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This article evaluates the Gillard Labor government's efforts to revive Australian multiculturalism at a time when other liberal democracies have declared it a failure. It argues that despite a controversial history, Australian multiculturalism has many of the characteristics of institutional path dependency, representing a highly contested set of policies, programs and norms that evolved in specific historical contexts and developed their own self-reinforcing logic. The Australian experience offers salient reminders of the difficulties of overturning the social and political consequences of immigration decisions made long ago. The general success of multiculturalism as a migrant-integration strategy suggests that it may be the best available option for liberal-democratic governments to manage the politics of cultural diversity in the 21st century. There is a need, however, for governments to renew their commitment to migrant rights and equity.

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How significant was the role of the Liberal party in dismantling the White Australia Policy? Contrary to recent politicised claims and counter‐claims, the answer is not a simple one. The party began well, in the wake of Labor's clumsiness on immigration in the 1940s, but courageous exceptions to the rule during the 1950s were also undermined by enduring timidity. Pressure from concerned opinion, both inside and outside Australia, was making itself felt by the early 1960s, but it took Robert Menzies' retirement and concerted efforts by Peter Hey don, Hubert Opperman and the new Prime Minister Harold Holt to amend policy to provide a more significant number of non‐Europeans admission to Australia. The ideal of racial homogeneity died slowly for some, however, and it was left to the Whitlam Labor Government to sweep away what remained of the White Australia Policy.