Talk:European Australians

Main image
To clean up the page, I've created a single image containing the faces of 12 European Australians for the info box. Previously, there were 18 images of irregular size in a very messy arrangement in this position, pushing the information contained in the box far down the page. I'm sure no-one's going to complain about the tidy up, but as Cymruman, already has done, I expected complaints about the people I included. First of all, I'd like to say that it wasn't my intention to include predominantly Australians with Anglo-Celtic backgrounds, (and for the record, Sidney Myer has a Russian Jewish background. Of the 12 people I've included, 10 were already on the page. I added first PM Edmund Barton and longest serving PM Robert Menzies (both notable enough for inclusion) so that the image would not be dominated by contemporary Australians. Here is the list of people who were included on the page before my edit, and the reasons I have removed certain images.
 * Rolf Harris - removed, really just because I could only fit 12 people into the image.
 * Donald Bradman - kept
 * Nicole Kidman - kept
 * Ned Kelly - kept
 * Sidney Myer - kept
 * Rupert Murdoch - kept
 * Errol Flynn - kept
 * Eric Bana - kept (though originally, I replaced him with Hugh Jackman, who I considered more notable, but as
 * Natalie Imbruglia - removed because of poor quality of image (taken from audience at a performance).
 * Peter Andre - removed because of poor quality of image (same as Imbruglia)
 * Morris Iemma - removed, in my opinion, not of well known enough, especially internationally.
 * Deniz Tek - removed, in my opinion, not well known enough.
 * Jelena Dokic - removed, poor quality image (on court).
 * Geoffrey Rush - kept.
 * John Aloisi - removed, poor image (on field).
 * Mel Gibson - removed, although notable, he was born and now lives in the US.
 * Kylie Minogue - kept
 * Ben Chifley - replaced with more notable, and fellow Anglo-Celtic, PMs Menzies and Barton.

Most of the time when I've said that the image was of poor quality, it is because the face of the person is difficult to see, which in an article on ethnicity, is an important thing.

Feel free to disagree with any of the choices, and I'll be happy to replace any of the portraits I've selected with a photograph of equal or better quality containing an Australian of equal or higher notoriety, especially if they're not Anglo-Celtic in heritage.

Glennnnn (talk) 12:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Australian English - major language among European Australians
Of course Australian English is a major language among European Australians - but there are also over 1 million UK-born and over 400 thousand NZ-born Australians, so it stands to reason that there would also be hundreds of thousands of Australians who would be classified as speakers of British or New Zealand English. Because of this, I'm replacing "Australian English" with just "English. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 08:42, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Rupert Murdoch should not be illustrated in the hpotographs
He is not an Australian citizen: he surrendered his citizenship as a condition of gaining the American citizenship necessary to buy American newspapers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.3.64.1 (talk) 04:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If Asian Australians make up 12% of Australia's population then that means that no more than 88% of that country's population is non-Asian. So how can whoever it was that edited the Article claim that European Australians make up more than 91% of Australia's population?! Obviously that person has also to take the number of, for example the indigenous peoples of Australia. Also, the person that edited the article claims that even the 91% is too little as it doesn't include persons who chose "Australian" ancestry in the census. Well, surely there were many people of non-European ethnic background who choose "Australian" ancestry in the census. Surely many, if not most or all Asian, Indigenous and other Australians of non-European ethnic/racial backgrounds feel at least as "Australian" as European-Australians. Thus I believe the "Australian" category in the Australian census does not or should not refer only to Australians of European ancestry and I am deeply offended by the actions of whoever it was that entered the figure of 91%+ and said that if people who selected "Australian" ancestry were included that this figure would be even larger (implying that people of non-European ancestry living in Australia were not really Australian or not Australian enough). I feel that the person who edited this article is showing very little or no regard and possibly even contempt for Australians of non-European background and I feel that whoever it is very racist.HS123 (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Where is your source for 12% Asian Australian? And no one cares if you're offended, go back to China if you don't like it- but then you'd have to live in the third world dystopia that is China so obviously you're going to stay in Australia and bawwww about racism.64.189.66.225 (talk) 07:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Source?
The Australian population was 94% white in 2001, 94% of 19 million is about 18 million people. During the next decade the population would have grown by at least 1.5 million taking births and immigration into account, so there should be nearly 20 million white Australians.

