Anglo-Australian General Information

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The People

Name of Country Australia

Population Over 20 million (July 2005 estimate).

Government Democratic, federal system with the British monarch as head of state.

Ethnic Groups Caucasians dominate Australia's population at 92%, Asian peoples make up 7%, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) people less than 1% of the population.

Religions In NSW Christianity is the dominant religion (over 72%) with Anglicans and Roman Catholics accounting for 50% and other denominations 24.3%. Other significant religions are Buddhism (2.3%), Islam (2.2%), Hinduism (0.8%) and Judaism (0.5%). Over 11% of the State's population declared they had 'no religion' in the 2001 Census.

Languages English is the official language. About 20% of the population speak a language other than English at home. There were over 260 inter-related Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, the vast majority of which have disappeared, mainly as a result of government assimilation policies.

Life Expectancy Almost 80 years, but 20-50% lower for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Background

Australia became a member of the Commonwealth of the British Empire in 1901. By taking advantage of natural resources to rapidly develop agricultural and manufacturing industries, Australia quickly became a prosperous Western-style capitalist economy.

Australia is a country of people from many nations. Since 1945 almost 6 million people have come to Australia as new settlers. The Australian population has changed dramatically over the past 200 years - from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population to a predominantly Anglo-Celtic one by 1900, to its present diverse composition.

The catalyst for a large-scale migration program was the end of the Second World War (WWII). Throughout Europe, millions of people were unable to return to their homes because of the devastation and destruction caused by the war. Meanwhile Australia had a chronic shortage of labour.

In 1945 a federal Immigration Portfolio was created and by 1947 a post-war immigration boom was under way with a large and growing number of new arrivals. Agreements were reached with Britain, some European countries and with the International Refugee Organisation to encourage migrants to come to Australia, including displaced persons from the war-ravaged Europe. By 1950 almost 200,000 people had arrived.

A million more migrants arrived in each of the following four decades. Today in Australia:

• Four in ten people are migrants or the children of migrants
• One in four were born overseas (either in a non-English speaking or in an English speaking country)
• 13.7 % were born overseas in non-English speaking countries
• People from almost 300 countries live in NSW.

New Zealand and Britain are the largest source countries for migrants, but other regions - notably Asia - have become more significant.

Story of Migration

The first people to live in Australia were Aborigines who migrated at least 40,000 years ago. The first European settlers landed in 1788 at Sydney Cove and Australia continued to grow as a loose association of separate British colonies during the 19th century. In 1901 these colonies federated to form a unified independent nation.

Before European invasion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lived as many separate communities, with their own languages and cultures. More than 200 distinct languages existed at the beginning of the 19th century and bilingualism and multilingualism were characteristics common among Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

During the first century of white settlement, there were dramatic declines in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in all parts of the country. The declines resulted from the introduction of diseases, social and cultural disruptions, brutal mistreatment and reprisals for organised resistance. By the 1920s, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population had declined to only 60,000.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and political status was so low that the people were actually omitted from the official national census until 1971 after a referendum in 1967 overwhelmingly gave power to the Commonwealth Parliament to make laws relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Socially and economically - in employment, family income, infant mortality rates, average life expectancy - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population fares very badly compared with the rest of the Australian population.

European descendants make up 95% of Australia's inhabitants. The majority have a British or Irish heritage, but about 18% of the population have other European origins. While Australia's ethnic make-up is relatively small, it is one of the most culturally diverse populations in the world.

One of the most successful ways of keeping Australia free of people from Asia was the introduction of the 'White Australia Policy' that was not dismantled until the 1970s.

Australians in NSW

• 4.4 million or 70% of the NSW population were born in Australia.
• 4.7 million or 75.7% of the NSW population spoke English only.

(2001 Census)

Some Cultural Aspects of Australian Life

Most Australians enjoy or aspire to a middle-class suburban or urban lifestyle in their homes: the traditional 'great Australian dream' is to own one's home. Australian fashion generally follows Western style of dress but is distinctive for the lightweight, colourful casual wear that reflects the absence of harsh winters. Food and drink preferences are influenced by global fashions but also mirror the rise of ethnic diversity.

Popular culture is dominated by an emphasis on leisure activities and outdoor recreations. Great pleasure is taken in traditional backyard BBQs, picnics and a wide range of organised sports. Fishing and gardening are also popular activities.

Australia has no single established church and the constitution guarantees freedom of worship. The population is predominantly Christian with Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish followers making up a small portion of the population (though increasing which reflects immigration patterns since the 1960s). A significant section of the population identify as non-religious.

Between 1901 and the Second World War, Australia predominantly reflected the basic tenets of the dominant population's British origins. With the end of WW II one of the first things to change was the ethnic mix in Australia. Beginning in 1946 thousands of immigrants were transported from Eastern and Southern Europe to Australia. The prosperity of the 1950s encouraged new efforts in education and almost overnight the number of universities in each state tripled with the Whitlam government in the 1970s also providing free tertiary level education to all those who qualified. Compulsory, free primary and secondary education already existed.

The 1960s, as in most Western countries, were a time of dissent. A generation gap also seemed to divide the nation and the qualities of Australian life were re-examined. Although this 'soul searching' had waned by the mid-70s, its impact on the partial dissolution of older attitudes remained, reflected in attitudes to Australia's commitment to other nations' war efforts, multiculturalism, women's rights and place in society, etc.

Among the larger cultural issues Australia grappled with in the 1980s and 1990s were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights and reconciliation between Indigenous and other Australians. Like other colonial countries such as Canada, Australia was challenged to address the land claims of Indigenous inhabitants. In 1992 in the Mabo case, Australia's High Court acknowledged for the first time that Australia was not Terra Nullius (no-one's land) but was occupied at the time of European settlement.

Another significant debate was whether Australia should change from a Commonwealth headed by the British monarch to an independent republic.

Attitudes towards People with Disability

Traditionally many Anglo-Australians treated people with disability as though they were ill, a view strongly reliant on the power of medicine and framed by a reliance on the potential for cures. While there have been some significant changes in the past two decades, some people still believe disability is an illness and that it can be cured with a medical breakthrough.

More recently, some Anglo-Australians have embraced a social model of disability and have sought solutions by addressing the social impacts of disability and by placing responsibility for those impacts with the community at large, not with the individual with disability and their family.

Many people with disability and their families have organised themselves into a 'disability movement', which has grown in strength and political sophistication, particularly over the past 25 years. This movement has had some impact on the development of policies and laws that aim to protect and enhance the quality of life of people with disability.

Arthur
Arthur has an intellectual disability and lived in an institution for many years because his parents were told this was best for him. About seven years ago the institution was closed and Arthur was supported by services and relatives (his parents were dead) who taught him how to live independently in the community.

He has been a disability activist for many years. Over the past three years he has finally managed to get a paid job working for one of the disability advocacy agencies.

Despite this, people with disability remain one of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups in Australia. Many people with disability, including children, still remain in institutions, do not have equal access to jobs and educational facilities and many are financially vulnerable.

Traditionally the family was the main arena in which care was provided to people with disability. It appears that with an increase in urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation, people with disability became increasingly the responsibility of the state and many started to live away from their families in institutions. This trend is now being reversed with many families wanting to care for people with disability, especially if state funded services provide the family with appropriate support and respite.

Sally
Sally is 50 years old and has a psychiatric disability. She can't remember how many foster families and other homes she has been to in her life, but over the past couple of years she has found a permanent home in a boarding house. While she is worried about her safety (the other residents 'scare' her) and she has virtually no money left after paying for her board she says she likes it and it is the best home she has ever had.

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