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Good Neighbour Council

A Commonwealth Government program launched in 1950 to win grassroots acceptance of mass immigration by promoting rapid assimilation. State Good Neighbour Councils (GNCs) were to activate, encourage and co-ordinate the efforts of local church and community organisations, around 130 of which were affiliated with Melbourne's suburban branches by the mid-1950s. The Council saw itself as distinctively Australian, stubbornly resisting meaningful migrant participation. Migrant groups and academics criticised this narrow assimilationist approach and the alleged failure of English-speaking staff to reach beyond British migrants. On the recommendations of the Galbally report the Councils were abolished in 1978.

Jacqueline Templeton