History of immigration from Thailand
In 1911, the master of the Thai royal stables visited Australia and bought 126 horses. This started a trend of royal envoys from Thailand visiting Australia on horse-buying and other economic missions.[3]
Melbourne's Museum Victoria (2013) reveals that the first notable Thai to arrive in Australia was Butra Mahintra, sent by King Rama VI during the early 1920s to purchase racehorses. Connections with Thai royalty developed further with the arrival of Prince Purachatra in 1927, leading a group to observe Australian agriculture and infrastructure[4]
The number of Thais officially counted in New South Wales stayed under 50 until the 1950s. In January 1950, the Australian government launched the Colombo Plan, an aid program for sponsoring Asian students to study or train in Australian tertiary institutions. The main objectives of the plan were to dispel the negative impression of Asian countries toward the White Australia Policy[3] and to counter communism in Asia. Students from developing countries were brought to Australia to study. The idea was that when they had finished their studies students would return to use the skills and knowledge they had acquired to help their own people. Approximately 450 Thai students travelled to Australia on the Colombo Plan between 1954 and 1989.[5] Most did not settle in Australia permanently, but they increased awareness of Australia when they returned to Thailand. Between the 1950s and 1970s the majority of new arrivals from Thailand in Australia continued to be students, as well as spouses of Australians and those sponsored under military traineeships.
The number of migrants in Australia grew significantly when the Immigration Restriction Act was repealed in 1973. In 1975, Australia accepted many Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian refugees for settlement. Included in this group of Indochinese refugees were non-Thais born inside Thailand. By 1986, the Thailand-born population in Australia had risen to 6,998 people, but only half of these were of Thai ancestry.[6] This means that the Thai-born population of Thai ancestry in Australia at that time was less than one-twelfth of today's figure.
The latest Census in 2011 recorded 45,465 Thailand-born people in Australia, an increase of 48.8 per cent from the 2006 Census. The 2011 distribution by state and territory showed New South Wales had the largest number with 17,541, followed by Victoria (10,766), Queensland (7,022) and Western Australia (5,662). Among the total Thailand-born in Australia at the 2011 Census, 23.1 per cent arrived between 2001 and 2006 and 32.8 per cent arrived between 2006 and 2011.
