THE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION
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THE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION
JOCK COLLINS
Department of Economics, School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney, PO Box 123,
Broadway NSW 2007 Australia. E-mail: Jock.Collins@uts.edu.au
Received: November 2005; revised August 2005
ABSTRACT
Immigration has been a significant and controversial part of Australian history since 1947, but
the nature and composition of Australian immigration and the policies and philosophies of
immigrant settlement have changed considerably over that time, particularly in the last few decades
of globalisation. The aim of this paper is to assess the changing political economy of Australian
immigration in two senses. First, the paper presents an overview of the major changes to the
dynamics of the Australian immigration experience that have accompanied globalisation. Second,
the paper investigates how the political economy of Australian immigration developed in the 1970s
differs from a political economy of contemporary Australian immigration. The paper argues that
the traditional political economy emphasis on immigration as providing a reserve army of unskilled
migrant labour must be replaced by a version of political economy that not only includes labour
across all permanent and temporary categories but that also has a stronger focus on immigrant
settlement and migrant lives, including debates about national identity. In order to do this, the
paper argues, it is important for traditional political economy to draw on new sensibilities and
insights about the contemporary immigration experience that emerge from interdisciplinary
insights drawn from disciplines outside the traditional political economy foundations.
Key words: Immigration, Australia, political economy, labour market segmentation, racialisation,
globalisation
INTRODUCTION economy. Clearly much has changed over the
past three decades, including three international
Immigration seems to be on the agenda, for recessions, the collapse of the Berlin wall, the
better or worse, for most countries of the world rise and collapse of the south-east Asian boom
today, unlike thirty years ago when this interest and the dot com boom, the innovation of the
in immigration was relegated to a few traditional Internet and the inexorable advance of globali-
settler immigration countries (such as the United sation. In this paper I ask the question, what is
States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand). new about the political economy of Australian
Today Europe has discovered – or, more correctly, immigration today, nearly 30 years later, and
rediscovered – that it has an appetite for immi- what remains the same? What factors remain
gration, an appetite that is becoming almost salient, which concepts resonate today, what
universal in this age of globalisation (Castles & new areas have been taken aboard and what has
Miller 2003). In the 1970s a political economy of been dropped off ?
immigration emerged from a European (Castles The structure of the paper is as follows. The
& Kosack 1973) and US perspective (Reich et al. following section identifies the key aspects of
1973; Gordon 1972) rooted in Marxist political the Australian immigration experience up until
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2006, Vol. 97, No. 1, pp. 7–16.
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA8 JOCK COLLINS
the mid-1970s, while the third section summarises Australia’s post-war immigration policy was almost
the main components of a political economy in tatters before it had begun. These first years
analysis of immigration in that period. The fourth of the post-war immigration programme were
section then looks at the main changes in the critical. They proved to the government that it
Australian immigration experience from the was possible to settle non-British immigrants in
mid-1970s to the present before the fifth section large numbers: a combination of full employ-
addresses the key aspects that a contemporary ment and the restrictions imposed on ‘unfree’
political economy of Australian immigration Baltic immigrants reduced tensions that might
should include. The final section briefly have been expected when large numbers of
summarises how the political economy of ‘foreigners’ arrived in a country known for its
Australian immigration has changed over time. prejudice and xenophobia.
In the 1950s and 1960s, over one million
AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION – 1947 TO Australian immigrants came from the UK and
THE MID-1970s Ireland, with large immigrant intakes also from
Italy, Greece, Germany and the former Yugoslavia.
Since 1945, around six million people have come A ‘two-class’ immigration model had been estab-
to Australia as new settler immigrants. They lished during these first years. Australia would
have had a marked influence on all aspects of continue to seek as many immigrants from
Australian society. Immigration has added about Britain, Ireland and other English-speaking
half of all the population growth in Australia countries (or ESB immigrants), providing ‘assisted
from about seven million in 1947 to just over passage’ for the British in the form of a ten
20 million today and about half of the extra pound subsidised fare to travel to Australia by
workers added to the Australian workforce in this boat, if they stayed a minimum of two years. But
period (Burnley 2001). While most immigrants it was necessary to ‘top up’ immigration quotas
arrived as free settlers, over half a million (more with immigrants from non-English-speaking
than 590,000 people) arrived under humanitar- countries (or NESB immigrants) who would
ian programmes as refugees. About one million generally have to pay their own way and make
immigrants arrived in each of the four decades their own arrangements through the ‘chain
following 1950: 1.6 million between October migration’ process (Collins 1991).
