Australian settlement

The Australian settlement was a set of nation-building policies adopted in Australia at the beginning of the 20th century. The phrase was coined by journalist Paul Kelly in his 1992 book The End of Certainty. Kelly identified five policy "pillars" of the settlement: White Australia (a racially exclusive immigration policy); Protection (protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods); Wage Arbitration (compulsory arbitration for industrial disputes); State Paternalism (interventionist social and economic policies); and Imperial Benevolence (faith in the British Empire). These pillars profoundly influenced the way Australia developed over the coming decades and were only dismantled towards the end of the century. The term "settlement" refers to the way this constellation of policies emerged as a compromise between major interests in Australian society at that time, namely workers and employers. It has also been referred to as the Deakinite settlement, after its principal architect Alfred Deakin.