Post World War 2 migrants played an integral part in creating the Australian nation. Migrants had both positive and negative experiences in contributing to the creation of Australia as a multicultural society. The two major migrant groups that had an impact on the Australian population were the Italian and the Lebanese. They had contributed with the economic, social and cultural part of the Australian population.
After World War 2 Ben Chifley the Labor Prime Minister, faced the issue of immigration. The Labor party, Labor politicians, union and work have been against immigration due to they would take jobs as they thought that Australia’s economy wouldn’t be able to support the increase of the population. Arthur Calwell thought that Australia needed to populate or it would perish. When they arrived to Australia they were told to leave their culture behind and they would have to speak English. The government was afraid that without enough people to defend Australia. The famous saying that Arthur Calwell said “Two Wong’s don’t make a White,” this is when only the European nations were allowed to migrate to Australia.
The housing hostel that the Italian migrants lived in was named “Little Italy” this is because the amount of Italian migrants that lived there. They formed many small communities. Many Italian families provided accommodation and employment to migrants in order to shorten their stay in hostels on their arrival. The mostly lived around Leichardt, Glebe, Eastwood and Ryde.
Each migrant had to pay £10 and would travel to Australia by ship or plane, except for refugees and ex-servicemen who were required to pay a fee; this was known as the 10 pound pom. From about 1947-1967 there were approximately 2 million migrants living in Australia and in 1972 there was about 3 million migrants living in Australia. The main European countries that was first allowed to come to Australia was; England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Greece, Malta, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. During the census in 1966 about 18% of people were not born in Australia.
Most migrants worked on the Snowy Mountain Hydro Electric Scheme and others worked at the sugar plantation in Queensland. The Snowy Mountain Scheme would consist of dams, power stations, pumping station and a few 200 km of pipeline and tunnels. The Snowy Mountain Scheme was one of the biggest project that Australia has conducted. The reason for the Snowy Mountain Scheme was to be able to pump water from the dams that they had built and use them to make hydroelectricity.
When the different countries were allowed to migrate to Australia they were told to leave their culture, customs and