The Lebanese and other non-European whites are negligible in terms of total population, so how is it that there are only 18 million European Australians?64.189.66.225 (talk) 07:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Better yet, let's stop using the word "white" given that it's not even used in the census. The title of this page is "European Australian," so try to stick with that. STEVENJ0HNS 1 (talk) 12:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Even better yet, you go on the White American page and tell them they have to merge it to European American. 203.51.161.90 (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Merge the article into European Australian?
The proposal to merge the two items do not make much sense. Being white is not synonymous with European. Also Arabs and people from the Caucasus are white (so regarded even by US Census Bureau) and many people of the Americas, being them mostly in countries such as USA, Canada, Argentina or Uruguay are also white (and although mayority them are of European descent, many are also of Arab descent). I'm North African - not European - and I'm white.--Isinbill (talk) 23:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC) Agree. I noticed that someone removed the link about Arab and Asian people being regarded as white and left only the European links. Then why don't we remove White American page and merge it to European American? 203.51.161.90 (talk) 21:27, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The very specific definition of white in America is a legal result of their policies of slavery and Jim Crow and affirmative action. "White" has no specific definition in other countries, including Australia. 43.243.12.48 (talk) 06:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

edits
I would like to include some information. Most of the information on the page currently makes no reference to European Australians, and also there are few references. Nhjkut (talk) 08:53, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Point nr1: I'd advise against putting up the Census data as a reliable estimate of population percentage. Ancestry is a multiple choice section in the census form. There are no reliable numbers only estimates ranging from 85% - 92% of total population. NBAkid (talk) 09:03, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Point nr2: Also you pretty much butchered the well written informative history section. Add your information in the history section instead of intro and without carpet blanking.NBAkid (talk) 09:07, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Point nr3: The Notable Australians in the infobox are better without your edits. Diverse in gender and occupation. Your infobox is entertainer/actor dominated and less informative. NBAkid (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20160316032647/http://abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/2016 to http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/2016

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Changes to European ancestry using "The World Factbook:"
Regarding these two changes (here and here) to the percentage of Australians of European ancestry, IP 123.2.192.167, please note that "The World Factbook" is not deemed to be a reliable source for ethnicity WP:CALC. Yes, it is used in other articles on ethnic groups, but is being phased out by the WikiProject Ethnic groups editing community unless used to back up reliably sourced content.

What is needed is a reliable WP:SECONDARY source for such ethnicity-based breakdowns, or the actual 2016 census breakdown (which I haven't had time to work through as yet). While I have no doubt that there's been an increment to non-European citizenship and residency, there's nothing substantive enough to assume that there's been an entire 10% increase. It also doesn't do to change reliably sourced figures maintaining something else altogether as if those sources support the figure you have changed. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://www.webcitation.org/6D2TfCOIp?url=http://clas.mq.edu.au/australian-voices/history-accent-change to http://clas.mq.edu.au/australian-voices/history-accent-change

