The 2011 distribution by state and territory showed Victoria had the largest number with 11 600 followed by New South Wales (5752), Western Australia (3932) and Queensland (1476).
[citation needed] Based on the trading relationship between Mauritius and Australia which was established in 1803, the first Mauritian migrants arrived in Australia before the 1901 federation as convicts, fossickers during the gold rush, or sugar men who were skilled sugarcane workers who helped to develop Queensland's sugar industry.
Especially in the years leading to the 1968 Independence of Mauritius there was a significant increase in the number of Franco-Mauritians, Mulatto, and Mauritian Creoles who migrated permanently to Australia as a result of the anti-Hindu hegemony fear campaign which was financed by the white Franco-Mauritian owners of sugar estates and implemented by Gaetan Duval's Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate and the local press.
[citation needed] Base on ethnic lines, Creole Mauritians (Black and mixed-race) represent 50% of the community in Australia, this group were largest numbers leaving Mauritius after independence from colonial rule (Britain, and previously, France) in 1968.
The French speakers using the language as mother tongue represent the white Franco-Mauritians, Mulattos and gens de couleur (mixed-race Creoles) ethnic groups, making up at least 50% of the Mauritian community in Australia.