During the time of
Federation a very small number of ethnic Serbs inhabited Australia. Despite a lack of accurate data, it is assumed that ethnic Serbs deriving from
Lika,
Dalmatia, and
Montenegro did reside in largely
mining communities throughout the Commonwealth, though exact numbers are unsubstantiated. The first significant, albeit small wave of Serb immigrants, comprising mostly former
POWs, and
displaced persons fleeing
war and
genocide began arriving in Australia as
post-war immigrants. This initial wave also included members of the royalist
Chetnik movement fleeing political persecution by the
Communist regime of
Josip Broz Tito. The easing of emigration restrictions by
Yugoslavia generated a second, larger wave of predominantly
economic migration throughout the 1960s and 1970s. An agreement between Australia and Yugoslavia facilitated the recruitment of largely unskilled and semi-skilled immigrants, from predominantly rural backgrounds to work in Australia's
manufacturing and construction industries. The developing political and economic issues in Yugoslavia during the 1980s, alongside its
disintegration,
ensuing wars,
economic sanctions, and
economic crisis of the 1990s, resulted in the largest Serbian migration to Australia. In recent years, some Serbian Australians have joined the "Serbian Chetniks Australia" organisation. This organization promoting the concept of
Chetnik forces fighting against the Nazi forces in Yugoslavia during the World War II has participated in
Anzac Day marches in Melbourne and Sydney which drew criticism from the
Croatian Australian and
Bosnian Australian communities. == Demographics ==