ACBPS-DIBP Commemorative Conference: Past Reflections and Future Directions – Australian Academy of Science
26 June 2015
Michael Pezzullo
Secretary, Department of Immigration and Border Protection
The Department of Immigration: 1945-2015 – Seventy Years of Nation Building
E&OE
Seventy years ago, the nation consciously embarked upon a remarkable programme of nation–building, the likes of which had never been seen before. In the county in 1945, a sheltered land, a British land in the southern seas, weary from thirty years of war and economic depression, opened itself up to a human migratory flow which had not been in contemplation even three or four short years prior. As a result of this programme, new settlers came to this land to build the houses, roads, railways and dams that we still use today, and to work in the new factories that sprang up after the Second World War.
Indeed, before July 1945 Australia did not even have an Immigration Department, and the relevant legislation covering such matters had since Federation in 1901 been principally concerned with ‘immigration restriction’, under what was known as the ‘White Australia’ policy. Before 1945, the migration function, and the Commonwealth responsibility for dealing with ‘immigrants’ and ‘aliens’, as the relevant constitutional heads of authority are known, was overseen by various ministries, known at different times as the Home Affairs or Interior portfolios. As the Second World War was drawing to a close, and reflective of the fact that it is the Commonwealth Government which is at the apex of the nationhood that is implied in our Constitution and our political order, a department of state concerned solely with Immigration was established, on 13 July 1945. The nation and its government had decided that it must ‘populate or perish’ – at once an article of policy faith and a programme of work that the then Chifley Government proselytised and embarked upon. The Opposition, led by former and future Prime Minister Robert Menzies, supported this policy and programme, and took it forward after the change of government in 1949.
The Department started modestly, its employees numbering just 24 – six based in Canberra, six in Melbourne and 12 in London. The Department shared in the nation–building vision and spirit of the times, exhibited by its first Minister, the Honourable Arthur Calwell MHR, and his Liberal Party successors through the next three decades. From the outset, the Department thought of, and spoke of, its mission in terms of national security, economic prosperity and social cohesion. Its priority focus was on the recruitment of new settlers from the United Kingdom, in keeping with our national political and cultural worldview of the times – hence the fact that the Department’s workforce was initially split between the home base of Australia and the ‘forward post’ of London. The majority of Britons who migrated to Australia from 1945 to the early 1960s – predominantly young married couples or single persons – came under assisted passage arrangements, including the original ‘Ten Pound Pom’ scheme as it was called, which focused on adults under 45 years of age and in good health.
While we principally recall the work of the Department from those days in terms of its social and economic programmes, from the outset the Department had a strong focus on national security. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Secretary and his senior officers were particularly concerned about the possibility of war criminals, those who had fought in the German armed forces (or worse the
Waffen SS), or potential Soviet agents, slipping through the net. This concern was somewhat in tension with the departmental focus on rapidly building the population through immigration, especially so as records and information sources were so patchy after the upheavals of the war and its immediate aftermath, and this tension had to be managed delicately and consciously.
It was recognised from the outset by ministers and senior departmental officers that the immigration programme would quickly lose public support if and I quote ‘subversive elements’ and people of ‘doubtful background’ were allowed to settle in Australia. Therefore, from the earliest days of the Department’s existence, close collaboration was established with other Commonwealth law enforcement and security agencies, and especially with the then newly established Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Indeed, intelligence officers were seconded to the Department, initially from the Defence Department and then after 1951 from ASIO, to identify and vet so called ‘undesirables’, as they were known, to be excluded from the settlement programme.
For all of that, the Department’s early focus, that we so readily remember today, that you see today from the exhibition here, was on building the population, and providing Australia with the labour resources that it needed for its factories and for its infrastructure projects. The Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, for instance, was commenced in August 1949. It employed thousands of newly arrived settlers – indeed over the next quarter of a century, the scheme employed more than 100,000 men and women from 30 different countries.
