Total population | |
---|---|
180,470 (2023) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide | |
Languages | |
Australian English, Malaysian English, Chinese (Cantonese, Min Chinese, Malaysian Mandarin), Tamil, Malay, other Languages of Malaysia, Orang Asal languages | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Unaffiliated and Christianity, with minorities of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Various ethnic groups of Malaysia, Singaporean Australians, Cocos Malays, Chinese Australians, and Indian Australians |
Malaysian Australians (Malay : orang Malaysia Australia) refers to Malaysians who have migrated to Australia or Australian-born citizens who are of Malaysian descent. This may include Malaysian Chinese, Malays, Malaysian Indians, Orang Asal, mixed Malaysians and other groups.
Malay labourers were brought over to Australia to work mainly in the copra, sugarcane, pearl diving and trepang industries. In the case of Cocos Islands, the Malays were first brought as slaves under Alexander Hare in 1826, but were then employed as coconut harvesters for copra. Possibly the first Malay immigrant to Australia was a 22-year-old convict named Ajoup who arrived in Sydney on 11 January 1837. Ajoup, described as 'of the Malay faith', had been sentenced in Cape Town, South Africa, to 14 years transportation to New South Wales. He received his ticket of leave—that is, his freedom—in the colony in 1843.
The 1871 colonial census records that 149 Malays were working in Australia as pearl divers in northern and western Australia, labourers in South Australia's mines, and on Queensland's sugar plantations. At Federation in 1901, there were 932 Malay pearl divers in Australia, increasing to 1860 by 1921. [1] : 111 In Western Australia and the Northern Territory, Malay pearl divers were recruited through an agreement with the Dutch. By 1875, there were 1800 Malay pearl divers working in Western Australia alone. Most of them returned home when their contracts expired. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 severely curtailed this community's growth.
At the 2006 Census 92,335 Australian residents stated that they were born in Malaysia. [2] 64,855 Malaysian born Australian residents declared having Chinese ancestry (either alone or with another ancestry), 12,057 declared a Malay ancestry and 5,848 declared an Indian ancestry. The proportion of Malaysian-born individuals in Australia who claim Chinese ancestry is 70.2%, which is markedly different from the proportion of Malaysians in Malaysia who claim Chinese ancestry (22.9%). The proportion of Malaysians in Australia that claim Indian ancestry (6.3%) is similar to the proportion in Malaysia (7.1%). From these statistics, it is clear that migration from Malaysia to Australia has not reflected a cross-section of Malaysia, but rather, is heavily skewed away from the Malay natives and towards the ethnic Chinese community and to a lesser extent the ethnic Indian community.
Though Islam is the major religion in Malaysia, Islam is the minority religion among Malaysians in Australia. In 2016, 11,633 people from 165,616 Malaysian Australians, or 7% of the Malaysian Australian population, identified as Muslim, up from 7,610 Muslims or 5.2% in 2016. [3]
According to the data from Australian Bureau Statistics in 2016, 24.1% from Malaysian Australians population identifying as Buddhists, 20.9% as No religion, 12.7% as Catholic, 5.6% as Other Christian and 5.2% as Muslim.
