Papua New Guinean Australians ( tpi, pipol bilong Papua Niugini long Ostrelia) are the citizens and residents of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
(including the
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...
, where 6.5% of all people claimed Papua New Guinean ancestry)
who were born in
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
(PNG) or have Papua New Guinean ancestry.
Papua New Guinea was administered by Australia until 1975, formally divided into the
Territory of Papua
The Territory of Papua comprised the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea from 1883 to 1975. In 1883, the Government of Queensland annexed this territory for the British Empire. The United Kingdom Government refused to ratify the a ...
and the
Territory of New Guinea
The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the nam ...
(a
League of Nations mandate
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administ ...
). The indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea were nonetheless subject to the
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 ...
, and only limited numbers were allowed to enter the rest of Australia – notably to work in the Queensland pearling industry.
The number of Papua New Guineans in Australia is considered relatively small, given the countries are neighbours and PNG's status as a former Australian territory. Other Pacific island countries have much larger populations in Australia. At the time of the
2021 Australian census
The 2021 Australian census, simply called the 2021 Census, was the eighteenth national Census of Population and Housing in Australia. The 2021 Census took place on 10 August 2021, and was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). T ...
, there were 22,664 people of Papua New Guinean descent in Australia and 29,995 Papua New Guinea-born people residing in the country. The gap between the two figures reflects the fact that many of those born in PNG were the children of Australian expatriates; only 8,752 (less than one-third) of Australian residents born in PNG reported that they were of Papua New Guinean ancestry.
Notable PNG-Australians
See also
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Portal:Australia
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Papuan people
The indigenous peoples of West Papua in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Arc ...
*
Australia–Papua New Guinea relations
Foreign relations exist between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is Australia's closest neighbour (roughly 3.75 km separates the two countries at Saibai Island) and a former colony of Australia. Both nations share the sa ...
References
{{Ethnic groups in Australia
Oceanian Australian
Papua New Guinean diaspora