ABSTRACT
The east coast of Australia was claimed for Britain by Captain James Cook in 1770 and settled by the British government as a convict colony in 1788. Before federation each colony had its own immigration policy. There was then a transitional period to 1920 until the national Commonwealth government fully assumed its constitutional power over immigration. Immigration policy since then has been centralized and is uniform throughout entire continent. Continuities relevant to labour migration need to be understood against this general background. Australia began its settlement history as a convict colony and this system existed in New South Wales until 1840, in Tasmania until 1851 and in Western Australia until 1868. Labour government and trade union influence was marked in the policy towards the intake of tied labour, the 171,000 European displaced persons admitted between 1947 and 1953. Flexibility has recently become a problem because of the discovery of serious labour shortages in manual occupations, especially in agriculture and catering.