According to Australian Bureau Statistics in 2021, 24.1% from Malaysian Australian population identifying as No religion, 23.8% as Buddhists, 11.8% as Catholic, 7.0% as Muslim and 5.9% as Other Christians. [4]
Slightly more than half (46,445) had Australian citizenship, [6] and 47,521 had arrived in Australia in 1989 or earlier. [6] 32,325 spoke English at home, 24,347 spoke Cantonese, 18,676 spoke Mandarin and 5,329 spoke Malay. [6] Malaysian Australians were resident in Melbourne (29,174), Sydney (21,211) and Perth (18,993). [7]
Name | Born – Died | Notable for | Connection with Australia | Connection with Malaysia |
---|---|---|---|---|
Che'Nelle [8] | 1983– | singer | lives in Australia | born Kota Kinabalu [9] |
Eddie Woo | 1985– | mathematics teacher | born in Camperdown, New South Wales | Parents migrated from Malaysia |
Dr Yvonne Ho AM | public speaker, businesswoman, educator, medical specialist, philanthropist | first Malaysian-born woman to receive Order of Australia award [10] | born in Malaysia | |
Chandran Kukathas | 1957– | political theorist, professor and head of Department of Government, London School of Economics | studied and taught in Australia from 1970s to 2000s | born in Malaysia |
Diana Chan | 1988– | MasterChef Australia winner | Living in Australia | born in Malaysia |
Remy Hii | 1986/87– | actor | lives in Australia | of Malaysian descent [11] |
Nick Kyrgios | 1995– | Professional tennis player | born in Canberra | mother is Malaysian [12] |
Kamahl [13] | 1934– | singer | lives in Australia; immigrated 1953 | born Kuala Lumpur [14] |
Brendan Gan [15] | 1988– | football (soccer) player | lives in Australia | of Malaysian descent |
Matthew Davies | 1995– | football (soccer) player | born in Perth, lives in Australia | of Malaysian descent |
Adam Liaw [16] | 1978– | lawyer, author and television chef | lives in Australia; immigrated 1980 | born in Penang [17] |
Cheong Liew [18] | chef | lives in Australia; immigrated 1969 | born Kuala Lumpur [18] | |
Chong Lim [19] | musician, music director | lives in Australia | born Ipoh [20] | |
Omar Musa [21] | 1984– | author, poet and rapper | born in Queanbeyan | of Malaysian descent [22] |
Guy Sebastian [23] | 1981– | singer | lives in Australia; immigrated as child | born Klang [24] |
Pria Viswalingam [25] | 1962– | documentary and film maker | works in Australia | born Malaysia |
James Wan [26] | 1977– | film director, screenwriter and producer | brought up in Australia and studied there | born Kuching [27] |
Penny Wong [28] | 1968– | politician, leader of the Australian Labor Party in the Senate, former Finance Minister | lives in Australia; Australian mother; immigrated 1977 [29] | born Kota Kinabalu, [30] Chinese Malaysian father |
Poh Ling Yeow [31] | 1973– | artist and television chef | moved to Adelaide in 1982 | born and raised in Kuala Lumpur [32] |
Geraldine Viswanathan | 1995– | Actress | Born in Australia | Father is Malaysian |
Vivien Tan | ?– | former model, 1-time actress in British-Australian TV series The Other Side of Paradise, former Channel [V] VJ, and present TV host, chef and entrepreneur | Australian mother, lived in Australia to study | Malaysian father |
Lina Teoh | 1976– | model, actress, TV host, former Channel [V] VJ, and former beauty queen (Miss World 1998) | born and grew up in Melbourne | Chinese Malaysian father |
Ian Goodenough | 1975– | politician, member of Liberal Party of Australia | migrated to Australia as a child in 1984, naturalized Australian citizen in 1987 | partial Chinese Malaysian descent |
Sam Lim | 1961– | politician, member of the Australian Labor Party | migrated to Australia in 2005 | born in Muar |
Ronny Chieng | 1985– | comedian and actor | performed in Australia and studied there | born in Johor Bahru |
Anglo-Celtic Australians is an ancestral grouping of Australians whose ancestors originate wholly or partially in the British Isles - predominantly in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
Hinduism is the third largest religion in Australia consisting of more than 684,002 followers, making up 2.7% of the population as of the 2021 census. Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Australia mostly through immigration. Hinduism is also one of the most youthful religions in Australia, with 34% and 66% of Hindus being under the age of 14 and 34 respectively.
Kandiah Kamalesvaran, better known by his stage name Kamahl, is a Malaysian-born Australian singer and recording artist. His highest-charting Australian single, "Sounds of Goodbye" (1969), reached the top 20 on the Kent Music Report singles chart. Another single, "The Elephant Song" (1975), peaked at number one in both the Netherlands and Belgium.
Islam is the second-largest religion in Australia. According to the 2021 Census in Australia, the combined number of people who self-identified as Australian Muslims, from all forms of Islam, constituted 813,392 people, or 3.2% of the total Australian population. That total Muslim population makes Islam, in all its denominations and sects, the second largest religious grouping in Australia, after all denominations of Christianity.
