As the big cities grew, their ethnic mix changed from Anglo-Celtic and European to Eurasian.
In 1996, the population had 13.2 million locally born Australians and 4.5 million overseas-born. English-speaking migrants from Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa numbered almost 1.5 million, or a third of the total. The European-born accounted for another one million, while the Asian-born were just under 860,000.
Twenty years on, the Asian-born are Australia’s largest immigrant community at 2.6 million. People from the four English-speaking countries number 2.1 million, while those from continental Europe are at 1.1 million. The new arrivals from China and India are increasingly likely to land in major cities in relatively high-income areas once held by the Liberal Party.
Migrants are now about 29 percent of Australia’s population. This is more than double the number of the overseas-born populations in the United States and Britain.
