‘The White Hordes From the West’: Race and Refuge in Australian Media Commentary About White Rhodesians During Zimbabwe's Decolonisation

ABSTRACT This article explores Australian media commentary on white Rhodesians migrating to Australia, focusing on the period of Malcolm Fraser's prime ministership (1975–1983). The main argument is that the Australian media debates about whether to classify white Rhodesians as ‘migrants’ or ‘refugees’ were not merely semantic but reflected a deeper conflict over race, national identity, and transnational whiteness during the Fraser era. Although the Fraser government officially saw white Rhodesians as ‘normal’ migrants, it faced criticism from right‐wing allies and the media for its own classification of them as ‘refugees’, a position opposed by the left. Drawing upon case studies in the mainstream media and the communist left and university student press, this article demonstrates how the ‘white Rhodesian question’ depicted the Fraser government's contested and contrasting approach to the politics of national borders, Rhodesian policy, its commitment to multiculturalism, and underlying anxieties about preserving a white national identity and transnational whiteness.