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White Australian (disambiguation)
I created a disambiguation page for White Australian (disambiguation). It is designed to resolve the issue of what the word means in different contexts. It does not necessarily mean European Australian. If there are no major criticisms, then I will redirect White Australian to this disambiguation page or merge the two pages. Travelmite (talk) 09:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Now that there is the redirect page still operating, and the new disambiguation page. It's time to discuss them being merged. The merge will mean that when someone types White Australian into Wikipedia, they are not given a definition that not everyone agrees with. There is no specific definition of a white Australian. It may refer to the convicts and or the colonists, it may refer to those Anglo person's under the original White Australia policy, or it may refer to some race concept, or a reference to the majority group or it may refer informally to European Australians. Clearly it's then a matter of context and the reader can then decide further what they want to read. Travelmite (talk) 18:39, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Merge – for the reasons explained. Travelmite (talk) 18:39, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't quite follow why the discussion was started here. Please continue this discussion on Talk:White Australian. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 01:02, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The reason is that page redirects here. If you type White Australian this is where you'll end up. The links that say "discuss" also point to this section. Travelmite (talk) 16:12, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The request was malformed then. The proposal should have been to merge White Australian (disambiguation) into European Australians. But I don't think it would be "original research" to make the observation that not all Europeans are white. Note that the editor I reverted, is now blocked as a sock puppet. There was never a consensus established at Talk:White Australian for the redirect to  European Australians. The editor who initiated the proposal never started a discussion on the talk page; the editor who started the talk page discussion objected to the proposal "The proposal to merge the two items do not make much sense. Being white is not synonymous with European." and then the sock boldly redirected in spite of the objection. This was a deletion by redirection; no content was merged. wbm1058 (talk) 18:24, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The proposal from years ago was to merge White Australian into European Australians. I cannot comment about how correctly this was done in the past, however the merge was completed. In agreement with the idea that there is no agreement of "white", I created a White Australian (disambiguation) as a way of not giving undue authority to a particular view. Just like Black Australian White Australian is an ambiguous, undefined term. It's meaning depends on the context you are asking - colonialism, past immigration, racism and perhaps skin cancers. This is where a disambiguation page is required. Travelmite (talk) 11:04, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Travelmite, Merging says "Merging creates a redirect from the source page(s) to the destination page, with some or all of the content copied and pasted into that page." Yes, the page was redirected in July 2014, but the edit history of European Australians shows no content merged at that time. I don't consider this edit to be a content merge and all the edits for the rest of July 2014 were reverted as vandalism. The edit summary on the redirect "neologism based on American definitions of white, pointless" implies that the redirecting editor didn't consider the content to be valid for merging. WP:NOTNEO says "Articles on neologisms that have little or no usage in reliable sources are commonly deleted, as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term." You have said that the content of the article, which I have restored and tweaked, is unsourced (or poorly sourced), and, as such, maybe it shouldn't be merged. Redirecting implies that European Australian is the primary topic for "White Australian", but if it is, then, per MOS:DABPRIMARY we would need a link at the top of White Australian (disambiguation) stating that "A [ [White Australian]] is a European Australian." (or something similar) – I don't think either of us want to do that. That's why I (boldly) modified your proposal to take this article out of the loop. The only mention of the term "white" in the current version of this article is in a link to the White Australia policy. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:36, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Just as there is no primary topic for Black Australian (i.e. the term does not redirect to African Australians) there shouldn't be a primary topic for White Australian either. As you say, "White Australian is an ambiguous, undefined term. It's meaning depends on the context". White Australian can either be a broad-concept article that explains all of the contexts, or, lacking adequate sources for such an article I suppose we can settle for your disambiguation page being moved to the base title, as a stopgap until an adequate broad-concept article can be written. wbm1058 (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Great! I agree to that. Thanks for taking the time to review the matter. Travelmite (talk) 09:15, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Article is fundamentally broken
European is a geographical term. It is not a national or ethnic term. It is also not a pan-ethnic term. But this article refers to European Australians as a pan-ethnic group. That claim, not surprisingly, is unsourced. How could it be when there is no evidence that there is such a pan-ethnic group? What evidence is there that Australians with Albanian ancestry feel some pan-ethnic connection with those whose ancestry is Norwegian or English? None, of course. That's why the subgroups listed do not include any actual ethnic groups (but simply Australians with a particular ancestry). That is not a pan-ethnic group.

That being the case, the article is fundamentally broken.

It's also the case that the source for the population of 'European Australians' uses the term to refer only to those with a certain cultural background. Again, there is no evidence of pan-ethnic identification. Furthermore, the Australian census page that is cited later states "Ancestry is an indication of the cultural group that a person most closely identifies with." 