Contrary to original policy intentions and programme design, which sought to source the new settlers from the United Kingdom, the Department soon found itself managing assisted schemes to encourage migration from the majority of European countries, as then existed, including from what is today called the former Soviet bloc. As with human settlement throughout history, family reunion was a central feature of the evolving programme, and while the immediate imperative was on recruiting the workers that the nation so needed desperately, a keen eye was kept on ensuring that couples of child rearing age were selected – to raise the families that would expand the population and form the future generations of the nation.
In support of this mission, the Department engaged in what would today be called ‘strategic communications and messaging’. Pamphlets, information booklets, exhibitions and films were designed and produced to attract prospective settlers, to instruct and inform migrants about Australian life, and to reassure the Australian public that migrants were being carefully selected, would easily ‘assimilate’ (to use the official nomenclature of the time), and would be willing and able contributors to the nation’s workforce and to Australian society.
In 1961, one of my esteemed predecessors, Sir Peter Heydon, was named Secretary. As we look back to the early 1960s, we can see that elite and more general attitudes to race were changing. Heydon set about the task of gradually dismantling the administrative processes of the prevailing race–based approach to immigration, and the barriers which inhibited non–European immigration. Working of course under his ministers, he was committed to instigating a more practical and less discriminatory immigration strategy. By 1970, immigration had contributed almost 60 per cent growth in Australia’s population, and the original focus on limiting immigration to British settlers had long passed. One in three people residing in Australia at this time was either a post–war migrant or the child of a migrant, including me. Between 1945 and 1976, 1.5 million migrants arrived from countries other than the United Kingdom.
Due to an economic downturn and increasing employment levels in the early 1970s, the Department was directed to reduce its planned migration programme, and it terminated all assisted passage schemes, focusing instead on migrants who could fill skill and labour shortages. By the mid–1970s, it was becoming apparent that temporary migration and travel would become an increasingly important focus of the Department’s work. In the 1980s, the Department moved to develop a more targeted and sophisticated approach to immigration, particularly in economic terms, as Australia became more connected to global forces. By the mid–1990s, the Government was determined to afford greater priority to the business and skilled streams of migration in preference over family migration, a rebalancing of priorities that has of course continued to this day.
From the outset, Australia’s post–war immigration policy afforded refugee and humanitarian priorities significant pride of place. In 1947, following Australia’s signing of an agreement with the International Refugee Organisation to accept a minimum of 12,000 refugees, the Department turned its attention towards displaced persons camps in Europe. Departmental officers were dispatched to Germany to interview displaced persons and fill the ships sailing to Australia. Applications were considered in three stages: first, the International Refugee Organisation endorsed an applicant as a genuine displaced person; second, the applicant was checked by a migration selection team by Departmental Officers, and finally, if staff had suspicions about an applicant, a security check by ASIO was undertaken to help prevent the entry of people considered to be ‘undesirable’.
Ultimately, the number of people who were assisted by the Department to immigrate under the Displaced Persons Scheme far exceeded the annual quota originally envisioned by Minister Calwell and his successors. Between 1946 and 1959, of approximately 1.2 million people who migrated to Australia, 250,000 were refugees and displaced persons originating from countries across Eastern and Western Europe.
Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, the Australian Government continued to accept small groups of refugees on an ad hoc basis in response to unfolding crises. With its signing of the 1967 Protocol to the 1951 Refugee Convention – which extended the geographical scope of refugee protection beyond Europe – Australia signalled its intentions to support humanitarian efforts more widely.
In 1976, the first boat arrived on Australian shores containing five Vietnamese asylum seekers. By the end of 1981, 56 boats had successfully completed the perilous journey bringing more than 2,000 Indochinese people to Australia. With a view to managing the arrival of people by boat, the Department established the first immigration detention centre in Villawood in Sydney. Additionally, in an endeavour to relieve domestic processing pressures and remove the motivation for people to travel to Australia by boat, departmental officers were deployed to countries neighbouring Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to interview prospective refugees for resettlement in Australia. Between 1975 and 1985, the Department processed nearly 80,000 Indochinese refugees for resettlement. Following the Indochinese humanitarian crisis, the Department established an official humanitarian program as part of its migration program. The scope of regional humanitarian issues saw Australia and other countries join the Comprehensive Plan of Action in 1989 – an endeavour to coordinate international response efforts to deal with the outflow of refugees from Vietnam, and the large numbers of refugees languishing in camps in South East Asia.
