Summary

Red-covered booklet titled 'Towards a Fairer Immigration System for Australia'. Paper prepared by Dr Andrew Theophanous, Chair of Government Caucus Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs Committee and Chair Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee of Migration Regulations, 1992.

The booklet includes such issues as imbalances of immigration system, racism, the Blainey debate, John Howard's absorption principle' and suggestions for new quota system.

The booklet concludes: 'We do not in any way accept the arguments of those who want to cut immigration with respect to any partiuclar group, on an arbitrary basis, such as South East Asians. Indeed, what we are saying is that the system proposed herein would be a genuinly non-racist, non-discriminatory system in its concrete results and not only in theory.'...

Physical Description

55 pp plus title page and cover. Staple bound; red cover with black title text. Circular blue sticker on upper left cover.

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 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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