A WORLD REPORT SPECIAL EDITION ON THE PACIFIC RIM : THE SOUTH RIM : Culture : Policy Makes ‘White Australia’ a Thing of the Past : Once, only Europeans could immigrate. Now, Asians are fast-growing segment of population, and government preaches multiculturalism..

Earlier this year, the Australian government, without fanfare, announced a change in its observance of official holidays. From now on, the notice said, Victory Over Japan Day, celebrated every Aug. 15 since World War II ended on that date in 1945, would be known as Victory in the Pacific Day.

While a number of veterans objected loudly to what they saw as an act of unnecessary political correctness, the government’s decision reflected heightened concern in Australia over the country’s image in the eyes of its Asian neighbors.

It was not always so. The first act of the Australian Commonwealth in 1901 was to pass a law banning non-Europeans from immigrating to the island continent. The policy, known as “White Australia,” was not fully dismantled until 1973.

But Australia has changed dramatically since the days of racially screened migration. The 1991 census, the latest, disclosed that 672,049 of the 18 million Australians were born in Asia and 201,845 children had at least one Asian-born parent.

The combined figure makes up about 5% of Australia’s population and, with Asians constituting more than 50% of current immigrants to Australia, it is expected to rise to 7% by the end of the decade.

Australia’s indigenous peoples, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, number fewer than 300,000 but have made gains in land disputes and securing other rights in recent decades.

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Most of the new Asian arrivals are economic migrants, seeking better job and business opportunities, but at least 140,000 are Vietnamese who were taken in by the Australian government in a humanitarian program to absorb some of the tens of thousands of “boat people” who fled Vietnam after the Communist takeover in 1975.

White Australia is largely a memory now. The government now preaches a policy called “multiculturalism,” which Foreign Minister Gareth Evans says differs from the U.S. notion of a melting pot, in which all races are assimilated into a homogenous population. Australia, the foreign minister declared, will be a “salad bowl” with different ingredients but each retaining its own distinctive flavor.

Moving independently, a number of Australian states have adopted strict laws against making derogatory remarks or discriminating in jobs and housing.

In another harbinger of change, Stephen FitzGerald, chairman of Sydney’s Asia-Australia Institute, noted that more than 50% of the food prepared outside the home in this formerly meat-and-potatoes society is now Asian cuisine.

The societal changes reflect the closer economic ties between Australia and Asia. Most of Australia’s tourists come from the Asian mainland and island countries, which are where Australia sells 60% of its exports.

“The shift in economic gravity in the region has forced people to change the concept of our national identity,” said Alison Broinowski, author of a book on Australia’s images of Asians.

Connections built on trade and immigration sometimes outrun political realities, however.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke caused considerable outrage in Asia during the late 1980s when he branded the Malaysian government “barbarians” for hanging two Australians who had been convicted of drug smuggling.

Less then five years later, Hawke’s successor, Prime Minister Paul Keating, caused a stir when he told an informal press conference that he believed Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was being “recalcitrant” for not attending a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Seattle, the first of the new Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summits. But within days he had moved to apologize.

Seeking to further polish Australia’s image in Asia--Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once called Australians the “poor white trash of Asia”--the government has inaugurated a satellite television service aimed at Asia with news programs in English and bulletins in Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Vietnamese and Bahasa Indonesian.

“We have better relations with Asian governments than other international operators,” said David Hill, the retired director of the Australian Broadcasting Co. who launched the Asian programming. “We’re less threatening and more consistent.”

The Australians appear to have become far less critical of Asian countries on issues of democracy and human rights.

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In fact, Don Russell, Australia’s ambassador to the United States, publicly lobbied the Clinton Administration last year against linking most-favored-nation trade status for China with the country’s human rights policy.

Another example of broader Australian policies emerged last year when a member of Parliament was slain in a Vietnamese suburb of Sydney. There were mumbled complaints that Asian migration was threatening to change Australia’s culture.

Keating responded in a speech that Australia “is not and can never be an ‘Asian nation’ any more than we can or want to be European or North American or African.” He said the country would draw on “all the distinctive strengths of our history” from indigenous Australians and European settlers to “the talents and experience of those immigrants--now almost half our total intake--who come here from Asia.”

Times special correspondent Warren Osmond in Sydney contributed to this report.

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Immigration to Australia Over the years, the percentage of Asian immigrants has risen dramatically. Some recent figures: 1972: 0.6% 1977: 14.3% 1982: 17.8% 1987: 28.9% 1988: 29.8% 1989: 34.5% 1990: 43.2% 1991: 46.4% 1992: 41.8% Note: Ban on non-European immigrants eds in 1973. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics