Indy Baker

One of the Act’s most notorious mechanisms was the dictation test, which required prospective migrants to write fifty words in any European (and later any prescribed) language at the discretion of an immigration official. In practice, the test was used arbitrarily to exclude non-European migrants while exempting white British settlers, providing a

The shift from British to Asian and other sources of migration is striking: by the early twenty‐first century, countries such as India, China and the Philippines became major source countries for Australian permanent migration.

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 introduced the notorious “dictation test,” a superficially race-neutral mechanism that effectively excluded non-Europeans.

Governments emphasise the economic benefits of migration, regional settlement goals, and international obligations.

Chinese diggers were portrayed as unable to assimilate and morally suspect in colonial newspapers and political discourse, their presence perceived as a threat to the social and racial order of the goldfields