1945 and 30 June 1960; about 1.3 million in
the 1960s; and about 960,000 in the 1970s. The THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
highest number of settlers to arrive in any one AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION (1947 TO
year was 185,099 in 1969–70. The lowest number MID-1970s)
in any one year was 52,752 in 1975–76.
From the time that Arthur Calwell, the first The political economy of Australian immigration
Minister for Immigration, established the immi- was influenced by the classic study of the political
gration programme in 1947 political support economy of Western European immigration
for large-scale immigration was bipartisan. The (Castles & Kosack 1973), though from the
target was set to increase the population by one outset there were important differences. In
per cent per year, roughly equal to the rate of the mid-1970s, a political economy of Australian
natural population growth at the time. Immi- immigration had the following components.
gration was sold to the Australian people on First, as in Europe, Australian immigration was
the need to ‘populate or perish’ and to solve the primarily about the immigration of workers,
massive labour shortages after the war. Calwell following the Marxist concept of immigrant
promised to maintain a White Australia by workers as an inexhaustible, imported reserve
ensuring that nine out of every ten immigrants army of labour. The difference was that while
were British or Irish. But from the outset, this Australia had a settler immigration programme
grand plan ran into problems. In order to fill that sought the permanent immigration of
immigration targets, the Australian government families, in Europe there was a range of com-
was forced to take in an almost equal number binations of guest worker temporary migration
of refugees from Eastern Europe. While ‘white’, and permanent colonial migration. Second,
these immigrants were certainly not British. immigrant workers in Australia, as with those in
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAGTHE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION 9
Europe, became the factory fodder of the long problems securing citizenship rights and with
boom from 1947 to the mid-1970s, when manu- accessing voting rights in local/provincial and
facturing industries of Western capitalist countries national elections. Racialised immigrant workers
were the springboards of economic and employ- were largely confined to low-end jobs as the most
ment growth. Immigrant men worked in the steel exploited sections of the working class but sexism,
mills, glass, rubber and car factories while immi- racism and prejudice by the non-immigrant work-
grant women worked on factory assembly lines ing class and its (largely non-immigrant male)
and in clothing, footwear and textile factories. trade unions resulted in class fragmentation
They also worked in menial jobs in the services rather than class solidarity across ethnicity and
sector cleaning hospitals and schools. gender lines. Racist and sexist attitudes and prac-
Rather than a simple immigrant/non- tices were produced and reproduced in this way.
immigrant cleavage adopted by Castles & Kosack In Australia NESB immigrant workers in
(1973) in their analysis of Western Europe, the Australia were also ignored by, and under-
role of immigrants in the Australian labour represented in, the official structures of trade
market was more complex. Immigrant workers unions, despite the fact that they (NESB
were a critical latent reserve army of workers immigrant workers) were the large majority of
for Australian capitalism in the post-war period many trade unions’ membership (Nicolau 1991).
(Collins 1984; Lever-Tracy & Quinlan 1988), but Moreover, the peak body of Australian trade
the immigrant experience was not homogenous. unions, the Australian Council of Trade Unions
The labour market segmentation literature (ACTU), has long been suspicious of immigration.
emerging from the radical political economists However, unlike the situation in Europe, all
in the United States (Gordon 1972; Reich et al. immigrant workers in Australia were encouraged
1973) provided a more subtle framework for to access citizenship, which was available to
analysis in understanding the role of migrant all after initially five years, and later two years,
labour in Australia. Applying this literature to of settlement. This difference is explained by
the Australian labour market in the mid-1970s, Australia’s family-based settler immigration
Collins (1978) discovered a pattern of segmen- programme that wanted ‘New Australians’ to stay
tation along the intersections of gender and and help build the nation. Once naturalised
ethnicity. Immigrants of non-English-speaking immigrants could vote, NESB immigrants did
background (NESB) were in distinct, and dis- play a significant role in Australian politics up
tinctly inferior, segments of the labour market until the mid-1970s ( Jupp 1984) in a way that
than the Australian born or ESB immigrants. was not possible in Europe where citizenship
The political economy of immigration at that was denied or restricted.
