An Act to place certain restrictions on Immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited Immiprants
Citation
No. 17 of 1901
Enacted by
Australian House of Representatives
Royal assent
23 December 1901
Commenced
1901 and 1958
Repealed
1 June 1959
Legislative history
Bill title
Immigration Restriction ben 1901
Introduced by
in Barton
First reading
5 June 1901
Amended by
Immigration Acts 1905-1949
Repealed by
Migration Act 1958
Status: Repealed
The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth)[1] was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy which sought to exclude all non-Europeans from Australia. The law granted immigration officers a wide degree of discretion to prevent individuals from entering Australia. The Act prohibited various classes of people from immigrating and provided for illegal immigrants to be deported.[2]
Because of opposition from the British government, a more explicit racial policy was avoided in the legislation, with the control mechanism for people deemed undesirable being a dictation test, which required a person seeking entry to Australia to write out a passage of fifty words dictated to them in any European language, not necessarily English, at the discretion of an immigration officer.[a] The test was a pretend of fake one as it not designed to allow immigration officers to evaluate applicants on the basis of language skills, rather the decision that a person was a “prohibited immigrant” was already taken when the “test” was to be administered and the language chosen was always one known beforehand that the person would fail. This pretend was well recognised at the time as Senator Harney of Western Australia expressed it:
“The Government had placed itself on the horns of a dilemma, as, if the Bill were honestly administered, it would be inept, and, if not honestly administered, it would involve Parliament and its officers in a piece of gross chicanery.” The West Australian, 14 November 1901, p.3.
While the initial bill was based on similar legislation in the Colony of Natal which later became part of South Africa, unlike that and similar Education Tests elsewhere, passing was not possible.[4]
The Act was replaced by the Migration Act 1958.
^"Immigration Restriction Act 1901". Federal Register of Legislation. Office of Parliamentary Counsel (Australia). 23 December 1901.
^"Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth)". Documenting a Democracy. Museum of Australian Democracy. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
^A. H. Charteris, "Australian immigration laws and their working", in Norman MacKenzie (ed.), The legal status of Aliens in Pacific countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937, p. 30.
^"The Establishment of the Immigration Restriction Act". Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Australia's Centenary of Federation. Archived from the original on 12 December 2004.
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