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Australian aid (Levy, 71). On the other hand, Australians showed no inclination of changing
the central element of their relationship with Asia—the White Australia policy. To many
Australians the colonial order ought best be re-established, but that did not necessarily mean
under the old colonial powers. This was especially true in the Dutch East Indies, later to
become Indonesia. Continued white control seemed most appropriate there, and ‘the
Australians fitted quite naturally into the set of white powers with influence over the dark-
skinned native peoples of the region’ (Vickers, 65). Australia knew such aggressive, neo-
colonialist attitudes would gain no friends in the region, but three old facts seemed
inescapable: First, Asia was to be guarded against, not freely associated with; second, all
Asians were the same; and third, friendly relations among nations were based on kinship or
similar foundations, and hence virtually impossible with Asians (Levy, 70).
2.9. The Australian Way of Life
These realisations resulted in a new approach to immigration in the large-scale post-war
policies by which floods of non-British but still European immigrants arrived in the 1950s.
While the White Australia policy kept out non-white immigrants as undesirable, the non-
British immigrants were seen as a problem which could be dealt with internally. A policy of
assimilation, under the banner ‘The Australian Way of Life’, was pursued with the goal of
incorporating the new immigrants, and Aborigines as well, into a common, homogenous way
of life. European immigration was perceived as a solution to the ‘populate or perish’ problem
associated with the Asian masses, but the influx of so many alien cultures offered its own
threat. ‘The Australian Way of Life’ campaign of assimilation was, in White’s view at least,
really a thinly veiled attempt at suppression of any forms of non-conformity.
It not only denied the possibility that the cultural traditions of migrants might
enrich Australian life, but also denied the existence of different ‘ways of life’
among Australians themselves. Cultural differences were an affront to a
society which demanded social uniformity, if not equality. (White, 160)
As the economy, freed from the sole task of being a raw materials supplier for Britain,
shifted from primary to secondary industry, the national myth grounded in rural life and the
outback was becoming increasingly unrepresentative of the population (Pearce, 30). The
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