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The Kooris, the first australian people have lived in Australia for more than 40.000 years. Since 1788, Australians of european background have lived there also. They either migrated or are descended from people who migrated. By 1868 no more convicts from British prisons were sent to Asutralia and all migrants were free settlers. For many, many years most migrants came from britain , and this continued until after World War 2. in 1947 australia had a population of 7.5 million in an area of 7.700.000 square kilometers. In this years the Autralian Government decided the population had to grow. Since then there has been a large rise in the number of immigrants and they come from many differnet countries. The decision to have more migrants and pay their fares to Australia was mad after the Japanese bombed Darwin during World War 2. it was clear that Asutralia needed a larger population for two reasons . One was to keep herself safe from other countries wanting to come and take her over to have more land. Therefore, more people were needed to fill her huge , empty areas. The other reason was , workers were needed to increase local production of goods and services. Thses workers also then had needs and made the local market bigger. At first the Australian government tried to bring mainly British people to the country , but in the early 50ies they went to holland, italy and west germany to find enough people. Refugees from Latavia, Estonia and Lithuania were accepted as immigrants for politicial reasons. Yugoslavs also came and white russians who had escaped to china after the Russian Revolution were allowed to come as well.
As conditions became economically better in Britain, less and less epople were intersested in migrating. The biggest change came when large numbers of italians and Greeks immigrated. These groups had fewer skilled workers and also did not usually have a knowledge of English. New arrivals settled in nareas where relatives or friends lived and there are areas of Australian cities and suburbs which have a higher number of Greeks or Italians. At one time Melbourne is siad to have been the city with the largest Greek population after Athens. Both these national groups had a strong influence on certain aspects of Australian life. Two aspects are food and schools. The different types of fruit and especially vegetables that could be bought in the shops increased very quickly witch, for example , zucchinis and garlic. Children attending school from the late 1950ies were normally in a class witch several differnet nationalities. During the period from the end of World War 2 to 1970, over three million migrants arrived in Australia. From 1976 on , about 25% of migrants to Asutralia have come from differnet parts of Asia. They have come for both political and economic reasons. Because of bad economic conditions in Australia such as unemployment, inflation and the loss of important markets because of the protectionist trade policy of the european community, migraion is much more limited today. People can only migrate legally for non-political reasons if there is a need for their skills. This change is important as it does not help anyone to come to a new country and then not find work. In general , however, many people who have had nowhere to go because of political changes have found a home in Australia from World War 2 up to today.
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