time thus located its analysis of immigration from Thus in the 1970s, the political economy of
the importance of migrant labour to capital accu- immigration in Europe and Australia was largely
mulation in capitalist societies. This importance Marxist inspired and viewed immigration through
stemmed not just from the fact that immigrant the prism of immigrant workers as politically
workers filled labour demand in these countries, marginalised and economically disadvantaged,
but also from the fact that immigrant workers with racist antagonisms shoring up barriers to
were more exploitable in a labour process that working class unity in an increasingly culturally
was organised to exploit and reproduce racist diverse labour market. Capital accumulation
and sexist divisions within the working class and profitability all responded with vigour to
(Braverman 1974). The analysis of the racism the importation of labour that provided a pool
faced by immigrant labour in Britain and Europe of workers willing to do the dirtiest and most
was developed further by Miles (1982) who dangerous jobs for low pay and the subsequent
developed the concept of racialisation to reflect labour market segmentation that helped main-
the paradox that while races do not exist, racisms tain a divided working class. The state played a
do. Castles & Kosack (1973) also investigated role in shaping who and how many came to Aus-
other political dimensions of immigrants’ tralia and from where they came: immigration
positions in Western Europe: immigrant workers patterns reflected past political and economic
in Europe were ignored by trade unions and spheres of influence as much as it reflected racial
had problems of political disenfranchisement, preference. The government also established the
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG10 JOCK COLLINS
philosophy and practice of assimilation to shape Saigon in 1975 that ‘non-whites’ began to
immigrant settlement policy, largely denying feature in Australia’s immigration intakes in a
new immigrants any access to programmes and large way as Vietnamese refugees arrived in large
services required to assist in overcoming initial numbers by the end of the 1970s. Australian
settlement difficulties. But the emphasis on immigration history had turned full-circle from
the political economy of immigration in the more than 100 years of White Australia. In these
mid-1970s was of immigrants as workers not new national and international circumstances,
immigrants as neighbours and citizens. following the Canadian lead, Australia introduced
a ‘points test’ method of selecting immigrants
AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION (MID-1970s in order to fine tune Australia’s immigration
TO TODAY) policy with the changing, globalised, labour
market realities. Points were awarded for charac-
The mid-1970s were a watershed in post-war teristics such as English-language ability, skills
Australian immigration history. The long boom and qualifications and relevant employment
was replaced by the international capitalist experience and job availability. Since then,
recessions of 1974–75 (and, later, 1981–82 and Australia’s immigration patterns have demon-
1990–91) over the past three decades that have strated an increasing reliance on immigrants from
also witnessed a time of fundamental economic Asia, mirroring the trends in the other major
and financial restructuring of the international immigration countries of Canada, New Zealand
capitalist system. The new international division and the United States (Inglis et al. 1992), while
of labour that emerged was to have fundamen- Asians have been the fastest growing overseas-
tal implications for the Australian economy and born population group in Australia in the past
for Australian immigration policy. Multinational decade (Hugo 2001). Over the past three decades
capital began to restructure global investment more than one million immigrants have arrived
patterns in order to relocate manufacturing from Asian countries. Smaller numbers have
plants from their markets such as Australia into come from the African and American continents.
third world countries – particularly in Asia – The human capital characteristics of Australia’s
where labour costs were much lower, financial permanent immigrants are also changing. People
inducements higher and trade unions non- with low formal education and poor English
existent or weak. At the same time the Hawke language skills, who dominated the immigration
and Keating Labor Governments enthusiastically intakes into Australia in the first three decades,
embraced globalisation and deregulation of the are now missing out on immigration selection. In
Australian economy, with across the board and recent decades, immigration flows have increas-
significant tariff reduction a central part of this ingly comprised highly educated and qualified
strategy. As a consequence, employment in the people with good English language skills.
manufacturing industry – which peaked in the The Australian immigration experience has
mid-1960s – began to fall irrevocably (Fagan & thus changed considerably in recent decades.
