Between 1947 and 1972 Australia had accepted 260 000 refugees and Displaced Persons as permanent settlers. Almost all of these were escaping from communist regimes, including Russian Christians escaping from China as well as those from eastern Europe. The mass emigration of 170 000 displaced persons from central European camps was completed by 1952 and had created institutions and practices which continued to be used for non-British immigrants for the next twenty years. These included the use of former military camps such as Bonegilla and Bathurst, the teaching of English through the adult migrant education program, and the co-ordination of welfare agencies through the Good Neighbour movement. Refugee settlement was seen as generous and charitable. Christian and other community organisations continued to play a major role in settlement, later organised through the Community Refugee Settlement scheme of 1979. The major groups coming between 1952 and 1972 included Hungarians in 1956, Czechoslovakians in 1968, the Russian Christians from China, and Jews from the Soviet Union. In accepting refugees from communist states, Australia was pursuing the same policy as the United States and Canada. Many Germans who came as assisted migrants after 1952 had also come across from the Soviet occupation zone into Western Germany.

These refugees were acceptable because they were Europeans, within the definitions already used for the White Australia policy, and because they were escaping from communism. Most arrived under the Liberal–Country Party coalition which ruled Australia between 1949 and 1972.