Indonesian Australians (
Indonesian: Orang Indonesia di Australia) are Australian citizens and residents of
Indonesian origin. 48,836 Australian residents declared Indonesian ancestry on the
2011 Australian Census, while 63,160 stated they were born in Indonesia.
Despite the proximity of the two countries (they share a
maritime border),
Australia’s Indonesian diaspora community is relatively small. According to the
University of Melbourne, Australia is merely the 19th most popular destination for Indonesian migrants.[2]
Migration history
Pre-colonial era
As early as the 1750s, that is
prior to European colonisation, seamen from eastern Indonesian ports such as
Kupang and
Makassar regularly visited Australia's northern coast, spending about four months per year there collecting trepang or
sea cucumbers to trade with China.[3]
Colonial period migration
Beginning in the 1870s, Indonesian workers were recruited to work in colonial Australia, with almost 1,000 (primarily in
Western Australia and
Queensland) residing in Australia by
federation.[4] The
pearl hunting industry predominantly recruited workers from Kupang, and sugar plantations recruited migrant labourers from
Java to work in
Queensland.
Beginning in 1942, thousands of Indonesians fled the
Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and took refuge in Australia. Exact landing statistics were not kept due to the chaotic nature of their migration, but after the war, 3,768 repatriated to Indonesia on Australian government-provided ships.[6]
In the 1950s, roughly 10,000 people from the former Dutch colony of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), who held
Dutch citizenship and previously settled in the Netherlands, migrated to Australia, bypassing the
White Australia policy.[7][8] Large numbers of
Chinese Indonesians began migrating to Australia in the late 1990s, fleeing the political and economic turmoil in the aftermath of the
May 1998 riots and the subsequent
fall of Suharto.[9]
Between 1986 and 1996, the Indonesian-Australian community increased to 12,128. According to the
Immigration Museum (Melbourne), many migrants were either students on temporary visas. However, other migrants came under either family reunion or skilled migration programs.
21st century
In 2010,
Scotts Head, New South Wales opened the first and only
English-
Indonesian bilingual school in Australia.[10] As of 2016, the Indonesian-born population of
Victoria was estimated to be 17,806.[4] As of 2016, Australia is the single most popular destination for Indonesians seeking an undergraduate education abroad.[11]
Though
Islam is the majority
religion in Indonesia, Muslims are the minority among Indonesians in Australia.[13] In the
2006 Australian Census, only 8,656 out of 50,975 Indonesians in Australia, or 17%, identified as Muslim.
However, in the 2011 census, that figure rose to 12,241 or 19.4%.[14] Indonesian communities in Australia generally lack their own mosques, but instead typically attend mosques established by members of other ethnic groups.[13] In contrast, more than half of the Indonesian population in Australia follows Christianity, split evenly between the
Roman Catholic Church and various
Protestant denominations.[15]
In 2016, 24.0% from Indonesian Australians population (73,217 people in 2016) identified as
Catholic, 18.9% as
Muslim, 10.0% as
Buddhist, 9.2% as Atheist and 8.3% as Other Christian.[16]
In 2021, 23.4% from Indonesian Australian population (87,075 people in 2021) identified as
Catholic, 19.3% as
Muslim, 11.2% as
Atheist, 10.4% as Buddhist and 9.4% as Other Christian.
Notable people
Artists and entertainers
Jamie Aditya, singer, TV host and former
MTV Asia VJ (Australian father and Indonesian mother)
Andre Ong Carlesso, Indonesian-Australian actor known for Guilty, born in
Bandung, Indonesia[17]
Lee Lin Chin, Australian broadcast personality (born to
Chinese parents in Indonesia)
Auskar Surbakti, presenter and correspondent at
TRT World in Istanbul, previously with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Auskar won the 2011 Elizabeth O'Neill Journalism Award. Born to
Karo Batakparents, Auskar is an abbreviation of "Australia–Karo".
James Mahmud Rice, Australian sociologist (American father and Indonesian mother).
Other notable Indonesian Australians
Oodeen (later John O'Dean), 19th century Sydney Islamic community leader, interpreter at Northern Territory's Fort Wellington (1827–1829) and New South Wales court interpreter[20]
Annie O'Keefe (formerly Annie Maas Jacob), escaped from the Japanese on the Aru Islands to Australia in 1942. At the end of the Second World War, she successfully challenged the Australian Government in the High Court for her right to permanently reside in Australia bringing into question many aspects of the White Australia Policy.[21]
Penny, Janet; Gunawan, Tuti (2001), "Indonesians", in Jupp, James (ed.), The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People, and Their Origins, Cambridge University Press, pp. 439–441
Saeed, Abdullah (2003), "Who are Australia's Muslims?", Islam in Australia, Allen and Unwin,
ISBN1-86508-864-1
Willems, Wim (2001), De uittocht uit Indie 1945-1995: De geschiedenis van Indische Nederlanders, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker,
ISBN978-90-351-2361-8
Further reading
Clark, Marshall & Sally K. May (2013), Macassan History and Heritage: Journeys, Encounters and Influences. Canberra. Australian National University Press.
Da Costa, Hilary (September 1992), "Indonesians in Australia - Profile of a little-known community", Inside Indonesia, 32,
ISSN0814-1185
Lingard, Jan (2008). Refugees and Rebels: Indonesian Exiles in Wartime Australia. North Melbourne. Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Martinez, Julia & Adrian Vickers (2015). The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia's Northern Trading Network. University of Hawai'i Press.
Nonini, Donald M. (2004), "Spheres of speculation and middling transnational migrants: Chinese Indonesians in the Asia-Pacific", in Yeoh, Brenda S. A.; Willis, Katie (eds.), State/Nation/Transnation: Perspectives on Transnationalism in the Asia-Pacific, Routledge,
ISBN0-415-30279-X
Penny, J. (1993), Indonesians in Australia, 1947 to 1986, Working Papers, vol. 84, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University,
ISBN0-7326-0513-X
Siregar, Bahren Umar (1987), Language choice, language mixing and language attitudes: Indonesians in Australia, PhD dissertation, Monash University,
OCLC34466563
^According to the local classification, South Caucasian peoples (Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians) belong not to the
European but to the "Central Asian" group, despite the fact that the territory of Transcaucasia has nothing to do with Central Asia and geographically belongs mostly to Western Asia.