The heroic/shameful role of labour: mythology in the making of White Australia

Abstract

For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, the Labor Party boasted that the labour movement had played a central role in creating the White Australia policy, and the popular media legitimised that claim. But when historians and activists decided that White Australia had been a racist policy, labour's triumph was simply converted into labour’s shame. This paper will contest the mythology of White Australia as a labour movement creation, focusing on the famous Seamen’s strike of 1878-79 against the replacement of European crews with Chinese sailors. It will look at both ruling class opinion in general and the conservative press in Queensland in particular.