Northwestern European Australians

Along with Eastern European Australians and Southern European Australians, the census in Australia lists Northwestern European Australians under a "North-West European" header for ancestry. This features five subcategories which, in order as listed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, are: North-West European, British, Irish, Western European and Northern European, some of which have further national or regional subgroups.[2]

Notable scholars have made use of terms relating to Northwest Europeans in Australia, or Northwestern European Australians, in order to identify the grouping. Professor Mary Kalantzis has used the category to analyze Australians from Northwestern Europe in the national census.[3] Professors Gustav Ranis and Christian Joppke have used the term with reference to the country's historical immigration programmes and preferences.[4][5]

Historian Henry Reynolds has explored the discriminatory use of the category by members of the Commonwealth Parliament, and ANU's Dr Francis Harry Bauer used the pan-ethnic grouping to describe the colonial settlers of northern Australia.[6][7]

Australia, alongside similar English-speaking settler nations (Canada, the United States, and New Zealand), prioritized Northwestern European immigration for growing its population and expanding into new territories, for much of its early history and post-independence era. Sociologist Christian Joppke has written how the racial promotion of the pan-ethnic grouping had caused former British colony nations, such as Australia, to become "tainted by the flip side of racial exclusion, which had targeted primarily Asians."[5] Dr Francis Harry Bauer of Australian National University described the environment-based culture shock for Northwestern Europeans resettling areas of Australia:[7]

Nevertheless, the curtain was rising on actual settlement in northern Australia, a play which had no script and a cast which had not even seen the stage. And a vast stage it was, about 4,500,000 km2 vast, fifteen times the size of England, Scotland and Wales. It was a land almost inconceivable to northwest Europeans.

At the first Commonwealth Parliament meeting in 1901, the preference for Northwestern European immigrants was expressed by Senators. Historian Henry Reynolds, whose work has focused on the colonisation of Australia, wrote:[6]

Members and Senators agreed about the centrality of race. They agreed that there was a demonstrable hierarchy of races with the northwest Europeans, the Nordics or Caucasians at the top and the Africans, Melanesians, and Aborigines at the bottom.

Immigration from 1901 to 1947 contributed to a population of 7.5 million in Australia, made up almost entirely of Northwestern Europeans. Around 90 percent of the country had ancestry from Great Britain, with 7 percent made up of other Northwestern Europeans (and around 1 percent Southern Europeans).[8] Policy on immigration actively sought to assist the arrival of British people. For other Northwestern European peoples, while they were not actively encouraged to emigrate by policy, their access to Australia was basically unrestricted. Southern and Eastern Europeans, on the other hand, were comparatively limited in this period.[9] Economist Gustav Ranis has noted that pre-1929 labor migration largely followed cultural and ethnic trends, with most immigration to Australia being from the pan-ethnic group.[4]

The Second World War had temporarily halted migrations of the grouping to Australia. In the aftermath of the war, displaced Northwest Europeans were targeted for resettlement in Australia. [10] In December 1945, The Tweed Daily published an article quoting Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, detailing how; "Tens of thousands of northwestern Europeans who have suffered ruthless oppression and war for years want to come to Australia as soon as possible."[11]

By 1949, Harold Holt, serving as the government's new Minister for Labour and National Service, expressed a renewed interest in German migration to Australia, which resumed the "carefully crafted immigration program which initially favoured British and North-Western Europeans."[12] While attracting an "ethnically desirable mix of Northwestern Europeans", the government was mindful to screen out potential war criminals, or fascist collaborators, from the new arrivals. It also took steps to ensure new immigrants would work only in "labour-starved" industries, rather than compete with native-born workers.[13] In the decades after the Second World War, many of the group, such as Germans and Dutch people, were attracted to industrial cities, such as Newcastle, New South Wales.[14]

Toward the late 20th-century, an almost exclusively Northwestern European-descended populace was joined by significant migrations of Southern Europeans and Asians.[15] Despite the cessation of the discrimatory White Australia policy, the grouping has retained much of its ethnic status in 21st-century Australian society. In modern times, non-British Northwestern European diaspora in the country, such as Irish Australians and German Australians, have gradually been immersed into the pan-ethnic grouping, and are perceived as "fully included in the idea of the Australian nation".[16]

The 1981 Census in Australia showed that immigrant Northwestern European women were more highly educated than Yugoslav (and other Southern European) immigrant women.[18] Research has found that Northwestern Europeans are significantly represented in professional occupations, or as white-collar workers, and less so in manual jobs (blue-collar workers in Australia.[14]

Non-Anglophone Northwestern European immigrants were shown to have the highest English language fluency of all immigrant groups by the 1981 census. Both men and women from the group also ranked highest in those who had switched entirely to English-speaking.[18][19]