Throughout the 1990s, the Department offered special assistance to applicants and ethnic minorities from around the globe, including the former Soviet states, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, China, East Timor and Sri Lanka. By 1995, Australia had accepted over 500,000 refugees and displaced persons, including approximately 215,000 from Eastern Europe, 135,000 from Indochina, 90,000 from the Middle East, 50,000 from Latin America and 25,000 Chinese students. In 1999, the Department led Operation Safe Haven – which provided 4,000 Albanian Kosovars from camps in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with temporary sanctuary in Australia. The Department assisted in organising charter flights for evacuees, their temporary settlement in Australia, and their eventual return home. Later, safe haven visas were also extended to some 2,000 people from East Timor.
Today, Australia is one of 27 countries that offers resettlement places to refugees and others in humanitarian need. Only ten countries have established annual resettlement programs of 500 or more refugee places. Australia consistently ranks in the top three resettlement countries, along with the United States and Canada, who collectively provide over 80 percent of global resettlement places. Over the next several years under government direction, our programme will expand to almost 19,000 permanent places a year, in the great tradition of refugee and humanitarian work that the Department has been tasked to perform since the end of the Second World War. Today, I should like to acknowledge all those officers who, over 70 years, have contributed to the Department’s protection and humanitarian efforts and assisted the most vulnerable people in the world. You give the lie to the claims that the Department has no moral compass and is incapable of sensitive engagement on this issue. Far from it – this Department, based on its emphasis of performance and conduct, is one of the greatest humanitarian and refugee agencies on the face of the planet.
From its inception, the Department implemented and administered programs that offered a range of services to migrants prior to, and after, their arrival in Australia. In the immediate post–war period, English language teaching was especially a key focus. The Department understood the need for sustained language training. It provided intensive instruction to migrants, which commenced before they left Europe, often continued during their sea voyage to Australia, and after their arrival through classroom teaching. The Department’s assistance to new arrivals also extended into the areas of housing and employment, which included in its early days, a network of hostels providing lodging for up to 12 months. Working with other areas of government, including the then Commonwealth Employment Service, the Department helped to source jobs for migrants living in these hostels.
In the early years of the Department – and as a reflection of the times – migrants were encouraged to ‘assimilate’ quickly into Australian society. A common perception was that the process of assimilation would be quick and easy. Migrants were expected to adopt existing cultural norms and become indistinguishable from the Australian–born population as rapidly as possible. And for some Australians, the settlement of large numbers of non–British migrants raised concerns, including a fear of being swamped by peoples of ‘alien norms’ and ‘dubious loyalty’. The Department worked with other government agencies, the States and Territories, industry associations and the trade union movement to try and assuage such fears. The status of ‘Australian citizenship’ was created under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, and from 1949, the Department was given responsibility for the process of ‘naturalisation’ – a responsibility which continues to this day, as my Department has responsibility for citizenship acquisition and revocation, which of course will be extended in scope should the Parliament see fit to pass the Bill which was introduced this week by our Minister.
By the 1960s, a greater national appreciation of the complexities inherent in migrant settlement was developing, including an understanding that it was unrealistic, and indeed undesirable, to expect new arrivals to completely abandon their heritage and language. The Department’s services evolved in tandem, becoming more receptive to the cultural, linguistic and physical needs of new migrants to support their integration.
