving towards tighter quota and control systems in the name of equity.

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