Immigration – Fill It or Lose It is an excerpt from the documentary Admission Impossible (54 mins) produced in 1992.

Admission Impossible
For much of the 20th century, successive Australian governments pursued a policy of deporting and barring entry to any race of people they considered undesirable. This was known as the White Australia policy. Admission Impossible is the true story of the behind-the-scenes political forces and the propaganda campaigns that attempted to populate Australia with “pure white” migrants.

A Film Australia National Interest Program. Produced with the assistance of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In the aftermath of World War 2 and invasion fears the Australian Labor Party created an Immigration portfolio and began to encourage migration to Australia from post-war Britain and Europe. While the official policy was still based on the 1902 Restricted Immigration Act, known officially among Immigration bureaucrats as the ‘Non-European’ policy, the continuing demand for labour in an expanding economy eventually made changes to the official policy inevitable.

In the 1960s the international coverage of the USA civil rights movement began to challenge many long held prejudices. In the 1970s the Vietnam War and the subsequent arrival of ‘boat people’ made changes to Immigration policy almost essential.

The final chapter in this sad story of prejudice and discrimination came with the reforms of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1973.