Chinese Australians are Australians of Chinese origin. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Chinese diaspora, and are the largest Asian Australian community. Per capita, Australia has more people of Chinese ancestry than any country outside Asia. As a whole, Australian residents identifying themselves as having Chinese ancestry made up 5.5% of Australia's population at the 2021 census.
Asian Australians are Australians of Asian ancestry, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from various regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the proportion of the population identifying as Asian amounted to approximately 17.4 percent with breakdowns of 6.5 percent from Southern and Central Asia, 6.4 percent from North-East Asia, and 4.5 percent from South-East Asia.
Sri Lankan Australians are people of Sri Lankan heritage living in Australia; this includes Sri Lankans by birth and by ancestry. Sri Lankan Australians constitute one of the largest groups of Overseas Sri Lankan communities and are the largest diasporic Sri Lankan community in Oceania. Sri Lankan Australians consist of people with Sinhalese, Tamil, Moor, Burgher, Malay and Chinese origins among others.
Lebanese Australians refers to citizens or permanent residents of Australia of Lebanese ancestry. The population is diverse, having a large Christian religious base, being mostly Maronite Catholics, while also having a large Muslim group of Sunni and Shia branches.
Religion in Australia is diverse. In the 2021 national census, 43.9% of Australians identified with Christianity and 38.9% declared "no religion".
Sydney is Australia's most populous city, and is also the most populous city in Oceania. In the 2021 census, 5,231,147 persons declared themselves as residents of the Sydney Statistical Division–about one-fifth (20.58%) of Australia's total population. With a population density of 2037 people per square kilometre, the urban core has population density five times that of the greater region.
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for a racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on citizenship as a legal status, though the Constitutional framers considered the Commonwealth to be "a home for Australians and the British race alone", as well as a "Christian Commonwealth". Since the postwar period, Australia has pursued an official policy of multiculturalism and has the world's eighth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 30 percent of the population in 2019.
Egyptian Australians are Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents of Egyptian descent. According to the Australian 2011 Census, 36,532 Australian citizens and permanent residents declared that they were born in Egypt, while based on the 2006 Census, at least an additional 31,786 declared that they were of full or partial Egyptian ancestry and born in a country other than Egypt. The 2021 Census shows that the majority of Egypt-born Australians are located in Sydney (19,680) and Melbourne (13,312).
English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry. It is the largest self-identified ancestry in Australia. People of ethnic English origin have been the largest group to migrate to Australia since the establishment of the Colony of New South Wales in 1788.
Melbourne is Australia's second-most populous city and has a diverse and multicultural population.
European Australians are citizens or residents of Australia whose ancestry originates from the peoples of Europe. They form the largest panethnic group in the country. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within European ancestral groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to more than 57.2%. It is impossible to quantify the precise proportion of the population with European ancestry. For instance, many census recipients nominated two European ancestries, tending towards an overcount. Conversely, 29.9% of census recipients nominated "Australian" ancestry, tending towards an undercount.
Singaporean Australians are Australians of Singaporean descent. As Singapore is a multi-racial country, a Singaporean Australian could either be of Chinese, Malay or Indian descent, the main races of Singapore. According to the 2006 Australian census, 39,969 Australians were born in Singapore while 4,626 claimed Singaporean ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry.
Tamil Australians refers to Australians with a Tamil background. It includes people who speak Tamil, those whose ancestors were Tamil or those who identify with Tamil culture. Most Tamil Australians are of Indian, Sri Lankan, Singaporean or Malaysian descent.
Asian immigration to Australia refers to immigration to Australia from part of the continent of Asia, which includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.The first major wave of Asian immigration to Australia occurred in the late 19th century, but the exclusionary White Australia policy, which was implemented to restrict non-European immigration, made it difficult for many Asian immigrants to migrate to the country. However, with the passage of the Migration Act 1958, the White Australia policy began to be phased out and Asian immigration to Australia increased significantly. Today, Asian immigrants from a wide range of countries play an important role in the cultural and economic landscape of Australia.
North African andMiddle Eastern Australians are the Australians of North African and Middle Eastern ancestry, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from various regions in the North Africa and Middle East and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within North African and Middle Eastern ancestral groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to 3.2%.