Summary heading
Migrant Selection Documents, Annual Single Number Series
with SD Prefix
Function and purpose
This series consists of selection documents for assisted
passage migrants and refugees from 1973 to 1986 with some records from 1986 to
1989. Information contained in Migrant Selection Document includes the signed
agreement between the migrant and the Australian Government, a questionnaire
concerning trade or professional qualifications and an application for assisted
passage. The selection documents generally include photographs of the
applicants present at the selection interview. In some instances information is
also provided on the proposed means of travel to Australia.
This series was known as the SD series in the Department of
Immigration. It replaced previous selection systems that differentiated between
British and non-British migrants and previous recordkeeping
systems that showed this distinction. Included in this series are
selection documents for migrants who applied under the Assisted Passage Scheme
and as refugees. In 1981, the Assisted Passage Scheme began to be phased out
and the bulk of the selection documents after this were for refugees and those
who applied under the Special Assisted Passage Scheme.
The applications were processed in various Commonwealth
Government Offices in, for example, Belgrade or Manila or Vienna.
Subsequently, the overseas Offices forwarded the records to the Department of
Immigration Office in Australia
where they were top-numbered into one series, the A2917. As such there may be
file covers of the older system within the Department of Immigration’s A2917
records.
Language of material
Some of the documents within the migrant selection documents
may be in languages other than English, as for example certificates for trade
and professional qualifications acquired in the country of origin of the
migrant.
System of arrangement and control
Annual single number with SD prefix.
Relationships with other records
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Finding aids
Records from 1973 to 1978 have been entered on to
RecordSearch as at February 2009. On-going work to process records from 1979
onwards is continuing.