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Waves of Plenty: Immigration and the Making of Australia
The definitive story of how immigration made Australia
Many Australians can trace family journeys to new lives in Australia. In this landmark work, Mark Cully tells the full story of immigration to Australia, from pre-colonial origins through colonisation, the gold rush, the post-war immigration boom, the end of the White Australia policy, and the modern policy of temporary migration.
Rigorously researched, the book dismantles persistent myths, gives human faces to statistics, and maps the forces that transformed a distant colony into one of the world's most diverse societies. He traces how immigration has changed Australia, making it bigger, younger, diverse, less provincial and more powerful.
This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where Australia came from, the fraught politics of immigration, and lessons for the future.
'Essential reading, perfectly timed. One of the most important policy books of 2026.' -George Megalogenis
'Supported by an expert economist's keen eye for detail and filled with scintillating facts, Waves of Plenty weaves individual stories against the backdrop of larger social, economic and political forces to show how the most pivotal periods of migration shaped our nation.' -Alice Pung
'Mark Cully's detailed and lively account of the waves of migration that have shaped Australia provides new insights into our society, our economy and our place in the world. Written with a researcher's head but a (migrant) writer's heart, it goes beyond the numbers to highlight the richness of the migrant experience and contribution. Waves of Plenty is the best kind of history book - a joy to read.' -Danielle Wood, chair of the Productivity Commission
Many Australians can trace family journeys to new lives in Australia. In this landmark work, Mark Cully tells the full story of immigration to Australia, from pre-colonial origins through colonisation, the gold rush, the post-war immigration boom, the end of the White Australia policy, and the modern policy of temporary migration.
Rigorously researched, the book dismantles persistent myths, gives human faces to statistics, and maps the forces that transformed a distant colony into one of the world's most diverse societies. He traces how immigration has changed Australia, making it bigger, younger, diverse, less provincial and more powerful.
This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where Australia came from, the fraught politics of immigration, and lessons for the future.
'Essential reading, perfectly timed. One of the most important policy books of 2026.' -George Megalogenis
'Supported by an expert economist's keen eye for detail and filled with scintillating facts, Waves of Plenty weaves individual stories against the backdrop of larger social, economic and political forces to show how the most pivotal periods of migration shaped our nation.' -Alice Pung
'Mark Cully's detailed and lively account of the waves of migration that have shaped Australia provides new insights into our society, our economy and our place in the world. Written with a researcher's head but a (migrant) writer's heart, it goes beyond the numbers to highlight the richness of the migrant experience and contribution. Waves of Plenty is the best kind of history book - a joy to read.' -Danielle Wood, chair of the Productivity Commission
400 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 3, 2026
Waves of Plenty: Immigration and the Making of Australia (2026) by Mark Cully is an excellent history of immigration to Australia. Cully was the first chief economist of the Department of Immigration. Immigration is particularly important in Australian history as the population has grown rapidly due to immigration. Today 32% of the population was born overseas, which is one of the highest levels for a sizeable developed country.
There is a very good podcast interview with Mark Cully on The Joe Walker Podcast where Cully talks about immigration and the book extensively.
The book has three parts. In the first Cully provides an overview of immigration to Australia in two chapters. In the second part six different eras of Australian immigration are examined in detail. These are: the start of large-scale free settlement in the 1830s, the 1850s and the immigration of the gold rushes, the reduction of immigration from the 1890s, the 1950s and the post-war immigration boom, the end of the White Australia Policy in the 1970s and the increase in immigration and temporary immigration from the 2000s onward. The third part has three chapters: how migrants fared, how they changed Australia, and a concluding summary.
The chapters combine descriptions of what it was like for people coming to Australia in each era as well as looking at what the immigration policies of the time were. Cully also writes about the people who shaped Australia’s immigration policy such as Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam.