By the 1970s, the influence of new migrant groups from Europe and other countries began to manifest itself at many levels in Australian society. The concept of Australia as a ‘multicultural society’ was first mentioned in official publications in 1973. In the 1970s, the Department began to tailor its programs specifically towards the multicultural and multilingual characteristics of new migrants. The 1978
Report on Migrant Services and Programs – which is regarded as the founding document for Australian multiculturalism – recommended that migrants had the right to maintain their cultural identity and called for improvements to the Department’s welfare services and settlement programs.
From the 1980s, however the Department’s energies were progressively directed towards balancing the facilitation of entry of ever–increasing legitimate visitors and preventing those attempting to circumvent immigration law. The dramatic rise in international movements in the latter part of the twentieth century was a ramification of a world becoming increasingly interconnected through technology, communications and global financial markets. The Department was required to manage a dramatic surge in temporary and short–term visitors, predominantly from tourists, students and people on short term business.
To manage the large numbers of people arriving in and departing from Australia, the Department readily embraced technology. In 1987 the year he joined the Public Service, staff began using computers in overseas posts to issue visitor visas. An Immigration Records and Information System (IRIS) was also introduced in 1987. IRIS simplified the clearance process of incoming passengers at major airports and enabled departmental officers at Australia’s overseas posts to issue visas across–the–counter. The Department introduced the Electronic Travel Authority system in 1996, which removed the need for paperwork for short–term visitors entering Australia.
Friends and colleagues, any account of the Department’s history would be deficient if it did not address the issue of people smuggling by sea, which has been such a central feature of our work in recent decades. I have already made mention of the arrivals from Indochina in the 1970s. Later, from 1998 to 2001, Australia experienced a dramatic increase in unauthorised boat arrivals, with 12,000 illegal maritime arrivals reaching Australian shores during this period. This was in part a reflection of the industrial scaling up of people smuggling as a transnational criminal enterprise, with plenty of people from around the globe willing to pay the smugglers to circumvent immigration and border controls.
Under Government direction, the Department implemented strengthened deterrence measures in 1999. Those granted refugee status were provided with a three–year temporary protection visa or a short–term safe haven visa in lieu of permanent residence. Biometric testing was increasingly being utilised to help identity asylum seekers, especially those who had been refused refugee status by UNHCR or another country. To help combat people smuggling, the Department increased the presence of compliance officers at seven overseas posts and at our key airports. Heavier penalties were also imposed on airlines for allowing passengers to board flights without suitable documentation.
A pivotal moment in the Department’s history came on 26 August 2001. After 433 Afghan asylum seekers on a sinking fishing boat were rescued by the Norwegian ship,
MV Tampa, the Australian Government ordered the ship not to enter Australian waters. Following a five day stand–off between the captain and crew and Australian authorities, the Australian Government made arrangements with Nauru and Papua New Guinea to take the asylum seekers. New legislation imposed minimum prison terms for people smugglers; excised territories from Australia’s migration zone; and allowed for the detention of illegal maritime arrivals in an excised offshore place and their transfer to a third country. The signing of administrative agreements with the governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea saw the establishment of regional processing centres to which asylum seekers could be sent.
Of course, Operation Sovereign Borders has built on and extended these efforts, and has since December 2013 included critical operational component known as ‘turn back, where safe to do so’.
Through its detention and removal activities, the Department came under significant public scrutiny and criticism in 2005 for its handling of the cases of Ms Cornelia Rau and Ms Vivian Alvarez Solon. The Palmer and Comrie Reports as they are known – which examined the cases of Ms Rau and Ms Solon respectively – detailed serious mistakes made by the Department. In response – and following subsequent Commonwealth and Immigration Ombudsman reports – the Department initiated agency–wide reform to become more transparent and accountable, to improve its services and case management, and to bolster staff training and support.
