Migration from Italy to Australia is characterized by a barely discernable start, at the end of the 19th century, followed by an unremarkable flow in the next decades which suddenly changed, however, after the Second World War, becoming a real phenomenon, albeit not a mass one. This is the situation of the Italians in Australia, at different moments in time: just under four thousand in 1891; a little over eight thousand in 1921; twenty-six thousand seven hundred in 1933. (1) These numbers were the result of a growing tendency at the beginning of the 30s, due to the effects of the United States migration policy which culminated in a quota system. The numbers are rather low in absolute terms and are counterbalanced by the data recorded by the 1981 census, which established the Italian community at 603,241 individuals, equal to 4.1% of the Australian population, of which 282,784 were born in Italy and about 258,733 and 61,724 respectively second and third generation Italians. (2)
 Such a considerable increase in the number of Italians in Australia was the effect of the mass emigration which took place after the Second World War and that allowed the Australian population which had been born in Italy, which in 1947 amounted to thirty-three thousand six hundred individuals, to reach one hundred and twenty thousand and two hundred and twenty-eight thousand people, in 1954 and 1961 respectively. (3) The increase in the migrant flow sprung from the convergence of complementary needs: on the one hand those of Australia, which following the turnaround in migration policy that took place in 1947 (which partially derogated from the White Australian Policy, traditionally hostile towards non Anglo-Celtic immigration, often in a persecutory manner) opened its borders to workers from all European countries; on the other hand those of Italy, which in order to reduce the number of unemployed to avoid a growth in social tensions, literally built golden bridges for those willing to leave the country. The result of this good-will in the matter of international movement of labor was an agreement of assisted emigration, signed on 29 March 1951, which permitted and facilitated the emigration of about forty-four thousand Italians until 1964, the year in which it was no longer in force. However, it must be said that assisted emigration was but one part of a greater migration movement from Italy to Australia, to which free, or spontaneous, or private emigration must be added, which in the same period involved about two hundred and eighty thousand Italians. (4)

 Migration from Friuli Venezia Giulia was lost in the national phenomenon until after the Second World War when, following the vicissitudes and the territorial changes on the eastern border, it took on aspects of its own, different from the rest of Italy, and with very different components within itself. So differentiated that it does not seem exaggerated to talk of emigrations from Friuli Venezia Giulia to Australia after World War II, distinguishing three types: that of people from Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia; that of people from Trieste (and, to a lesser extent, from Gorizia) and that of people from Friuli.
 The present work will attempt to explain such complexity. After bringing to light the traces left by the people of Friuli, Giulia, Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia, (5) from the origins of Italian emigration to Australia until the Second World War, an attempt will be made to qualify and quantify what have been defined the emigrations from Friuli Venezia Giulia to Australia, also trying to explain the different reasons that in each case led to emigration.
 With regard to the migration following their decision to leave and their departure itself, that is, the impact of and settlement in Australia, we will try to summarize the first moments of the migration of Friulians and Giuliano Dalmati (That is those from Gorizia, Trieste, Fiume (which is now a part of Croatia), Pola (In Istria, which is now divided between Slovenia and Croatia) and Zara (in Dalmatia, which is now a part of Croatia) “Down Under”, using models and paradigms gathered from the emigrants themselves. A series of observations regarding the dynamics of migration from the 60s to now will conclude this work, with a reference to the return of migrants, both before and after the phenomenon known as inversion of the migration balance, which in Friuli Venezia Giulia first happened in 1967, earlier than the national average.