Tasmanian People: Then and Now

Ancient Populations

Tasmania was connected to mainland Australia repeatedly during the pulses of iceage in the last 2 million years, and had Aboriginal populations well-established and successful within 10 miles of the state's larges glaciers by 35,000 years ago. 4,000-20,000 of these hardy people were totally cut off from the mainland of Australia after the end of the last iceage, about the time Newfoundland and Britain became islands, and the Palawa survived undisturbed until British colonisation just over 200 years ago.

As in S. America, New Zealand and N. America, a broadly familiar pattern of invasion, fighting, accommodation, dispossession, violence, reserves and racism led to the end of their ancient way of life, some being massacred or succumbing to disease and mistaken attempts to 'civilise' them. Others survived separated from mainstream society in sealing and birding communities in Bass Strait between Tasmania and the mainland, or were integrated and assimilated. Today about 20-30,000 Tasmanians identify or are descended from the Palawa, though their economic and education status lags behind colonist and immigrant Tasmanians. Racism, discrimination and poverty are still significant features.

People Today

Tasmania's population is c.95% European ancestry, and is still very Anglo, with less Eastern and Southern European migration than mainland states even since these began in 1945 and less Asian migration since this began in the 1970s. While there are over 100 ethnic and linguistic minorities in Tasmania, many are very small, almost all are comprised of immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s and refugees from S.E.Asia in the 1970s, Central America in the 1980s, and the former Yugoslavia and Somalia in the 1990s and Sudan and West Africa in the 00s.

Most migration is from Tasmania to the mainland and for economic reasons, both of immigrants and of Tasmanians who have been here several generations. Religious attendance is less than 6% for the major churches, with Tasmania much the same as mainland states in low religious activity and level of belief, except that there are even fewer Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc in Tasmania. There are so few practicing Jews in Launceston that the historic Synagogue [dating from 1851] has not been active for over 20 years.