Another important change occurred in 2013, the Department’s settlement and multicultural affairs and adult migrant English program were transferred to the Department of Social Services and Department of Employment respectively. At the same time, the work of the Department and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service has become increasingly entwined as a result of a joint focus on protecting Australia’s borders and managing the lawful movement of people and goods across them. Absent the formal integration of the Department and the Service, to be effected next week on 1 July 2015, we would nonetheless have had to increasingly integrate our operating systems and processes. With the Department’s focus in recent decades on managing temporary people movement and border entry, and the relative diminution of the original mission of building the nation’s population, integration not only makes sense but is, in my personal judgement, overdue.
The rich history of the Department – and indeed, in a sense, its pre–history, pre–1945 – has been captured in the publication launched by the Minister a few moments ago:
A History of the Department of Immigration – Managing Migration to Australia. I commend this very fine publication as a record of the challenges faced by the new Department on establishment, and in particular its contribution to the ambitious nation–building which I described earlier, adopted by Australian Governments after the Second World War, of which I have already spoken.
Like all stories about institutions, our history as a Department is a story about our people. The publication is very much a product of the Department itself, and represents the justifiable pride our officers – past and present – hold in its achievements and contribution to the modern nation. And of course, there is more to be written.
In conclusion, Australia’s relationship to the rest of the world has undergone a dramatic transformation since the end of the Second World War. Today, we are inextricably linked to complex international networks – of business, trade, travel, technology, knowledge exchange, migration, cultural links and family connections. Today, 230 million people – 3 per cent of the world’s population – have crossed international borders for temporary or permanent migration purposes. As an increasingly globalised, connected and interdependent world, the challenges faced by Australia are becoming even more multidimensional and complex in nature. Australia will soon be on the verge of issuing more than five million visas annually to visitors, temporary and permanent migrants. For the foreseeable future, we can expect that approximately 1.9 million non–citizens will be in Australia on a temporary basis at any one point in time. Furthermore, while we cannot be certain of the number of people who will be displaced by conflicts around the globe and seek asylum in countries other than their own, we can expect that numbers will not abate and challenges will only intensify in asylum seeking and humanitarian terms. Moreover, within a constantly evolving globalised world, transnational crime is widespread, and illicit actors have a greater capacity to operate internationally more than ever before.
For policymakers to adequately respond to the changing nature of our world, it is imperative that the machinery of government evolves in parallel. The amalgamation of the Department and the Service is both timely and as I said earlier necessary. When we consider, very broadly, the functions of Immigration and Customs – to manage the seamless and regular movement of people, goods and services across borders; to administer our migration programs and ensure compliance; to disrupt illicit trade, people smuggling and trafficking; to manage migration and trade within a global context; and to respond to the protection needs of refugees and vulnerable people – there is a natural inter–connectedness and overlap between the functions.
Consolidating myriad functions into one Department is a significant measure by the government that recognises the need to establish a single integrated agency that in our case has both the agility to face the challenges of a dynamic, complex and volatile global environment, and is well–equipped to manage the increasingly complex movements of people and goods globally. Borders are strategic national assets and the connection points of an increasingly globalised, connected and interdependent world. Global travel and trade, labour mobility, and the migration and movement of people are best mediated and managed by connected border systems. The new Department and the Australian Border Force will oversee the flowof people, and goods, to and from our nation as a means to contribute to and from our national security, economy and society.
Since their establishment, Customs and Immigration have operated in a constantly evolving policy and operational environment that has demanded the agility to continually incorporate new public administrative arrangements. The changes that will be effected on 1 July are transformational. Yes, there will be change, but there will also be continuity. While the integration of Customs and Immigration emphasises the crucial importance of border protection, immigration will remain a vital public administration and policy concern. The Department’s migration program, however, needs to be responsive to the cut and thrust of a global economy. It is vital we attract to Australia those in a growing global pool of travellers, students, skilled workers and business–people.
I hope you enjoy today’s presentations, which will celebrate and commemorate the contributions to Australia made by Immigration and Customs staff during the 20th century and to the present day. You will also hear about the challenges and opportunities we can expect the 21st century to bring and how the combined strength of the new Department and Australian Border Force will position us for the future. Building on our dual histories, next week we start to write the next chapters.
