He showed the original Immigration Restriction Act 1901 that established the "white Australia policy", instances of the notorious dictation test that was used to enforce it , and the certificates of exemption issued to residents travelling overseas to enable them to re-enter.
Although the early years of our nation were devoted to keeping people out, the focus shifted to encouraging migrants to come and demonstrating how happy they were to be here. The Destination: Australia website gathers thousands of images from the collection and also offers the opportunity for people who recognise family members to add their stories.
Group members wishing to explore these ideas further should begin with the overview of migration records on the NAA website
The RecordSearch engine includes a tab designed specifically to search incoming passenger lists (which Greg reminded us includes many airline manifests as well as ocean shipping records.) But even if you do not find your family name indexed it is well worth running a Basic Search for the name of the ship on which they travelled and the approximate dates which can reveal records not yet fully processed.
Note that your list of “found” records will show those digitised and/or available as a pdf with an appropriate icon. These images can be viewed online. If that is not the case, clicking on the “control symbol” (in column 3) will take you to a page showing where the paper record is held and allowing you to Request a copy (for a small fee).
All recently digitised records can be reviewed through the SODA tool (which members will probably have used to view military service records).