Webber 1994). Moreover, the remaining jobs First, Australian Governments have very gradu-
in manufacturing – the employer of most NESB ally increased immigration intakes since the
migrant labour hitherto – became increasingly recession of 1990 and continued the trend that
skilled. The demand for unskilled manual labour saw most new immigrants to Australia coming
of the past decades had fallen dramatically, from the UK and Ireland, New Zealand and from
though the growth in service jobs, particularly the Asian region. In recent decades, immigration
in the ‘new economy’ areas of finance, media, is less responsive to the business cycle and
telecommunications, education and tourism, has more responsive to economic restructuring in
led to shortages in skilled labour in Australia. Australia. Second, immigration intakes increas-
At the same time, the 1970s saw the final death ingly favour those immigrant applicants who
of the White Australia policy with the election of are young with tertiary education qualifications
the Whitlam Government in 1972, the first Labor and strong language skills in areas of labour
Government in 25 years. A non-discriminatory shortage in Australia. Third, this has led to an
immigration policy was introduced with bipartisan increase in the skill intake relative to the family
political support. But it was not until the fall of intake. For example family intakes have fallen
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAGTHE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION 11
from 47.2 per cent in 1998–99 to 40.1 per cent criticised for the way that it has opportunistically
in 2001–02 while skilled intakes have risen from exploited issues of refugee asylum for short-term
51.5 per cent to 57.5 per cent of the total (DIMA political gain, particularly during the 2001
2004). The number of skilled visas issued in Federal Election (Markus 2001; Marr & Wilkinson
2002–03 was the highest on record, while the 2003) and for introducing mandatory detention
increasing overall intake also allowed family for asylum-seeking boat people, including
migration to reach the highest absolute level for children (Mares 2001).
six years. Many of these immigrants who enter Seventh, the issue of Australian immigration
under skilled visas are temporary immigrants who and settlement policy (multiculturalism) has
today outnumber permanent entrants, a fourth been politicised in a way that would be unlikely
feature of contemporary Australian immigration. in, for example, a country such as Canada that
Between the years 1982 and 2000 the growth in is, in many other respects, very similar to Australia
settler immigration to Australia was 11 per cent, in terms of immigration experience and policy
while long-term residents grew by 65 per cent development (Adelman et al. 1994; Hiebert et al.
and long-term visitors grew from 30,000 to 2003). Australian multiculturalism has been
133,000 (or 350%) (Macken 2003). However, criticised from both the ‘Right’ and ‘Left’ in this
at the same time Australian employees trawl regard. The peaks of the right wing critique were
opportunities off-shore. Thus the fifth impact of during the Blainey debate of the early 1980s, the
the globalisation of Australian immigration has Bicentennial multiculturalism debate in 1988,
been a rapid increase in the size of permanent and the emergence of Pauline Hanson’s One
departures, that is, emigration from Australia, Nation party in the 1990s (Collins 1991, pp. 286–
particularly of the highly skilled. Today some 318). Blainey (1984), Hanson (One Nation 1998)
one million Australian citizens are living and and other critics (Rimmer 1991; Sheehan 1998)
working abroad (Hugo et al. 2003). According to viewed multiculturalism as ‘un Australian’, divid-
Macken (2003, p. 26) those who leave Australia ing the nation into a number of warring tribes
permanently are among the ‘best and brightest’: and undermining Australian national identity by
‘One third of them go to the UK: of those giving immigrant minorities too much influence
60 per cent are managers or professionals; and and power and too many resources. On the other
80 per cent are in their 20s and 30s. The next hand, Hage (1998) has criticised Australian
biggest destination for Australians is the US. multiculturalism for not making enough space
Those headed there are even better qualified and place for immigrant minorities and shoring
(73 per cent are professionals or managers) and up Australia’s ‘white nation’ national identity.
