Australia – a home away from home Lankan diaspora have settled well into this land down under – By Aubrey Joachim
Despite the heated political debate surrounding Australia Day, most peoples of this land will today celebrate an event that laid the foundations for what we all enjoy in this sun-baked country. It was on this date in 1788 that Captain Arthur Phillip commanding 11 convict ships from Great Britain raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove.
While some may view the event with disdain due to unfortunate and perceived unpleasant happenings that followed, it must be appreciated that it was the beginning of modern Australia which many refer to as the ‘lucky country’. True, Captain Phillip may have been desperate to find a location to deposit his ‘undesirable’ cargo of miscreants, but that as they say is history.
Over the 236 years that have passed, peoples from every corner of planet earth have chosen to migrate to Australia to share in the wealth and prosperity that it has offered. Just like the ‘first-fleeters’ who were dumped on this land and had to re-build their lives, so too have the subsequent migrants demonstrated their pioneering spirit to establish themselves.
It is recorded that the first Ceylonese arrived in Australia sometime in the 1870’s to work in the sugarcane fields in Queensland. Their descendants are said to be in that part of Australia and have now merged with the local populace. It is also well known that Ceylonese pearl fisherman arrived to Western Australia in the late 1800’s. Their descendants live among us.
The first wave of migrant Ceylonese is said to have arrived in Australia in the 19th century and there were some 600 of them in 1901 as recorded in Community Information. In fact, it is a little known fact that a George Herbert Bailey was the first Sri –Lankan born cricketer to play for Australia and was a member of the first Australian team to tour England in 1878. Since then, small numbers of Ceylonese of European extraction have been arriving – most notably tea planters of British ancestry. It is well-known that burghers of Portuguese, Dutch and English ancestry began migrating from Ceylon to Australia from the 1930’s and 1940’s. The then White-Australia policy easily accommodated such Ceylonese migrants.
Formal diplomatic relations between Ceylon and Australia commenced soon after Independence in 1948. It was one of the first countries that the independent Ceylon established diplomatic relations along with Britain and the United States of America. Soon after that the Colombo Plan was established which saw many Ceylonese arrive in Australia to study for higher degrees in various fields. Many of these scholars remained in Australia.
Following the abolishing of the White Australia policy in the 1970’s many Sri Lankans began choosing Australia over UK as their choice of a new home and numbers increased. The 1970’s JVP insurrection and later the Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic disturbances of 1983 also saw large numbers of Sri Lankans opting to find a new home in Australia.
In the more recent past, Australia’s skilled migration intake has seen the arrival of highly skilled Sri Lankan professionals across the medical, engineering, law and accountancy professions. As of the homeaffairs.gov.au population statistics there were 105,000 people born in Sri Lanka in 2012, 145,000 in 2022 and the latest number is circa 160,000. Taking into consideration second generation numbers, those with Sri Lankan affiliation is significant. Australia has arguably the third highest cohort of Sri Lankan diaspora in the world. This excludes the Middle East with large numbers of temporary workers.
Australians of Sri Lankan origin are far from just population statistics. Recent census data by ethnic breakdown indicates that this group enjoy a very favourable standing in the Australian population. They are the highest income earners, the highest proportion of educationally qualified, the highest number of those employed, the youngest median age. Anecdotal evidence indicates that a high proportion of Sri Lankan are at the high end in the medical, legal, engineering and finance professions. They are also well represented in academia across the country. Of course it is a fact that the highest paid corporate CEO in Australia is of Sri Lankan origin!
By and large, Australian Sri Lankans are proud of their heritage while contributing immensely to their adopted homeland while also improving and advancing their lives. They are law abiding and have assimilated well into the Australian way of life. There would be Sri Lankan migrants who may well be attending their citizenship ceremonies today, others being conferred Australia Day honours or just enjoying a barbequed sausage.
However, no Australian-Sri Lankan commemoration be without a game of cricket and many such would be taking place on some grassy field somewhere. In fact, the traditional Royal-Thomian encounter between the old boys in Sydney takes place today and so does the Royal-Josephian tennis clash.
Happy Australia Day to all.
The author – former Global President of CIMA is an Australian citizen of Sri Lankan descent, lived and worked in four different countries but chose Australia to be his new home.
