GP JOBS IN AUSTRALIA

Multicultural Australia

When Captain Cook first landed in Australia in 1770 there were about 350,000 Aborigines living across the continent. Over the next 100 years they were joined by 161,000 convicts shipped from Britain and Ireland. In 1852, gold was discovered in New South Wales and this sparked a “gold rush” of new colonists from Britain, Ireland, continental Europe, North America and China. The population of the Colony in Victoria grew from 76,000 in 1850 to 530,000 in less than a decade.

By 1900, the rapidly expanding population (excluding the original Aborigine populations) had risen to 3.7 million, with a quarter of them living in just two cities – Melbourne and Sydney.   But this was small beer compared to the number of sheep, which had reached 100 million!

In 1901 a law was passed restricting immigration from China and other Asian countries and for the next 50 years, Australia pursued an immigration policy giving preference to Europeans, particularly British and Irish nationals. This changed in the late 1950s as Australia opened the door to firstly southern Europeans and Russian migrants to help build the post war Australia.

By 1972 what was effectively the “White Australia Policy” officially ended. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Australia experienced the largest intake of Asian immigrants since the arrival of the Chinese gold miners during the gold rush of the 1850s and 1860s. In 1983, the level of British immigration was below the level of Asian immigration for the first time in Australian history.

Current Australian immigration policy is two fold:

a)      Skilled migration for both mining and healthcare. They use a points-based system, on which our own Tier 2 visa system is based, which rewards skills, language, salary and educational qualifications.

b)      Humanitarian policy to provide sanctuary for asylum seekers and refugees

Make up of the population

In 2008, the main countries of birth for Australia’s population were:

• • United Kingdom: 1.16 million
  • New Zealand: 495,000
  • China: 314,000
  • India: 239,000
  • Italy: 222,000
  • Vietnam: 193,000
  • Philippines:155,000
  • South Africa: 136,000
  • Greece: 130,000
  • Germany: 126,000
  • Malaysia: 120,000
  • Netherlands: 90,000
  • Lebanon: 90,000
  • Hong Kong: 87,000
  • Pakistan: 28,0001
  • Other nationals: 1.46 million

A total of 5.486 million out of 21.4 million were born outside of Australia, the balance, 15.95 million were born in Australia

1 (estimate based on2001 figures in  Lal & Mahoub paper and extrapolated to 2008)

2 Source: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/39433889d406eeb9ca2570610019e9a5/92C0101965E7DC14CA25773700169C63?opendocument

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_war_migrant_arrivals,_Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia

Main population centres in the country

Most of Australia’s population is concentrated in two widely separated coastal regions – the south-east and east, and the south-west. Of the two regions, the south-east and east is by far the largest in area and population. The population within these regions is concentrated in urban centres, particularly the state and territory capital cities.

The populations of the main cities in 2008 were:

In terms of religious affiliation, in 2006, the estimates were:

Christian: 12.7 million

Buddhism: 418,000

Hinduism: 148,000

Islam: 340,000

Judaism: 89,000

Citizenship:

Australian citizenship is voluntary for people born overseas but all eligible migrants are encouraged to apply. Legislative changes in 2002 have made it possible for Australian citizens to hold dual citizenship, when previously this would have meant forfeiting their Australian citizenship when taking up another country’s citizenship.

Culture

Australia is primarily a liberal western European culture – tolerant and egalitarian but with their own brand of informality and sense of humour – coupled with Asian influences on food, arts and business.