So is the article supposed to be about a cultural group or a pan-ethnic group? It is obvious that like the other pages dealing with Australians, it has a sort-of identity crisis. Ironic.

There are double the number of Google hits for White Australians as there are for European Australians. Given that is what people are obviously searching for, the article should be renamed and a link to the disambiguation page placed at the top. The link may say something like 'This article is about the Australian cultural group. For other uses see the disambiguation page.'

There is still no article on Wikipedia that deals with the Australian people as historically understood and referenced in numerous articles, newspapers, and books between the 1840s and 1940s. Those people strenuously rejected any identification with Europeans but were not considered fully British by the British government, resulting in claims that the British government discriminated against Australians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.69.226.158 (talk) 12:25, 12 July 2020 (UTC)


 * There is precisely an article about the conception which you are speaking of, that is the Anglo-Celtic Australians article. I don't think anyone is implying that there is some kind of ethnic solidarity between eg Albanian Australians and Spanish Australians - there are separate articles for all of those ethnic groups - all this one does is provide some brief info and links to individual ethic articles on all various Australian ethic groups with ancestors from across the continent of europe - just like articles for European Canadians or European Brazillians-- Stormcrow Mithrandir  23:55, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Percentage in infobox
The percentage in the infobox says 75%, but it does not seem to be based on a reliable source - it fails to take into account the ABS's statement that most people who put "Australian" on the census are Anglo-Celtic. The body of the article says estimated percentages range from 85 to 92 - one of these numbers would be much better. StAnselm (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)


 * It couldn't possibly be 90%. Asian Australians alone are 16.3% of the population (probably higher now). Then you have Arab Australians, Iranian Australians, African Australians, Pacific Islander Australians (Maori Australians, Tongan Australians, South Sea Islanders, Papua New Guinean Australians, Samoan Australians, Fijian Australians etc), Indigenous Australians, Latin American Australians. There is bound to be some overlap of course from mixed-race people (especially among Indigenous and Latin American). 120.88.131.102 (talk) 12:21, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Have a read of the source. It is a secondary government source which is based on 2016 ABS census data (as ABS does not give statistics for broad racial groups - only national ethnic groups). Therefore they have synthesised it from the 2016 ABS census national ethnic responses. Also it includes 'Australian' as being part of the Anglo Celtic/European Australian category as you have noted. It is clearly the best we have being a government source synthesised from ABS official census data but still I would suggest having 'Approximately' in there because Australia does not publish specific data on this question. Clearly 85% and 92% has not been the case for many many years.-- Stormcrow Mithrandir  00:15, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * "It is clearly the best we have..." And it's really not very good. Too much of what is in the article already is synthesis from very vague initial numbers. I am very concerned about any implied precision in the percentages. HiLo48 (talk) 06:01, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree as ABS just doesn't report the data in this way. It would almost be better to not have any figure in the infobox and just note that only ethnic, not racial statistics are collected. There could be some discussion in the main text. Stormcrow Mithrandir  08:23, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The question on the Census asks about ancestry, not ethnicity. They aren't the same thing. HiLo48 (talk) 23:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)


 * And the ABS are clearly wrong in guessing that "australian" on the census usually refers to anglo-celtic or european descent. Come on now. Even a day's visit in any major city will demonstrate australians of european decent make up a small minority in 2021, and most are over 40 1.157.221.139 (talk) 07:33, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a perfect example of original research, and quite unacceptable on Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 23:44, 14 November 2021 (UTC)


 * There are similar problems of original research and misinterpretation of census figures at the European Canadians article. See the discussion on that talk page and the history of the common IP editing both articles.Loopy30 (talk) 13:26, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

there's no way
that australians of european descent make up 75+% of the population. Big cities hold the majority of the population, unless there are a lot of "white" people working from home and never leaving the house, people of european descent are clearly a small minority in big cities in australia, especially the cities with the largest populations like sydney and melbourne. A more realistic estimate of "european" australians would be about 30- 40% — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.157.221.139 (talk) 07:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a perfect example of original research, and quite unacceptable on Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 23:46, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:52, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Petermccormick.jpg

