Polish Australians

Polish Australians refers to Australian citizens or residents of full or partial Polish ancestry.

In 2021, 45,884 Australian residents declared that they were born in Poland. The Australian states with the largest Polish populations were Victoria (14,202), New South Wales (13,830), and Queensland (5,740). The Polish-born Australian resident population predominantly were Australian citizens (86.9%), Roman Catholic (66.8%) and used Polish at home (70.4%). Around 77% arrived in Australia before 2000.

History

The first Pole known to have arrived in Australia was Joseph Potaski, who was sent there as a convict from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1803.

A prominent Pole, Paul Edmund Strzelecki arrived at Sydney on 25 April 1839. At the request of the governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, Strzelecki made a geological and mineralogical survey of the Gippsland region in present-day eastern Victoria, where he made many discoveries including gold in 1839. That year, Strzelecki and a crew set out from Sydney on an expedition into the Australian Alps. In 1840, he climbed the highest peak on mainland Australia and named it Mount Kosciuszko. He reached Melbourne on 28 May 1840. From 1840 to 1842 Strzelecki explored Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land). Having travelled 11,000 kilometres (7,000 miles) through New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, examining the geology along the way Strzelecki returned to England, where he was awarded in May 1846 the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

The first settlers from Poland arrived in South Australia in 1856 and settled in the Clare Valley region in a place later called Polish Hill River. The first mass migration happened in the late 1940s when large groups of displaced persons who could not return to communist Poland (the Polish People's Republic) migrated to Australia after World War II, including soldiers from the Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade. Between 1947 and 1954, the Poland-born population increased from 6,573 to 56,594 people.

In the early 1980s there was further Polish migration to Australia. The emergence of the Solidarity trade union movement and the declaration of martial law in Poland at the end of 1981 coincided with a further relaxation of Polish emigration laws. During the period 1980–1991 Australia granted permanent entry to a large number of Polish migrants, many arriving as refugees who soon got a reputation for being hard working. In 1991, an independent, voluntary organisation was established to inform the Australian public about issues related to Polish history, politics, society and culture. The immediate trigger for establishing the Australian Institute of Polish Affairs was strong public interest in the historic changes that swept Central Europe in 1989 and led to the collapse of communism. Some Australians have Polish-Jewish roots. They organised the Association of Polish Jews and Their Descendants.Association of Polish Jews and Their Descendants Both organisations are based in Melbourne.

Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia (not including its external territories), was named by the Polish explorer Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of the Polish and American national hero and hero of the Kościuszko Uprising and the American Revolutionary War General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because Strzelecki perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków.

Demographics

Capital cityPopulation with Polish ancestry (2021 census)Proportion of total populationSydney42,014 0.8%Melbourne52,559 1.1%Brisbane18,499 0.7%Perth19,925 0.9%Adelaide18,155 1.3%Canberra5,035 1.1%

Year Polish Born Population 1947 6,573 1954 56,5941961 60,0491966 61,6411971 59,700 1976 56,051 1981 59,442 1986 67,676 1991 68,964 1996 56,389 2001 54,724 2006 52,254 2011 48,677 2016 45,370 2021 45,884

Language In Australia, 45,379 people reported speaking Polish at home in 2021. Victoria had the highest number of Polish speakers at 13,670, followed by New South Wales at 13,502. The median age for Polish speakers was between 50 and 54 in 2021. 67.5% of people that spoke Polish were born in Poland, 25.6% in Australia. In 2021, approximately 50% of Polish-born Australians had arrived in Australia between 1981 and 2000, inclusive.

Religion 71.8% of Polish speakers in Australia identify as Catholic, with 18.4% identifying with no religion in 2021.

Education 38.1% of Polish-born Australians have a bachelor's degree or above as of 2021, compared to 22.7% for those born in Australia.

Income The median household income for Polish-born Australians in 2021 was $1656, compared with $1936 for the total overseas-born Australian population and $1635 for those born in Australia.

Melbourne Melbourne, Victoria, has the largest Polish population in Australia which comprises a large part of the city's eclectic multicultural community. In 1986, the state of Victoria accounted for 36.4 percent of Australia's Polish-born population compared with 25.8 percent of the national population. A vast majority of these immigrants reside in Melbourne's south-east or north-west, in suburbs such as Rowville, St. Albans, Sunshine, Dandenong and Yarraville, as well as the City of Greater Geelong. TH

The largest portion of Melbourne's Polish population immigrated to the city after the Second World War, with the second largest influx occurring in the 1980s. However, Melbourne's Polish history goes back much further than the 1940s, with a Polish Relief Fund and a Polish Society both established in the city as early as 1863. A "Polish Festival @ Federation Square" has been yearly event there since 2004.

Organisations

Notable people

Polish Australians

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