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This paper examines ten years (1963–1973) of visits to Australia of Italian Communist Party (PCI) officials. In particular, the visits' origins, meaning and ramifications are analysed and framed against the background of post‐war migrant worker identity discourses and radical politics. They appear to have shaped markedly the direction of the experience of Italian communists in Australia, especially in Sydney, and their interaction with both the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the PCI. Ultimately, they helped spread the message of Italian communism among migrants and encourage the replication on Australian soil of the successful experience of the Europe‐based PCI federations with thousands of worker members. For the CPA, which had been looking for new ways to break through to the hearts and minds of the migrant proletariat, the visits heralded a stronger partnership with its Italian members, a closer link with Eurocommunism, and a potential new stream of recruits that would have reversed the hemorrhaging of membership. The visits were instrumental, as argued in this paper, for the establishment and promotion of an Italian cultural and language space for which far‐left Italian migrants in Australia had long yearned.

Australia is home to numerous diaspora communities that have settled in Australia throughout the twentieth century. Over the decades, these ethnic communities have adapted to the Australian way of life and while there was an attempt to create a single national identity, many immigrant communities continue to maintain their cultural and linguistic links with their origin homeland. It is to be expected that many within these communities feel they owe some obligation to their original homeland. At times this manifests itself as personal, economic support to family structures back home; at others, in more complex, event-based investments. This study is a preliminary critique of philanthropic trends in Australiás diasporic coarious diasporas, very few address the dual theme in Australia. Some studies havemmunties. While studies exist across the world on the philanthropic practices of v pursued the two themes in separate contexts. Very few have explored the two concepts of diaspora communities and the philanthropic behavior of these communities as a single combined theme. The aim of this article is to undertake a preliminary and critical study on this significant and growing phenomenon.