During WWII, more than 18,000 Italian prisoners-of-war were sent to internment camps throughout Australia. Together with the interned 'enemy aliens', after 1942 a large number of them were employed in inland farms without much surveillance. Many prisoners of war and Italian-Australian interned worked hard in farms and cattle stations, thus gaining a favourable opinion as hard and committed workers by their Australian employers. This circumstance contributed to generate an environment more agreeable – than that before the war – for the Italian post-war migration to Australia.