Retell Lecture

The first inhabitants in Australia were the ancestors of the present indigenous people. Whether these first migrations involved one or several successive waves and distinct peoples is still subject to academic debate, as is its timing. The minimum widely accepted time frame places presence of humans in Australia at 40,000 to 43,000 years Before Present, while the upper range supported by others is 60,000 to 70,000 years BP. In any event, this migration was achieved during the closing stages of the Pleistocene epoch, when sea levels were typically much lower than they are today. Repeated episodes of extended glaciation resulted in decreases of sea levels by some 100–150 metres. The continental coastline therefore extended much further out into the Timor Sea than it does today, and Australia and New Guinea formed a single landmass, connected by an extensive land bridge across the Arafura Sea, Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait. The ancestral Australian Aboriginal peoples were thus long established and continued to develop, diversify and settle through much of the continent. As the sea levels again rose at the terminus of the most recent glacial period some 10,000 years ago the Australian continent once more became a separated landmass. However, the newly formed 150 kilometre wide Torres Strait with its chain of islands still provided the means for cultural contact and trade between New Guinea and the northern Cape York Peninsula. During the 1970s and 1980s around 120,000 southern Asian refugees migrated to Australia. During that twenty years, Australia first began to adopt a policy of what Minister of Immigration Al Grassby termed "multiculturalism". In 2004–2005, Australia accepted 123,000 new settlers, a 40% increase over the past 10 years. The largest number of immigrants moved to Sydney. The majority of immigrants came from Asia, led by China and India.