Migration to Australia
Greek migration to Australia started in the early colonial period. In 1829 seven Greek sailors convicted of piracy by a British naval court were sentenced to transportation to New South Wales. The first wave of free migrants commenced in the 1850s. These Greeks were drawn by the discovery of gold. In 1901 the Australian census recorded 878 people born in Greece. Many were owners of or were employed in shops and restaurants. Some were cane-cutters in Queensland.
The Greeks of Asia Minor
Immigration increased between the WWI and WWII, caused in part by immigration quotas imposed by the United States in the early 1920s and the expulsion of Greeks from Asia Minor in 1922. Your client may be one of the hundreds of thousands of Greeks who fled Turkey for Greece in this period. Most identify themselves to this day as the ‘Greeks of Asia Minor’ or Pontian Greeks. In terms of ethnicity, they identify as Greek because they clearly share key characteristics of ethnic identity with mainland Greeks: religion (Orthodox Christianity), language (Greek) and claims to the same Greek historical heritage.
WWll
Many Greek migrants now living in Australia were born in the years leading up to and during President Metaxas’ rule (1936-1941). The rural economy had been strengthened, primary school’s taught demotic (folk) Greek for the first time as the official language, and the Greek army was the only army to have defeated the Axis powers. Read more about these times in Recent Greek history.
WWII was devastating for the generation of Greeks growing up in the 1940s. Catastrophic economic disruption and bitter political hostilities caused by the Civil War after WWII plunged Greece into poverty and caused deep divisions. Hundreds of thousands of people felt compelled to leave their homeland.
The Battle for Crete
A turning point in the relationship between Greece and Australia occurred when Australian soldiers fought alongside Greeks attempting to repel the Germans, particularly in the battle for Crete. Australians remember the courage of the Greeks, who risked reprisals as they sheltered and helped hundreds of Australian soldiers leave the island.
Post-war Greece
Some of Australia’s Greek immigrants, especially those who were communist insurgents, left Greece immediately after the war for fear of persecution. By 1947 12,500 people born in Greece had emigrated to Australia.
Greeks who continued to live in rural areas desperately tried to rebuild their destroyed homes and communities, taking jobs wherever they could. They lived off the land by growing small crops and keeping livestock in very poor conditions. Some people had no choice but to depend on food supplies from international relief agencies.
Australia’s Migration policies
The Australian government’s post-war migration policies aimed to increase the size of Australia’s population, and especially to provide unskilled workers for its burgeoning manufacturing industries. In 1952 the Australian-Greece Assisted Passages agreement providing a financial incentive for Greeks to leave their unstable, impoverished homeland, and make their way to Australia.
Many from rural areas migrated to Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Because of the turmoil of WWII and the chaos of civil war, very few in this generation of migrants had post-secondary qualifications. Consequently, in many cases, immigrants were illiterate or poorly educated.
By 1961 the number of migrants born in Greece and now residing in Australia reached 77,333. Between 1961 and 1966, 140,000 Greeks emigrated to Australia. Aged in their 20s in the main, they were soon employed in inner Melbourne factories either through family contacts or friends, or through job allocation processes at the Bonegilla migrant centre.
Greek Migrants in Melbourne
Greek migrants worked on assembly lines at Ford and GMH, in breweries and tanneries, in food processing factories like Rosella, Four’n’Twenty and Arnotts, and on sewing machines in clothing, textile and footwear factories like Kayser and Pelaco. Many took second jobs cleaning office buildings in the CBD. A smaller number people went to live in rural and regional Victoria where they worked on farms or in smaller industries and businesses. By 1971 there were 160,200 Greece-born immigrants in Australia. Forty-seven per cent lived in Melbourne.
Ninety-seven per cent of Greeks have chosen to become Australian citizens, the highest proportion of any migrant group. While being fully committed to Australian society and its legal structures, democratic values and institutions, Greeks have also sought to preserve their own cultural heritage. They have established churches, schools, local clubs, scout groups, newspapers, cultural and voluntary associations and regional brotherhoods, community care and residential care services.
As a result of hard work most Greek migrants purchased their own home. Parents emphasized their children’s education so they might taken on more skilled occupations. Australia’s multicultural policies also enhanced the lot of the second generation. There are significant contrasts between the first and second generation Greeks. For example, language, level of intergration-assimilation and the ability to negitiate social institutions and social systems. See also Demography.
Although Greece now enjoys economic prosperity, relatively few have returned. Retired Greek-Australians usually prefer to visit family and friends in Greece, and may do frequently. Typically they are keen to remain informed about events and developments in Greece and are enthusiastic patrons of Melbourne Greek media: Neos Kosmos, Ta Nea (two Greek newspapers) Greek radio and cable television. See Greek Media Outlets. Greece’s government also maintains an active interest in Greek communities abroad. The Ministry for Greeks Abroad exists to foster relationships between Greece and Greek communities across the world.
Cyprus
In 1974 Turkey invaded Cyprus, leaving 4,000 people dead, 1,619 people missing and 200,000 displaced. In 2005 there were still over 1,500 Cypriot men, women and children unaccounted for. These tragic events prompted a large number of Greek Cypriots, especially displaced persons, to emigrate. The arrival of Greek Cypriots in Australia represented the last large-scale migration of Greeks to Australia.