The Australian Aboriginal genocide should added in the history section.
Here is a good source for Europeans causing the Australian Aboriginal genocide:

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/australian-aborigine 76.174.235.156 (talk) 04:20, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

"European Australians" is not a phrase that is used in Australia
In Australia, people who have ancestry entirely or predominantly from Europe are referred to as White, White Australian, or White people, not "European Australians". The phrase "European Australian" is not used in the media, or in public discourse. Why then is this article titled "European Australian" and a search in Wikipedia for "White Australian", the common term, redirects to this article, a virtually non-existent term?

By way of illustration, here are some articles using the term "White Australian":

https://theconversation.com/how-the-art-of-daniel-boyd-turns-over-the-apple-cart-of-accepted-white-australian-history-183635

https://theconversation.com/paul-hogan-and-the-myth-of-the-white-aussie-bloke-124281

https://theconversation.com/should-white-australian-fans-rap-along-to-the-n-word-at-a-kendrick-lamar-concert-97925

https://www.smh.com.au/national/as-a-white-australian-talking-about-racism-you-should-feel-a-sense-of-discomfort-20200608-p550h1.html

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/as-a-fourth-generation-white-australian-whats-my-culture-20130613-2o6p4.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9785685/White-Australian-artist-abused-making-Aboriginal-dot-paintings.html

https://theshot.net.au/general-news/as-a-white-australian-heres-what-australia-day-means-to-me-fuck-all/

By contrast, one is pressed to find any use of the term "European Australian" in public discourse, news articles, or in the citations to this article.

Which begs the question, why is it the title of this article? Relatedly, "White Americans" is an article on wikipedia (also locked such as this one). Obviously "European Americans" is not a term that is used, and "European Australians" is in the same category. 125.209.133.102 (talk) 15:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that it's a silly name for this article, Wikipedia is American, a country where using such double barrelled labels is the norm. The article was created by an editor who describes himself as "an Aussie living in America". So I'd suggest that the answer to your question is - standard American cultural dominance. HiLo48 (talk) 01:55, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What would be the census category used? Should use terms that are used by national census...... as in the term people have chosen. Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 02:55, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no equivalent census category on the most recent census in 2021, where the options were "English/Irish/Scottish/Chinese/Italian/German/Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander/Australian/other ancestry." 125.209.133.102 (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, official Australian efforts have gone a long way towards removing labels based on imprecise measures such as skin colour. Today it's all about self declared ancestry. In addition, the question is not about ancestry itself, but the use of double barrelled labels to describe people. This is common in the USA, and much less common in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 22:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @HiLo48 and @Moxy - I know I'm replying almost a year later, but I don't see a problem with the name of the page. If official census have tried avoiding colour terms, then that's on them. Also, there is a European Americans and European Canadians page.
 * If we're gonna argue improper colour labels, then there's no "Black Australian" page... I assume because Australia's modern census doesn't use the label and the historic definition of "blackness" in Australia pertained to their Aboriginal peoples as opposed to say, the African diaspora (especially those descended from enslaved Africans like the African American label in the U.S).
 * Furthermore, it doesn't seem like anyone has a problem with the Asian Australians page, even though that label is misleading. Though it seems like historic definitions were pan-Asian, the modern census recognizes all Asian regions but West Asia (and I believe Siberia is considered Russian/Eastern European?), but in common speech, it basically only means East/Southeast Asians. Their culturally similar neighbour New Zealand has sometimes put Indians (South Asians) and "Asians" as separate people in less formal context. And I have yet to see any reliable source where Australian common speech refers first and foremost to darker-skinned South Asians (i.e - Afghans or Pakistani) or people like the Russians of China or the lighter-skinned Uyghurs when they say "Asian" culture/food/people/etc. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2024 (UTC)