Free migration began as the colonies shifted away from convict labour. Free settlers were sought to work on farms as the settlement expanded. Assisted passage was paid for by the colonies. Subsequently immigration to Australia dramatically increased with the gold rushes. People from all over the world moved to Australia to seek their fortune. This also led to the first dramatic racial turn in Australian immigration policy as Chinese immigration became restricted. This was to remain the case for over a century.
The book has three chapters on post-war immigration. The first is on the post-war boom when government objectives were that the population should substantially increase in order to make Australia defensible and richer. British immigrants were the most highly sought after, but Europeans were also accepted. Australian politicians managed the immigration rate against the competing demands of the trade unions and businesses.
In the 1970s the White Australia Policy was abandoned and immigrants came from all over the world. Refugees from Vietnam were a source of political tension but this was resolved as the Fraser government accepted them. The last of the historical chapters is about the 2000s as temporary immigrants became an ever larger share of the population. International students came and many settled in Australia. The size of the temporary resident population grew enormously. In 1995 there were fewer than three hundred thousand temporary residents; by 2025 there were about three million.
The book’s conclusion provides an overview of how Australia has grown with immigration, how migrants have fared, and how they have changed the country Overall, immigration to Australia is a success story and Cully does an excellent job describing how it has happened. Cully uses a walk through Carlton to cleverly illustrate immigration from the 1800s to today. He writes about the colonial buildings built in the later part of the 1800s by immigrants, the role of immigrants in trade unions at Trades Hall, the post-war boom with Italian restaurants in Carlton and then the plethora of Thai, Indian, Chinese and other restaurants catering to the student population that now lives in Carlton.
Cully also does not claim immigration improved everything. He states that the recent increase in immigration has driven up housing prices. On wages, he finds the effect has generally been close to neutral.
Waves of Plenty does a fine job of explaining the history of immigration in Australia. The book reads well and is full of interesting facts about the turns that immigration policy has taken. The growth of Australia and the changes brought by each wave of immigration are skillfully described. It’s very much worth reading for anyone interested in Australia and its immigrant history.
There is a very good podcast interview with Mark Cully on The Joe Walker Podcast where Cully talks about immigration and the book extensively.
The book has three parts. In the first Cully provides an overview of immigration to Australia in two chapters. In the second part six different eras of Australian immigration are examined in detail. These are: the start of large-scale free settlement in the 1830s, the 1850s and the immigration of the gold rushes, the reduction of immigration from the 1890s, the 1950s and the post-war immigration boom, the end of the White Australia Policy in the 1970s and the increase in immigration and temporary immigration from the 2000s onward. The third part has three chapters: how migrants fared, how they changed Australia, and a concluding summary.
The chapters combine descriptions of what it was like for people coming to Australia in each era as well as looking at what the immigration policies of the time were. Cully also writes about the people who shaped Australia’s immigration policy such as Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam.
Free migration began as the colonies shifted away from convict labour. Free settlers were sought to work on farms as the settlement expanded. Assisted passage was paid for by the colonies. Subsequently immigration to Australia dramatically increased with the gold rushes. People from all over the world moved to Australia to seek their fortune. This also led to the first dramatic racial turn in Australian immigration policy as Chinese immigration became restricted. This was to remain the case for over a century.
The book has three chapters on post-war immigration. The first is on the post-war boom when government objectives were that the population should substantially increase in order to make Australia defensible and richer. British immigrants were the most highly sought after, but Europeans were also accepted. Australian politicians managed the immigration rate against the competing demands of the trade unions and businesses.
In the 1970s the White Australia Policy was abandoned and immigrants came from all over the world. Refugees from Vietnam were a source of political tension but this was resolved as the Fraser government accepted them. The last of the historical chapters is about the 2000s as temporary immigrants became an ever larger share of the population. International students came and many settled in Australia. The size of the temporary resident population grew enormously. In 1995 there were fewer than three hundred thousand temporary residents; by 2025 there were about three million.
