124 years ago on this day, by Royal Proclamation the Commonwealth of Australia was established.

Later that year, the first piece of legislation passed in the new Federal Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, or ‘the White Australia Policy’.

The legislation was specifically designed to limit non-British migration to Australia.

Attorney-General Alfred Deakin, on the 12th September 1901 stated in Parliament:

‘To put in plain and unequivocal terms… the act means the prohibition of all alien coloured immigration, and more, it means at the earliest time, by reasonable and just means, the deportation or reduction of the number of aliens now in our midst. These two things are the necessary complement of a single policy – the policy of securing a White Australia.’

You don't hate them enough