slightly older (60 per cent are in their 20s and Eighth, unlike governments in Canada and
30s.’ Concern about Australia’s brain drain has New Zealand, the Australian Government
accompanied this development. struggles to develop a popular economic or social
Sixth there has been much greater emphasis rationale for immigration. Immigration has been
today on issues of border control and security blamed for all sorts of economic problems,
following 9/11. Months before this epochal event from unemployment to inflation, foreign debt,
the Howard Government attempted to ‘control’ falling productivity and increased congestion.
illegal immigration entry of boat people seek- Consequently the current Australian govern-
ing refugee asylum and landing on Australia’s ment has attempted to realise greater apparent
northwestern shores. According to the then economic benefit out of immigration in order
Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and to generate greater public support for the immi-
Indigenous Affairs, Philip Ruddock, Australia gration programme (the business community
leads the world in effectively (many would say has long been a supporter of immigration
ruthlessly) managing migration and border and most sectors of business want substantial
control, while government practices – sending increases in the immigration intake).
the Navy to intercept boats to stop them landing Ninth, Australian immigration has been over-
on Australian shores and incarcerating those who whelmingly an urban phenomenon. Australia
make it through – have established a precedent is one of the most urbanised countries in the
noted by other fearful governments. At the same world, while immigrants have a higher rate of
time, the Australian Government has been urbanisation than other Australians (Burnley
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG12 JOCK COLLINS
2001). This link between immigration and urban- Australians. The age of globalisation has brought
isation has generated a strong environmental with it increasingly deregulated international
critique of immigration in Australia (Collins labour flows into and out of increasingly de-
1991, pp. 313–319, 2000), a phenomenon that regulated national and urban labour markets in
does not appear to be a major issue in other countries such as Australia.
countries such as Canada. In recent years, NSW It is clear then that immigration still has a
Labor Premier, Bob Carr, has emerged as the lot to do with (increasingly globalised) capital
strongest critic of Australian immigration since accumulation. This is seen in the way that
Pauline Hanson. His main objection is that Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Hiebert
immigration adds to Sydney’s suburban sprawl et al. 2003) have fine tuned their immigration
and threatens a semi-arid urban environment. He programmes to maximise the benefits of migrant
has regularly called on the Federal Government labour by a relative reduction in refugee and
to try to redirect immigration out of Sydney. family categories and a corresponding increase
in the skilled and entrepreneurial categories
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF while also fine tuning attempts to source specific
AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION TODAY skill shortages overseas. It is also seen in the
way that immigration, both documented and
Many aspects of the political economy of Aus- undocumented, is an increasingly important
tralian immigration today are similar to that of a part of the economic and political agenda in
quarter of a century ago. Others are, importantly, many more countries today than three decades
different. What is the same? First, Australia’s ago, particularly in Europe (Castles & Miller
immigration programme is more than ever about 2003). A corollary is that trends in undocumented
immigrant labour, with the programme increas- migration to Australia and other countries have
ingly fine-tuned to better match immigrant increased, with human smugglers – snakeheads
labour supply (temporary or permanent) with – emerging as the innovative criminals of the
the changing labour market demand needs of a age of globalisation and migration who respond
restructuring Australian economy. In this sense, to the increasing excess demand for informal
immigrant labour remains an imported reserve channels to immigration that accompanies the
army of labour, albeit increasingly skilled and growth of formal migration everywhere. The
qualified. One major difference is that today ‘uncontrollability’ of undocumented flows of
one million Australians have left Australia to be labour stands in sharp contract to the need for
part of the reserve army of labour elsewhere. increasing control of increasingly diverse migra-
This reminds us that migration today is not a tion flows following 9/11. As a result, there is
one-way process, nor a permanent process, if it more anxiety about contemporary immigration.
