Members of the Chinese Australian community were major contributors to the celebrations commemorating the opening of the new federal parliament in May 1901. They organised a large dragon parade through central Melbourne, an impressive archway over Swanston Street and were also represented on the organising committee.

Despite such as strong display of support for federation, and for the visiting Duke and Duchess of York and Cornwell, the first major Act passed by the new federal government was the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) that effectively blocked further immigration of Chinese into Australia. One of the strong unifying forces of federation was the desire to create a 'White Australia'.

This conference provides an opportunity for a range of scholars, genealogists, community historians, archivists, museum curators and others concerned with the history of Chinese Australians to explore this conundrum and to recover and recall other neglected aspects of Australian Chinese communities during the federation period - and China's view of Australia at that time.

Keynote speakers will be Senator Tsebin Tchen and Professor John Hirst. The full list of conference speakers and papers is available on the conference website:

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/www/asianstudies/chaf/conference.htm

The conference is a joint project of La Trobe University, The Chinese Museum, and Shanghai East China Normal University, and supported by the National Council for the Centenary of Federation.