After a change of government at the 1949 federal election, the new immigration minister Harold Holt overturned Calwell's decision and allowed Gamboa to rejoin his family; he settled permanently in Australia in 1952.

[4] In March 1942, Gamboa was taking a train back to his barracks when he met Joyce Cain, a 16-year-old Australian girl who worked at a biscuit factory.

[3] After being discharged from the army in 1945, Gamboa's father-in-law found him work with the Victorian Railways, and he settled in Melbourne to live with his wife and son.

[6] His continued presence was discovered by the Department of Immigration in early 1946, after he attempted to collect a ration book, and he was subsequently given three months to leave the country.

[3] He left for the United States in June 1946,[7] travelling alongside Australian war brides joining their non-white American husbands.

However, the Department of Immigration informed the Australian Mission in Tokyo that he would not be allowed to enter the country at all, as he was non-white and his case would be a precedent for other Asian war evacuees to remain in Australia.

[8] In early 1949, Gamboa encountered Australian Associated Press journalist Denis Warner while waiting in an army post office in Tokyo.

Warner's article about the case sparked a media frenzy, with coverage in popular daily newspapers and weekly magazines overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Gamboas and hostile to the government.

Calwell defended his actions during a campaign rally at the Brunswick Town Hall in November 1949, stating "there is nothing wrong with the Labor Party's administration of the White Australia policy".

[12] The government was not only accused of cruelty towards the Gamboas, but also of endangering the White Australia policy through an overly heavy-handed approach that was likely to antagonise Asian countries.

Opposition Leader Robert Menzies attacked the immigration department's "singularly unpleasant process of victimisation", but reaffirmed the basic principles of the White Australia policy.

Two days after the election, in December 1949, he cabled Joyce Gamboa and told her that her husband would be allowed to settle in Australia; an official announcement was made in February 1950.

In April 1949, President Quirino expressed his disappointment "that our neighbour, to whom we looked for friendship, should exclude us because of our colour", and stated that "we, the people of the Philippines, have been deeply humiliated".

Author Hal Porter was subjected to a six-hour visa interview, in which he was asked his opinions of the Gamboa case and the White Australia policy.

His colleague Domingo Paguirigan put forward a motion calling on President Quirino to close the country's consulate in Sydney.

[16] In the ensuing debate, Cipriano Primicias called Australians "the biggest hypocrites in the world", and said that the Philippines should invade Australia to preserve its honour.

[18] The Senate added an amendment exempting Australian wives of Filipino citizens, but a sudden adjournment prevented a final vote on the bill.

In 1957, Ambassador Mick Shann sent a communique to the Department of External Affairs recording his dismay at the number of times the Gamboa case had been raised with him, and emphasised the need to counteract the impressions given.