Skippy Australian
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A Skippy Australian or Skip is a colloquial term for Australians of Northern European (ie, Anglo, Celtic, Dutch, German or Scandinavian) descent. The term is derived from the title character of a late-1960s Australian television show Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. As a term for Australians of the majority culture, it was popularised by the Australian television show, Acropolis Now, whose mainly Greek-Australian cast affectionately referred to Anglo-Celtic Australians as "Skippies".
Until the early 1950s, Australian immigration was regulated by the White Australia Policy, which only permitted immigrants to Australia from a few select backgrounds (eg, British, Irish, southern and eastern European) in an effort to keep Australia "more or less homogeneous". Post war economic growth, and the 1958 immigration act had already set in train a large influx of immigration from a variety of countries (notably Italy, Greece, the Baltic states and the Balkans). These were followed by a second wave of Lebanese in the early 1970s, and Vietnamese in the late 1970s. For these immigrants, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (which was repeated ad nauseam throughout the 1970s on Australian television) would have typified Australia's monoculture prior to the 1970s. The Whitlam Labor Government abolished the last vestiges of racial selectivity in Australian immigration policy in 1973.
The use of skippy as a racial/cultural term might be considered an example of discrimination, a satirical reaction to the racial epithet wog that was aimed at immigrants from Southern Europe by those from the dominant Anglo-Celtic Australian culture. Recent riots in Sydney have seen the term used as a racially derogatory insult, confirming a trend that started in the last 10 years.
