WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

The industry developed into the cultured pearl farming industry during the latter half
of the twentieth century with Australia producing between 50 per cent and 60 per cent
of the world's market. Ninety per cent of this was from Western Australia (Muller
1997). In the 1980s the Western Australian pearl industry was worth $15 million
annually, employing around 200 people (Department of Fisheries and Wildlife 1983).
By 2003–2004 the regional cultured pearl annual value was estimated at $122 million
(Department of Fisheries and Wildlife 2006).
Economic impact
The pearling industry, while contributing to regional and national development and
exhibiting a long period of continuous production and substantial wealth generation,
did not contribute to nation building as comprehensively as the gold rushes of the
nineteenth century. Similarly the wealth generated by the pearling industry has not
been as substantial as that generated by the mines of Broken Hill, which has
significantly influenced the course of Australia's economic history (City of Broken
Hill National Heritage List Place Report 2010).
Distinctive pattern of European pearling - Broome
Broome has been closely associated with European pearling since the industry was
established along Western Australia's pearling coast (Eighty Mile Beach to Cape
Londonderry). Broome was the industry's major produce port and still retains this
function today, along with Darwin. Its reputation as a pearling port has been the
subject of writing about the place, and the town has been referred to at various times
with titles such as 'pearling capital of the world', 'Queen City of the North' and
'Australia's first multicultural town', and more recently as 'the fabled town with its
chinese shops, its corrugated iron storefronts and palm trees' (Tim Winton 2001).
Broome is recognised by an industry expert as Australia's premier pearling centre
(Brett McCallum pers. comm. 6 June 2010).
The history of Broome associated with the pearling industry's use of indentured
labour is distinctive. People from many near Asian countries worked in Broome under
indentured labour arrangements with Australian pearlers often sourced through
Singapore. At a time when Australia's settler population was predominantly British or
Irish in origin, Broome's Asian population was unusual in its diversity. This
distinctiveness is considered further below in relation to the topics of migration and
the White Australia policy.
Migration history
'Since 1945, around 6.9 million people have come to Australia as new settlers. Their
contribution to Australian society, culture and prosperity has been an important factor
in shaping our nation' (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010). Today
nearly one in four of Australia's more than 21 million population were born overseas
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010).
Following the arrival of Indigenous people to Australia, there were waves of
migration: convict transportation (commencing in 1788), free settlers (starting in the
early 1790s), migration from the United Kingdom from the 1820s in response to the
demand for labour in the wool industry and immigration during the Gold Rush era of
1851 to the 1860s (Chinese immigrants were the largest non-British group), and the
post World War II immigration boom. Other migration trends happened in response to
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