London, 6 December 1966
Ref a) I agree as it only creates confusion in regard to our immigration control
Ref b) In the British Nationality Act citizens of other Commonwealth countries are specifically stated to be ‘British subjects’. Australians are British subjects but not UK Nationals—no wonder they get confused.
The 1971 UK Commonwealth Immigrants Act and EEC membership
In the final analysis, neither the complaints of the Australian High Commission nor the second thoughts of the Commonwealth Office and the British High Commission in Canberra (Documents 317, 318, 320) were enough to bring about any change to the regulations. The political price of resorting openly to racial discrimination in the regulations for Commonwealth immigration could not be contemplated. As the Foreign Office explained to the British High Commissioner in Canberra in 1967, Australians were ‘martyrs to the concept of non-discrimination between Commonwealth countries’. While this situation was generally regarded in Whitehall as a regrettable one, the conclusion was inescapable: ‘Australians must accept the fact that the Act applies to them.1
The Commonwealth Immigrants Act was amended in 1968, widening its scope to restrict the entry of UK passport holders who had no immediate ancestry in the United Kingdom, or who had not been naturalised in Britain. This was explicitly designed to stem the flow of ‘Kenyan Asians’ who had not acquired citizenship in post-independence Kenya and now found themselves unwanted in the light of an ‘Africanisation’ campaign in their home country. The 1968 Act had no direct implications for Australia and therefore did not play any role in the changing contours of Anglo-Australian relations in this sphere.
A further amendment to the Act in 1971, however, was to have more significant repercussions. The Conservative Government of Edward Heath introduced the concept of ‘patriality’, whereby Commonwealth citizens with a parent born in the United Kingdom would be free from restrictions. Initially the government had sought to introduce a grand-patriality test (for those with a grandparent born in the UK), but this was later amended to parents only, due to the inevitable difficulties in many instances of documenting the birth of grandparents. As the Foreign and Commonwealth Office later noted, ‘this seriously frustrated the attempt to avoid imposing unnecessary restrictions on “old” Commonwealth citizens’ (Document 334).
But it was not this provision that raised difficulties, so much as the fact that the new Act was scheduled to come into force in January 1973—at the same time as British entry into the European Economic Community. While the new Act in no way curtailed the existing possibilities for Australians to reside and work in the United Kingdom (and indeed enhanced them in the case of ‘patrials’), it nonetheless placed Australians’ in a less favourable position than EEC citizens. This was because of the EEC ‘free movement of peoples’ rules which granted citizens of EEC member states the right to seek work in Britain for a period of up to six months. It was this apparent downgrading of the ‘old’ Commonwealth that sparked a revolt of the Conservative Party backbench, spurred by a major media campaign in the Daily Express (Document 339). The outcome was a rare and embarrassing defeat for the government in the House of Commons in November 1972 in the vote on the new immigration regulations.
Throughout this crisis, the Australian High Commissioner and the Australian Agents-General played a significant role behind the scenes in encouraging the Conservative rebels. Once again, there is evidence that Australia’s representatives in London were acting out of private conviction rather than guidance from Canberra. Indeed this charge was levelled directly at Downer by the senior Foreign Affairs representative in Australia House, Bill Prichett (Document 354). Although the issue also achieved prominence in Australia, this was undoubtedly a reaction to the furore in London rather than any deep-rooted Australian grievance about the new regulations. The Australian documentary record on the issue is scant until the revolt of Heath’s backbench—suggesting that it was not a ‘live’ issue in Australia until that time. (See, for example, Document 348.)
The British Government was therefore disappointed to find, in the aftermath of the Commons defeat, that the Australian Government was unwilling to engage in direct consultations on the kinds of amendments to the legislation that might prove more acceptable to Australian opinion. The Australian Government again insisted on the principle of non-intervention in the domestic immigration policies of other countries. This reluctance was reinforced by the impending federal election in Australia; neither party sought to become embroiled in what was seen as a domestic British political controversy. When the Labor Party secured victory under Gough Whit/am in December 1972, this reluctance to become involved turned into outright opposition, with Whitlam informing the British Government that ’people abroad must not get the impression that Australia had any responsibility for Britain’s colonial aftermath’ (Document 366). There could be no clearer indication of the sea change in attitudes informing the right of Australians to be regarded as ‘Britons abroad’ for migration purposes.
The following documents trace reactions to the 1971 Commonwealth Immigrants Act from 1971 through to 1973. They show that the main pressure point was no longer the rights of entry for Australians per se, but rather the more superficial (yet symbolic) question of the appropriate queue for Australians at ports of entry. This issue remained unresolved in the early 1970s, and was taken up at prime ministerial level in 1971. Once again, and despite good intentions, Whitehall was unable to meet Australian concerns. The remainder of the documents relate to Australia’s role in the November 1972 Commons vote on the immigration rules, and the British attempt to secure Australian endorsement of a revised set of entry laws.
1 UKNA: FCO 24/189, Robb to Johnston, 22 December 1967.
[UKNA: DO 1751164]