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The White Australia Policy, officially known as the original Immigration (Restriction) Act, started from 1901. This was used as a basis when dealing with immigration issues. Simply as stated by the title, this policy was used to keep Australia a white country as people who were not white cannot immigrate to Australia. The immigration official could give the immigrants a dictation test which might be in any European language, in order to keep all the 'undesirable' immigrants(mainly Chinese) outside Australia.

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China became communist in 1949 under Mao Zedong after wining the civil war. This rose fear in Australia, as a large, Asian country became communist. As the result, the Australian government, which was currently under Robert Menzies, followed the lead of the US: refused the recognition of the existence of China. This ended when Richard Nixon in the US decided to recognise the existence of China.

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During 1945-1973, the original Immigration Act was slowly broken up. Eventually, in 1958, the dictation test was abolished. The main focus of the questions changed from race to qualifications. This means that highly educated Asian migrants could live in Australia.

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The Colombo Plan was started in 1955 in Australia after joining the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO). This plan aimed to encourage education by giving places of Australian universities to secure Asian students who were not communist, such as Indian and Pakistanis. However, these students were mean to leave Australia when their courses were completed.

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The 1966 review of non-European immigration policy by Hubert Opperman, the minister, was known as an important step taken by the Australian government. Instead of race, suitability as settlers, ability to integrate into Australian life, and possession of qualification became the main criteria of migration. As the result, arrivals of non-European settlers quickly rose from 746 to 2696 during the period 1966-1971.

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The first Vietnamese boat people arrived at Darwin Harbour in 1975, after the fall of the South Vietnamese Government in Saigon. In the following six years, 55 more boats arrived in Australia. This had significant impact on Australian immigration policy as Australia opened the gate to regugees. Australia accepted and resettled refugees, who finally made Australia a multicultural country.

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In 1973, the final remains of the White Australia Policy was removed by the Whitlam Government who told the overseas embassies to ignore the race of the migrants. Therefore, migrants from of origin could be a citizen of Australia as long as they had stayed in Australia for three years (three years' permanent residence).

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John Howard's government reacted differently from the Fraser Government when dealing with the refugees from Afghanistan, Taliban and Iraq. Australia rejected the refugees caused by the 'coalition of the willing' against al-Qaeda in 2001 and the American invasion on Iraq in 2003.