Australia is home to increase religious diversity and religious variety. Its current religious landscape is shaped through the dramatic effect of immigration, the movements to and from religions or denominations, the exploration of new religious movements and the acknowledgement of no religion. These many reasons have created an increase and decrease of many religious traditions, as well as ethnic and cultural diversity in Australia.
Post war immigration is directly linked to the emergence of Australia’s new wave of migration. This helped greatly in reshaping Australia’s religious connections with many religions and denominations in terms of ethnic diversity. Many religions existed elsewhere in the world but only appeared in Australia as migration and refugee patterns changed. When Indigenous Australians were counted in Census forms in 1960, a vast majority were Christian whilst some still had a desire to integrate Aboriginal spirituality and customs into Christian expression. Migrants whom entered after World War 1 were simply those who chose to assimilate and not change the British-European culture. This was because the ‘White Australia Policy’ was in place and it was racially prejudice, religiously intolerant and only accepted whites. However, by World War 2 Australia had to ‘Populate or Perish’, thus they were desperate to increase population for national security reasons and economic growth. This ultimately led to a huge population increase, as Australia accepted over 3 million migrants who had arrived from over 60 countries. With Christianity dominating the 19th century, a large majority of the migrants were from South-East Asia, the Middle East and Pacific nations. This however, had not significantly introduced a wide range of religious traditions until the White Australia Policy was abolished. The removal was a sign of recognition and acceptability of