Australian immigration: the triumph of economics over prejudice?

In this paper we provide an account of Australian immigration in the late twentieth century focusing on labour market and industrial relations issues. The paper chronicles the changing immigration policy framework, from one premised on exclusion to one designed primarily to serve the needs of the domestic labour market. Since 1997 the majority of settlers arrived under the skills category of the immigration program. The consequence of the policies, more by default than design, has been the transformation of society from a monocultural to a multicultural one. In spite of this migrants from other than mainly English speaking (MES) countries often have poor labour market outcomes, sometimes well after the time of arrival. The data indicate this group to be more adversely affected by the downturn in economic cycles than other migrants or the Australian-born population. At the industrial relations level trade unions have made a pragmatic, as well as a principled, shift to embrace immigrant workers from non-MES countries. However the transition from a centralized system of conciliation and arbitration to a more deregulated labour market has compounded the disadvantage suffered by these workers. 1 Department of Management, Monash University 2 Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training 3 National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University