Every shop sign was in Greek. It was Abbotsford or Carlton in inner Melbourne in the mid-1960s. Perhaps it was Hoddle Street, but the signs were all Greek.
Then in the mid-1980s, I was back in that street. The buildings and traffic lights were exactly as I recalled them two decades earlier, but the signs were all Vietnamese. And thus it is in Cabramatta, in Sydney.
“”When my husband went to Cabramatta, he cried. It was just like Saigon.”
These are the waves of Australia migration. The goldrush of the 1850s and 60s. The trough of the recession in the 1890s and the first war. Then another rush as those politically and economically anguished by war sought new homes. Then another trough as Australia went in to the Great Depression with the rest of the world. There was no point emigrating from one dole queue to another.
Another war. Another tide of people escaping its deprivations, seeking a place to bring up their children in the sun. Europe found peace, so the next wave came in the wash up of an Asian war.
Ironically, the Asians earn the name “”boat people” because of the myth that most arrived by boat. In fact only a couple of thousand came by boat. Nearly all the rest came by air under orderly refugee and family reunion programs. Most “”boat people” came from Europe. They came in boats like the SS Strathaird and the SS Stratheden which sailed out of the Thames docks in the 1950s and 60s picking up thousands of German migrants in their leather shorts at a Baltic port before sailing through or around the troubled Suez and on to Australia.
They learnt English on the deck for six weeks before getting here, learning to sing useful Australian songs like My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. You can’t learn English in a Qantas jet on the trip from South-East Asia.
Figures issued last week show that the last wave has broken. The Bureau of Immigration and Population Research said the number of people arriving in Australia has fallen to its lowest level since the September quarter in 1976. And the net gain (allowing for permanent departures) was the lowest since March 1975.
The bureau said this was attributable directly to the cut in Australia’s migration program. It is an interesting theory. The fact that Australia is in recession with 11 per cent unemployment probably has more to do with it, though. Who wants to emigrate from one dole queue to another? Who wants to emigrate from a job to the dole?
Moreover, conditions in South-East Asia have improved quite dramatically in the past 15 years. Economic opportunities are better and the area is more or less at peace. These factors are far more important in migration in the skills and family reunion categories than Australian policy.
Marion Le, the president of the Indo-Chinese Refugee Association in Canberra says there has been no official cutback of substance. Since a couple of years ago people just stopped applying to come because of the economy.
“”The ethnic industry is upset over nothing,” she said. “”Migrants come to better themselves. They can’t do that in these conditions.”
Her view makes sense. It is in accord with wave history of Australian immigration.
However, she feels that entry for refugees is being made harder.
The latest figures show that the proportion of refugees and those on humanitarian and special assistance in the intake has gone up from 6 per cent last year to 13 per cent this year. However, with the fall overall, the increase in proportion has not made a huge difference in absolute numbers.
While economic conditions in Australia have caused a decline in skill and family reunion migrants, they are of no moment to refugees. Refugees, fleeing for their lives with no property, have nothing to lose. It matters little what the economic conditions are in the host country. Moreover, though economic conditions in Asia are improving, political repression continues, especially in China.
Mrs Le thinks there is still a latent demand for family reunion unsatisfied, but while conditions in Australia are as they are, families in Australia are less likely to sponsor family members.
Nearly a million migrants have come to Australia in the past 10 years. Canberra’s experience in receiving this wave has been markedly different from other places in Australia. This is the view of both the bureau and people in Ms Le’s organisation. The difference has been better for some thing; worse for others.
Graeme Hugo, of the bureau, has produced an extraordinarily detailed profile of the ACT’s population based on the 1986 census. Those sort of details are not available yet from the 1991 census. As usual with statistics there is a compromise between speed and accuracy. There is nothing to suggest that later figures will substantially change the picture for our purposes.
There are three essential points to the research.
First, migrants in Canberra are more evenly spread than in other capitals, especially Sydney and Melbourne. There are no Cabramattas. This is not just the case of Asian immigrants, but of immigrants from virtually everywhere. There are slight congregations of immigrants in general in some suburbs, but nothing to change the general character of them.
Secondly, the ACT receives far fewer migrants from overseas in proportion to its population than any other state or territory in Australia.
Thirdly, the ACT has a higher proportion of people born overseas than any other state or territory.
The upshot of the second and third points is that while the ACT is not a first port of call it is a popular final destination for migrants.
The ACT has attracted about 9000 migrants net directly from overseas in the past 10 years. It has attracted more than 15,000 people net from interstate. Many of the latter were overseas migrants. Natural increase accounts for more than international and interstate immigrants combined.
Marion Le suggests the ACT would have been a first port for very few migrants indeed if it had not been for her association, the Indo-China Refugees Association, which was set up in 1977.
Also, her association contributed to the even spread of Indo-Chinese migrants.
“”At one stage people were suggesting that a section of Narrabundah be put aside,” she said. “”But we rejected that. There’s no interaction with the wider community. And it’s hard for the kids.”
She acknowledged that culture was more easily preserved in an area with greater concentration of one nationality. It was her husband, Tong Le, who cried on going to Cabramatta after spending years in Canberra. But she says the people prefer to be spread through the community.
Hugo points out that refugees are more likely to congregate in their new country than other migrants because they come with nothing, are less likely to speak English and are therefore more dependent than those who set out for a new life on economic grounds.
The aim of Mrs Le’s organisation in Canberra was to bring people direct from the camps to Canberra, rather than to Sydney. Once some had settled here, others who knew them or were related to them followed.
At one stage the organisation was helping up to 1000 people a year, she said. That had tapered right off. It was now down to 200.
The several parts of the Indo-Chinese community now helped themselves with resettlement “”as it should be”.
Mrs Le, however, still helps with dealing with the bureaucracy. Anyone familiar with the recent saga in the courts over the people at Port Hedland knows what a formidable task that is.
To the extent that there are greater concentrations of migrants in Canberra, they are in the outer, not inner areas as in Sydney and Melbourne.
Maps in Hugo’s work reveal marginal concentrations of migrants from various places in Kambah and north and central Belconnen, but we are talking low percentages _ nothing that you would notice much on the streets.
The difference is largely due to the fact that cheaper housing has invariably been more available in Canberra’s outer areas. The inner areas, unlike those Sydney and Melbourne, have never been cheap. Moreover, in Canberra the cheaper housing became available in several outer areas at once, thus adding to the spread of the migrant population.
What is the ethnic mix in Canberra? Does it differ from elsewhere?
Hugo’s work shows there is a heavy under-representation of Italian and some other southern European groups; an under-representation of Middle Eastern migrants; surprisingly, an under-representation of Vietnamese and Cambodian but a large over representation of Laotian.
In general Asia is over-represented, especially from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Bangladesh. Hugo points to the influence of higher education and the diplomatic corps. (Some children of diplomats and retiring diplomats eat the Canberra lotus and stay here. They have sampled the world and chose Canberra as the best place to live.)
Migrants in the ACT from non-English speaking countries have greater proficiency in English than those in other states and territories. Once again, Hugo points to the higher education presence and the lower incidence of the so-called ethnic aged.
However, the ethnic mix might have something to do with it. Migrants from Middle Eastern countries tend to stay unemployed longer and the ACT has proportionately few of these.
The ACT still has the highest population growth of any state or territory. With this comes great pressure on housing, community services, land and the environment.
Now that the latest wave of migration appears to have fallen away, perhaps the important task is to improve the quality of life of migrants who are here, especially with jobs. And all the research shows that proficiency in English is the single most important factor in migrants getting jobs.
In this respect, the ACT appears to be in a better position than everywhere else in Australia, but the job is not over.