ever was. Globalisation has opened the doors for Most immigrants today still end up as employees
young professionals to be on the move, a part in the labour market but there are important
of the restless and growing flow of transnational changes. Contemporary immigration is more
labour that has accompanied globalisation. skilled and professional, that is, more middle class
Even permanent immigrants decide to leave and less working class, than it was thirty years
and go elsewhere. Australia has developed one ago. This is obvious in the changing patterns
of the highest rates of casual employment in of segmentation of Australian labour market
the OECD and this has been accompanied by (Collins 2001). No longer are all immigrants
a casualisation of the migration process. Many from minority backgrounds concentrated into
transnational corporations have located their low-wage secondary labour market jobs. In the
Asian regional headquarters in Sydney (Connell past immigrants were selected from Asian
2000) – where the ‘new economy’ of media, countries such as India, Hong Kong, Singapore,
finance and culture is increasingly located – Malaysia and Korea precisely because they had
bringing a revolving flow of corporate employees the high education qualifications and skills that
on temporary work visas with them. Moreover, jobs in the new economy demanded. The ethnic
globalisation has paved the way for many more composition of the Australian immigration intake
Australians to become emigrants as access to jobs is, as a consequence, very different from that of
in other countries open up for highly-skilled 30 years ago, a pattern evident in other Western
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAGTHE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION 13
countries whose immigrants today are increas- that both justify their lower standing and
ingly from countries once considered ‘third world’ reproduce negative stereotypes of the ‘Other’.
or, in the case of Europe’s Eastern European However, as the character of contemporary
immigrants, ‘second world’. As a consequence immigration changes to increasingly include
the political economy of immigration today the higher educated and skilled workers from
cannot just focus on working class immigrants: it the third world, patterns of racialisation are
must include immigrants across all social classes also changing. But access to the primary labour
as the growth of immigrant entrepreneurship in market for immigrant workers from minority
Australia (Collins et al. 1995, 2003) and other backgrounds does not necessarily mean that
countries (Waldinger et al. 1990; Light and Gold racial discrimination in the Australian labour
2000; Rath 2000; Kloosterman & Rath 2003) in market has disappeared: it can be hypothesised
the past two decades attests. Today’s immigrants that there is an ‘accent ceiling’ which limits the
may be millionaires, entrepreneurs, doctors and rise of immigrant minority technicians, managers
other professionals, technicians and managers, and executives in the corporate world (Collins
but they may also be unskilled or semi-skilled 1996), though more research is required here.
who are unemployed or trapped into (shrinking) Immigrant women from minority backgrounds
low-paying manual jobs. They may be docu- in the labour market of course could well face a
mented or undocumented and if the latter may ‘double glazing’ in this regard. This reminds us
have arrived as smuggled human cargo or on of the importance of the fact that immigration
backpacker-filled jumbo jets. They may be and settlement are very gendered processes
permanent or temporary (foreign students, (Fincher et al. 1994) and that gender is a critical
corporate executives, skilled teachers or chefs). lens for a contemporary political economy of
Increasing complexity and diversity characterise migration.
contemporary immigration, a fact that demands At the same time as there have been significant
an increasingly complex and diverse political changes to the dynamics of Australian and inter-
economy. national migration in the past thirty years there
Immigration flows still arise, in part, from un- have been seismic changes to social theory in
predictable global conflicts and crises. Refugees that time. The Marxist political economy of the
are still a major, defining issue in the political 1970s that informed the analyses of immigration
economy of Australian (and other) immigra- in the 1970s was overly economistic, strong on
tion at the beginning of the twenty-first century. work, the mode of production and the economy
Responses to refugees – who are taken in under but weak on other spheres of life: the family, the
whatever circumstances – still mirror broader community, social networks and the neighbour-
geopolitical concerns of the government of hood. The emphasis was on how immigration
countries such as Australia and refugees continue helped capital accumulation through providing
to be a controversial political issue within Aus- a supply of cheap, exploitable labour and how
tralia. However, it is arguable that the current this played on the racism (and sexism) of the
conservative coalition Government of John labour movement to divide and rule. There was
Howard has been the most willing of any relatively little concern about non-economic
Australian Government since the beginning of aspects of immigrant settlement or the sites and
the immigration programme in 1947 to use anti- circumstances of Australian life for immigrants
refugee and anti-Middle Eastern sentiments for outside the workplace and the working class.
political advantage (Marr & Wilkinson 2003). The political economy of migration in the
A corollary of this argument is that the 1970s was focused strongly on migrant labour and
Australian immigration experience is still a at the social relations of the workplace. Today the
racialised one, albeit one in which the processes focus is on migrant lives as well as migrant labour.
