Post-war immigration

Main article: Immigration to Australia
 
Postwar migrants arriving in Australia in 1954Following World War II, the Chifley Labor government instigated a massive programme of European immigration. In 1945, Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell wrote "If the experience of the Pacific War has taught us one thing, it surely is that seven million Australians cannot hold three million square miles of this earth's surface indefinitely."[337] All political parties shared the view that the country must "populate or perish." Calwell stated a preference for ten British immigrants for each one from other countries; however, the numbers of British migrants fell short of what was expected, despite government assistance.[338] Performers Barry, Maurice, Robin and Andy Gibb were a typical family of "£10 poms" whose family migrated to Brisbane in 1958 and later gained international fame as the Bee Gees pop group.[339]

Migration brought large numbers of southern and central Europeans to Australia for the first time. A 1958 government leaflet assured readers that unskilled non-British migrants were needed for "labour on rugged projects ...work which is not generally acceptable to Australians or British workers."[340] The Australian economy stood in sharp contrast to war-ravaged Europe, and newly arrived migrants found employment in a booming manufacturing industry and government assisted programmes such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme. This hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia consisted of sixteen major dams and seven power stations constructed between 1949 and 1974. It remains the largest engineering project undertaken in Australia. Necessitating the employment of 100,000 people from over 30 countries, to many it denotes the birth of multicultural Australia.[341]

Some 4.2 million immigrants arrived between 1945 and 1985, about 40 per cent of whom came from Britain and Ireland.[342] The 1957 novel They're a Weird Mob was a popular account of an Italian migrating to Australia, although written by Australian-born author John O'Grady. The Australian population reached 10 million in 1959.

In May 1958, the Menzies Government replaced the Immigration Act's arbitrarily applied dictation test with an entry permit system, that reflected economic and skills criteria.[343][344] Further changes in the 1960s effectively ended the White Australia Policy. It legally ended in 1973.