''All for Australia'' is a 1984 book by Australian historian Professor

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...

. It criticises Australian

immigration policy Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...

and the direction in which it is pushing the country. The book examines the way policy developed in the 1970s and 1980s and explores what Blainey views as the disproportionately high levels of Asian immigration to Australia since the mid-1970s. In ''All for Australia'', Blainey argues: * For the sake of national unity, the typical nation practises discrimination against migrants on the basis of ethnicity. Ironically, the Asian countries that Australia is too afraid to "offend" have no hesitation in using that right to retain their current ethnic compositions. * Every nation relies on a sense of community belonging, which can easily be damaged by the rapid entry of foreign people who unintentionally erode national cohesion. * Immigration is one of the most important issues facing a nation. The notion that it is too contentious to be publicly debated makes a mockery of

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...

. *

Multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

tends to emphasise the rights of ethnic minorities at the expense of the majority of Australians, thus unnecessarily encouraging division and threatening social cohesion. * The policy of multiculturalism has tended to be implicitly anti-British, despite Australia's British colonial heritage and the large number of British immigrants to Australia after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. * Australian immigration policy has moved from one extreme to another, from a policy that sought to encourage European immigration and restrict Asian immigration (

White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...

) to a policy that now gives disproportionate preference to

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

n immigration. Blainey asserts that the preferential treatment of Asian immigrants arose partly from a sense of guilt over the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, but it also reflected

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

's misguided view that more trade with Asian countries would come with a larger Asian population.

References

1984 non-fiction books Books by Geoffrey Blainey Books about politics of Australia Criticism of multiculturalism Works about human migration Anti-Asian sentiment in Australia Anti-immigration politics in Australia {{Australia-poli-book-stub