At the 2006 Census 92,335 Australian residents stated that they were born in Malaysia. 64,855 Malaysian born Australian residents declared having Chinese ancestry, 12,057 declared a Malay ancestry and 5,848 declared an Indian ancestry. The proportion of Malaysian-born individuals in Australia who claim Chinese ancestry is 70.2%, which is markedly different from the proportion of Malaysians in Malaysia who claim Chinese ancestry. The proportion of Malaysians in Australia that claim Indian ancestry is similar to the proportion in Malaysia. Taken together with the marked difference in the proportion who cite Islam as their religion, it is clear that migration from Malaysia to Australia has not reflected a cross-section of Malaysia, but rather, is heavily skewed towards the ethnic Chinese community and to a lesser extent the ethnic Indian community. Malaysian Australians are well established in Australia. Slightly more than half had Australian citizenship, and 47,521 had arrived in Australia in 1989 or earlier. 32,325 spoke English at home, 24,347 spoke Cantonese, 18,676 spoke Mandarin and 5,329 spoke Bahasa Melayu. Malaysian Australians were resident in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. Although Malaysia has a 60% Muslim population, only 5% of Malaysian-born Australians cited Islam as their religion in the 2006 Census, the largest religions were Christianity and Buddhism.This is mainly because Malaysians whose migrated to Australia are non-Malays.
History
Malay labourers were brought over to Australia to work mainly in the copra, sugarcane, pearl diving and trepang industries. In the case of Cocos Islands, the Malays were first brought as slaves under Alexander Hare in 1826, but were then employed as coconut harvesters for copra. Possibly the first Malay immigrant to Australia was a 22-year-old convict named Ajoup who arrived in Sydney on 11 January 1837. Ajoup, described as 'of the Malay faith', had been sentenced in Cape Town, South Africa, to 14 years transportation to New South Wales. He received his ticket of leave—that is, his freedom—in the colony in 1843. The 1871 colonial census records that 149 Malays were working in Australia as pearl divers in northern and western Australia, labourers in South Australia's mines, and on Queensland's sugar plantations. At Federation in 1901, there were 932 Malay pearl divers in Australia, increasing to 1860 by 1921. In Western Australia and the Northern Territory, Malay pearl divers were recruited through an agreement with the Dutch. By 1875, there were 1800 Malay pearl divers working in Western Australia alone. Most of them returned home when their contracts expired. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 severely curtailed this community's growth. From the 1950s onwards Malaysians came to Australia to study under the Colombo Plan, with many choosing to stay in Australia after graduation. Their numbers increased following the end of the Immigration Restriction Act in 1973. As Malaysia's affluence increased, more students came to study as self-financed students.
