The arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, began the English settlement of Australia. The English established the country as a penal colony, and transported over 160,000 convicts in the first 80 years of settlement. The first prison was at Botany Bay in Sydney, but the largest was built at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Most of the convicts were British or Irish. After release, convicts were given a plot of land to farm. Many of Australia's most successful and well-known early settlers arrived in convict chains. Attitudes towards Australia's convict past have changed dramatically in recent years. To have a convict heritage was once an embarrassment, whereas now it is source of pride for many. Some say that the Australian values of 'mateship' and egalitarianism (treating everyone as equals) were established by the convicts as they struggled to survive extremely harsh conditions. Although the English were the first European settlers in Australia, Dutch and Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to discover Australia, in the early 1600s. The Portuguese mapped much of the island and named it Terra Australis, or Great Southern Land according to official government statistics, immigration to Australia from the UK has more than doubled in recent years, climbing from 9000 at the beginning of the decade to just over 23,000 in 2012. There are many reasons for the rise in the number of British people seeking a new life in Australia, including an appealing climate, unique and diverse wildlife, and a growing economy with low unemployment. Much is known about British migration to Australia and something is known of British communities in Australia, |
The earliest documented Chinese settler was Mak Sai Ying, who arrived in 1818, and purchased land in Parramatta He married an English woman; Sarah Thompson, in 1823, changed his name to John Shying, and by 1829 held the licence for a Parramatta public house, the Lion. He returned to China in 1832, but was back in Sydney five years later. Some of his children became furniture makers, and descendants live in Melbourne today. This story of integrating while maintaining ties with China was repeated over and over in the nineteenth century.
The impact of Chinese migration and settlement is particularly marked in Sydney where by 2011 6.5% of the total population of 4,391,674 had Chinese ancestry, with Mandarin and Cantonese both being spoken by 3% of the population. This means that Chinese is the major foreign language spoken in Sydney ahead of Arabic (4.1%). In Sydney, many of these Chinese are recent migrants from China. Over the last decade those born in China have been among the top 3 settler arrival groups in Australia. In 2010-2011, at 11.5% they were the second largest source of arrivals behind those born in New Zealand. By 2011 people born in China constituted 3.4% of Sydney’s resident population. Closely linked to the large Chinese population in Australia is the growth in trade with China and the growth in overseas students and tourists, who constitute a significant proportion of Chinese seen in Sydney. This is evident from entry data for the sixth-month period ending 30 June 2011,when 1 in 10 of all visitors to Australia for tourism or business were from Mainland China, which placed them second only to those from the United Kingdom. The 75,440 students from Mainland China were also the most important source of the over 332,000 overseas students studying in Australia at that time. Although not so strongly represented among the long-term temporary business residents, those born in Mainland China were still over 13% of the 908,000 total temporary residents in Australia. Some Chinese migrants have come to get payed to do jobs all over Australia. |