The Poles were the largest post-Second World War group of migrants. They were
relatively well educated, but because they came from behind the “Iron
Curtain” and their diplomas were not in English, so their qualifications were
disregarded and they had to work as a manual workers and domestic servants.
As they had no support of their own (Polish) “communist” government, who
regarded them as “traitors”, so they had no advocates in Australia, unlike
the migrants from other poor European countries such as Greece and even
former Yugoslavia. Polish “ethnic” organisations in Australia were involved
in a bitter fight against the Polish government in Warsaw, and thus were not
really interested, as other “ethic” organisations in Australia, in welfare of
the Australian Poles. Because of Cold War, they used to hide the widespread
incidents of (relative) poverty among the Australian Poles, as this poverty
did not confirm to the official myth of the affluent Poles in Australia.
Thus the Polish community in Australia, although generally better educated
than average Australians, was marginalised, and this marginalisation
continues. The second large wave of Polish immigration in the 1980s (after
the period of the First “Solidarity” and Martial Law in Poland) was also
marginalised by the Australia, as although their qualifications were formally
recognised (the only important exceptions were the lawyers and the medical
practitioners), the long-term recession, that commenced in the mid-1970s,
caused that their qualifications could not be utilised by the depressed
Australian labour marker. Even the most optimistic estimates show that at
least 60% of Polish migrants in Australia do not utilise their full
potential. Unfortunately, the Polish “ethnic” organisations in Australia are
not interested in solving this problem, as they are victims of their
own “propaganda of success” and do not wish to antagonise the ruling
Australian elite by admitting in public that the Australians of Polish origin
are the victims of unlawful ethnicity-based discrimination.
The other problem with Polish migrants in Australia is that the official body
that was structured in order to prevent ethnicity-based discrimination,
namely the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, was hijacked by a
group of de facto racists, who do everything to prove that there is no
ethnicity-based discrimination in Australia. They are assisted in this dirty
task by the Australian law that put onus of proof on the complainant, i.e.
the person who was unlawfully discriminated must prove (in practice “beyond
reasonable doubt”
that he or she was actually discriminated. Thus in
practice it is impossible to prove any case of such discrimination in
Australia. As Australia is well known as a state that de facto heavily
discriminates its original inhabitants (Australian Aborigines), this should
not be a surprise.
