Fantastic dreams : William Liu and the origins and influence of protest against the White Australia Policy in the 20th century

Abstract

The structure of this study of William Liu will closely reflect his ideas and the major historical influences in his life, and will span the period from 1893 through ninety years spent mainly in Sydney, ending in 1983, the year before the beginning of the attack on multiculturalism launched by the historian Geoffrey Blainey. The memorialisation of Liu in the post-Blainey “immigration debate” period will then be considered. The study will also reflect the changes in protest against racially discriminatory immigration policies in Australia, as Liu moved from a period in which his was an almost isolated critique to one in which he was able to embrace the ever-widening group of people opposed to the ‘White Australia Policy’. This process has not been fully examined, perhaps due to the fact that the protest often appeared to have little impact upon policy. But the way in which Liu and other protestors expressed their view of what Australia should be and how the ‘White Australia Policy’ affected this vision sheds a great deal of light on these periods in Australian history. The structure of this thesis around Liu’s life, beginning with a period in which the ‘White Australia Policy’ was widely accepted, and ending in a period in which multiculturalism was entrenched as official policy, emphasises the cultural shift which was brought about by decades of protest against the Anglo-conformist model of Australian identity