ten pound tourist

• ten-pound tourist

From ten + pound (“unit of currency”) + tourist.
An allusion to the immigrant′s contribution (in sterling) paid for passage to Australia under an assisted immigration scheme, the remainder being paid by the Australian government. The scheme operated from 1946 to 1982; in 1973 the immigrant contribution was increased to £75.
The term tourist refers to the obligation (only) for participants to remain in Australia for two years; some elected to return after this time.

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ten pound tourist (plural ten pound tourists)

1. (Australia, UK) An assisted immigrant to Australia from Britain, from the decades following World War II.

   Synonyms: ten pound Pom, ten pound pom

   • 2003, Ian Maxwell, Notes: Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin′ Upper, page 251:

     In 1971 my own (Anglo-Celtic) parents traveled from the “Mother country” (the United Kingdom) as assisted immigrants, among the last of the “ten-pound tourists.” My brother and I traveled free (see Appleyard et al. 1988).

   • 2006, James Knight, Just Doing My Job, unnumbered page:

     Billy′s parents were ‘ten pound tourists’, arriving in Australia in 1962.

   • 2009, Sebastian Balfour, Laurie Howes, Michael De Larrabeiti, Anthony Weale, editors, Trinity Tales: Trinity College Dublin in the Sixties, page 154:

     I became a ten-pound tourist, and emigrated to Australia. While I was there, I saw nobody from Trinity - apart from John Castle on the silver screen in Melbourne, starring in a film with Katherine Hepburn, which hardly counts. Nearly five years later, to miners′ strikes and the three-day week, I returned, […] .