The book’s conclusion provides an overview of how Australia has grown with immigration, how migrants have fared, and how they have changed the country Overall, immigration to Australia is a success story and Cully does an excellent job describing how it has happened. Cully uses a walk through Carlton to cleverly illustrate immigration from the 1800s to today. He writes about the colonial buildings built in the later part of the 1800s by immigrants, the role of immigrants in trade unions at Trades Hall, the post-war boom with Italian restaurants in Carlton and then the plethora of Thai, Indian, Chinese and other restaurants catering to the student population that now lives in Carlton.
Cully also does not claim immigration improved everything. He states that the recent increase in immigration has driven up housing prices. On wages, he finds the effect has generally been close to neutral.
Waves of Plenty does a fine job of explaining the history of immigration in Australia. The book reads well and is full of interesting facts about the turns that immigration policy has taken. The growth of Australia and the changes brought by each wave of immigration are skillfully described. It’s very much worth reading for anyone interested in Australia and its immigrant history.
October 23, 2026
It's not easy to write about immigration at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Written with care and rigour, this is a brilliant piece of work.
Reading this book felt like putting my glasses on and seeing with clarity periods of Australian history that I only knew from vaguely remembered, long-ago history classes. The stories of convicts, the gold rush, the wars, refugees, little of it was brand new but every detail I learnt I felt embarrassed that I did not know before.
I knew the gold rush prompted racist backlash against Chinese immigrants; I had not appreciated its severity and bureaucratic efficiency. Maximum ratios of Chinese people per ton of ship!
It was remarkable to me how ephemeral political leaders were in this book. We are a country blessed with the most effective public servants in the world, and immigration is an area they have shaped probably more than any other.
Essential if you want to understand Australia.
Reading this book felt like putting my glasses on and seeing with clarity periods of Australian history that I only knew from vaguely remembered, long-ago history classes. The stories of convicts, the gold rush, the wars, refugees, little of it was brand new but every detail I learnt I felt embarrassed that I did not know before.
I knew the gold rush prompted racist backlash against Chinese immigrants; I had not appreciated its severity and bureaucratic efficiency. Maximum ratios of Chinese people per ton of ship!
It was remarkable to me how ephemeral political leaders were in this book. We are a country blessed with the most effective public servants in the world, and immigration is an area they have shaped probably more than any other.
Essential if you want to understand Australia.
November 10, 2026
Overall, a good read on the history and of and (some of) the cases in favour of immigration to Australia.
With plenty of Australian historical detail, the book provides a lot of detail about early migrations (pre-1900s), and migration policy settings post-Federation. The description of the White Australia policy is particularly confronting. Interesting detail of the evolution of modern migration settings (e.g. skilled migration, family migration, the points system).
But the book is lacking in several places. First, the book emphatically argues for the benefits of migrations for the migrants. But it rarely makes a compelling case for the economic benefits of migrants to current residents. There’s little-to-no discussion of effects on productivity, local wages, local prices (including rents/house prices) or local employment.
Second, it isn’t clear whether author wants the book to be a clear-eyed policy piece, or a moving paean to migrant stories. I’m not sure the two approaches work so well together, and I would have preferred the book picked a lane.
With plenty of Australian historical detail, the book provides a lot of detail about early migrations (pre-1900s), and migration policy settings post-Federation. The description of the White Australia policy is particularly confronting. Interesting detail of the evolution of modern migration settings (e.g. skilled migration, family migration, the points system).
But the book is lacking in several places. First, the book emphatically argues for the benefits of migrations for the migrants. But it rarely makes a compelling case for the economic benefits of migrants to current residents. There’s little-to-no discussion of effects on productivity, local wages, local prices (including rents/house prices) or local employment.
Second, it isn’t clear whether author wants the book to be a clear-eyed policy piece, or a moving paean to migrant stories. I’m not sure the two approaches work so well together, and I would have preferred the book picked a lane.
October 24, 2026
I wrote some notes and comments on this excellent book here.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews