Who Got to Australia First: A Census of Arrivals, Group by Group
Before every community was a first person, a recorded name, a ship, a year. This is the order of arrival behind the modern Census table.
50,000+ years of continuous presence, established by archaeological and genetic evidence long before any recorded ship.
The order of arrival
Rows are sorted by the year of the first confirmed arrival, and the first recorded person is named where a name survives. Where a “first” is contested, or no name was ever logged, it is flagged.
| Group | First confirmed arrival | First major wave | 2026 Census presence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indigenous Australians | 50,000+ yrs First Nations — no single “first” person | Original inhabitants | ~800,000+ |
 British (English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish) | 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip, First Fleet | First Fleet, then mass migration 1820s-1860s | ~11.8 million (English ~8.4m; Scottish ~2.4m; Irish ~2.4m; Welsh ~0.6m) |
 German | 1788 German convicts (names lost); first named settler Johann Justus, 1838 | Lutheran settlers to South Australia, Barossa | ~1 million ancestry |
 Italian | 1788 Giuseppe Tuzi, First Fleet convict | Sojourners 1890s-1920s; mass postwar migration | ~1.1 million ancestry |
 Maltese | 1790 John Pace, transportee (earliest possible, disputed) | Post-WWII assisted migration | ~220,000 ancestry |
 Maori / Pacific Islander | 1793 Tuki Tahua & Ngahuruhuru, taken to Norfolk Island | South Sea Islanders 1860s; NZ and Pacific migration later | ~350,000 ancestry |
 Chinese | 1818 Mak Sai Ying (John Shying), free settler | Gold rush 1848-1850s, then again post-1980s | ~1.3 million ancestry |
 Greek | 1829 Katerina Plessos, among seven Greek convicts | Postwar migration 1940s-1950s | ~440,000 ancestry |
 Filipino | 1800s “Manila men” pearl divers of Broome; 700 recorded by 1901 (no single name) | Whalers and luggers; significant from 1970s | ~400,000 ancestry |
 Croatian | 1850s Gold-rush miners (no name); Baccich & Jurich, 1875 shipwreck survivors | Assisted migration 1950s-1960s | ~165,000 ancestry |
 Indian | 1850s Shri Pammull, Hindu Sindhi merchant — first named Indian settler | Merchants and hawkers; professionals post-1960s | ~1.4 million+ ancestry |
 Dutch | 1850s Dutch seamen and gold-rush miners (no single named first) | Explored 1606-1644 but never settled; East Indies refugees in WWII; mass migration post-1945 | ~380,000 ancestry |
 Sikh / Punjabi / Pakistani | 1860s Cameleers and hawkers (no single name recorded) | Early hawkers; skilled migration post-2000s | ~250,000+ (Sikh/Punjabi) |
 Sri Lankan | 1860s Ceylonese merchants and hawkers (no single name recorded) | Post-1980s civil-war humanitarian and skilled migration | ~150,000 ancestry |
 Lebanese / Arab | 1870s First Syrian/Lebanese hawkers (no single name recorded) | Hawkers and merchants; wave post-1947 | ~300,000 ancestry |
 Japanese | 1871 First Japanese settler recorded 1871 (name not recorded) | Pearl divers at Broome; luggers from 1897 | ~75,000 ancestry |
 Korean | c. 1920 No named first arrival | Skilled and student migration from 1980s | ~120,000 ancestry |
 Vietnamese | 1976 First refugee boats (no single name recorded) | Post-1975 refugee boats and resettlement | ~360,000 ancestry |
 Somali / South Sudanese | 1988 First Somali community in Victoria, 1988 (no single name) | Humanitarian resettlement | ~90,000 combined |
The eras behind the table
The 1850s gold rushes brought the first great non-British waves, Chinese miners above all, and set the pattern of chain migration that every later community followed.
After 1945 Australia rebuilt itself with assisted migration: Greeks, Italians, Dutch, Maltese and Croats arrived by the tens of thousands, transforming the country’s idea of itself.
From 1976 the first Vietnamese refugee boats began a resettlement program that became one of Australia’s largest humanitarian chapters.
Since the 2000s the skilled-migration program has driven rapid growth in Indian, Filipino, Chinese and Sri Lankan communities, making them among the fastest-growing in the Census.
Disputed firsts
Some “firsts” are less certain than the table suggests. The 1788 German and Italian rows rest on real but often nameless records — German and Italian convicts sailed with the First Fleet, but no German convict’s name survives, the first named German settler being Johann Justus in 1838. The Indian “first”, the Sindhi merchant Shri Pammull in the 1850s, is the earliest named Indian. The 1818 record of the Chinese settler Mak Sai Ying (John Shying) rests on fragmentary shipping and parish documents, and earlier informal visits may never be recovered. The Maltese “first”, John Pace in 1790, is disputed — the first certain Maltese arrivals were convicts around 1810, and the first free immigrant was Antonio Azzopardi in 1838. For the Filipinos, Japanese, Lebanese, Koreans and Vietnamese, no single first name survives in the archives. Where records are thin, this article says so rather than guessing.
Before every community was a first person, a recorded name, a ship, a year. This is the definitive order of arrival behind the modern Census table.
