Prepared by: Kais Al‐Momani Nour Dados Marion Maddox Amanda Wise C
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MUSLIMS IN AUSTRALIAMuslims have been present in Australia since before European settlement, and Australia’s first mosque was built in Broken Hill in 1889 to serve the Afghani cameleers who worked the outback at that time. The Australian Muslim population rose significantly following WWII, with the arrival of Turkish Cypriots in the 1950s and Turkish immigrants between 1968 and 1972 (under an agreement with the Turkish government to supply workers to Australia). The dismantling of the White Australia Policy in the late 1960s saw a number of new Muslim communities settle here from various parts of the world. Lebanese Muslims, now the largest Muslim community in Australia, began arriving from 1970, and in large numbers fleeing the civil war from 1975 to the mid 1980s. By 2006, 340,389 Muslims constituted 1.7% of the total Australian population (ABS Census, 2006). Though Muslims live across the Australian continent, 2006 ABS data indicates they are mainly concentrated in New South Wales (168 786) and Victoria (109 370). In all states and Territories, Muslims mainly live in the capital cities (see Wise & Ali 2007) and are concentrated in relatively few local government areas (See Table 2). In terms of country of birth, Australian Muslims are extremely diverse. Table 1 outlines the top 8 countries of birth; however, it should be noted that the ‘Other’ category (more than a quarter of the total) incorporates a large and disparate range of home countries from all parts of the globe. Importantly, more than a third of the total is Australian born.
Table 1: Australian Muslims – country of birth. Source: Census 2006.
Table 2: Top Twenty councils in terms of number of Muslim residents Source: ABS 2006 Census Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents -> 01 2014 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union 01 2014 -> Voices Shaping the 01 2014 -> Muslim Voices – Hopes and aspirations of Muslim Australians Centre for Muslim Minorities & Islam Policy Studies 01 2014 -> Editors: Kerry Download 16.24 Mb. Share with your friends:
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