of racialisation are dynamic, uneven and often There is still a global financial system and geo-
contradictory. In other words, as global migra- politics driving and diversifying permanent and
tion is increasingly comprised of flows of people temporary migration flows. Traditional political
from so-called third world countries, migration economy still has a role to play. But the innovative
offers new opportunities to create and recreate insights of some of the best of the new disciplines
negative, racialised stereotypes about immigrants of cultural studies and cultural geography have
© 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG14 JOCK COLLINS helped to illuminate many new dimensions emphasise that these movements occur within of the study of, and understanding of, migrant family and community networks often traversing lives. Today a more inter-disciplinary, multi-vocal many continents and countries. Hence the family seam of analysis and insight is developing new and the network are the important micro- sets of interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks components of the macro phenomena that we attempting to more fully comprehend this new call immigration. Here class is but one variable, migration and many aspects of contemporary with gender, sexuality, religion and culture all immigrant life. shaping the dynamics of immigration and settle- In the past three decades, feminism, post- ment. Indeed, immigration is at once a global, modernism and cultural studies have led to national, city, neighbourhood, community and great changes in the way that social, economic, family phenomenon. A contemporary political political and cultural issues such as immigration economy of immigration will investigate all are analysed. The field of feminist studies has these levels of the migration phenomenon. put greater emphasis on the way that gendered One constant is that the State continues to social networks and gendered social relation- play a central role in the political economy of ships shape the dynamics of migration and immigration. But the precise way that this plays settlement. Immigrant women are often at the out varies from country to country. In Europe centre of immigrant networks (O’Connor 1990; in particular the issue of citizenship has been a Werbner 1990), while women are increasingly central issue of immigrant settlement (Castles likely today to be the first of the family to migrate. & Davidson 2000; Kondo 2001). In countries Women play a key role in the important ‘how, such as Australia, where immigrant citizenship when, where, who’ aspects of immigration has always been easily available and encouraged, decisions in families (Brettell 2000, p. 109), yet the main debates have been around national despite important exceptions there is a general identity, multiculturalism and problems of invisibility of women in the scholarship on inter- immigrant settlement. national migration (DeLaet 1999). Clearly we Australian immigration and multiculturalism need a sharper eye on gender aspects of family, policies have been controversial, politicised and, work and community lives in order to better occasionally, politically decisive. The ‘boat people’ understand the dynamics of immigrant settle- issue played a key role in the 2001 Australian ment. Low’s (2003) fieldwork with 80 Asian elections after the Howard Government instructed immigrant women entrepreneurs in Sydney the Australian Navy to turn boatloads of refugees demonstrates how important their embedded away from the northwestern Australian shores gendered relationships with their husbands and (Marr & Wilkinson 2003). Here the media play their children and community networks were in a powerful role (Anti-Discrimination Board of shaping their experience as female immigrant New South Wales 2003). A moral panic about entrepreneurs. ‘Middle Eastern’ and ‘Lebanese’ crime in Sydney Today a political economy of immigration since the late 1990s (Collins et al. 2000) was needs to put a great deal more significance on confirmation to some of that fear. Post-9/11, the social and community networks that under- another layer, terrorism, has been thrown into the score patterns of migration and the dynamics of anti-Middle Eastern immigrant mix in Australia immigrant settlement. Today immigrant com- (Poynting et al. 2004), a reminder of the dynamic munities are re-conceptualised as transnational complexity of racialisation as it shapes the (Basch et al. 1994) or diasporic (Cohen 1997) settlement experience of immigrant minorities communities to emphasise the complex, dynamic in large multicultural cities such as Sydney. multidimensional and multinational aspects of To conclude, migration is today of increasing contemporary immigrant life in Australia or global importance as witnessed by the growing size some other country. In this view migration is and diversity in documented and undocumented part of an (open-ended) movement of peoples flows of temporary and permanent migration to to many parts of the world and emphasises the and from most Western countries. While globali- changing ways that these communities interact sation broke down the barriers to international and people move globally. It is also important capital flows fairly rapidly, the accompanying in the study of global movements of people to need for freeing up international labour flows © 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
THE CHANGING POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION 15
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