Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901

Infobox AU Legislation
short_title=Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901
parliament=Parliament of Australia


long_title=An Act to provide for the Regulation, Restriction and Prohibition of the Introduction of Labourers from the Pacific Islands and for other purposes.
introduced_by=
date_passed=
royal_assent=17 December 1901
commencement=
amendments= 1906
related_legislation=Immigration Restriction Act 1901
status=Repealed

The "Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901" was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which was designed to facilitate the mass deportation of nearly all the Pacific Islanders working in Australia. Along with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, enacted six days later, it formed an important part of the White Australia policy. In 1901, there were approximately 10,000 Pacific Islanders working in Australia, most in the sugar cane industry in Queensland and northern New South Wales, many working as indentured labourers. The Act ultimately resulted in the deportation of approximately 7,500 Pacific Islanders.

History of the Act

Beginning in the 1860s, tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were brought to Australia as low paid labourers. By the early 1890s, 46,000 labourers had arrived in Queensland, and up to 62,000 labourers arrived in all. Many of these people were forcibly removed from their homes, in a process called "blackbirding", by which Islanders were either kidnapped or deceived into travelling to Australia. They were brought to fuel the growing need for cheap labour in the sugar industry, since white labour was scarce and expensive. The majority of labourers were employed under indentured labour arrangements, whereby they received either no pay or extremely small amounts of pay. By 1880, Queensland legislation prevented Pacific Islanders from working in higher paid jobs in sugar mills and other industrial areas, and limited them to manual agricultural labour. ref|labour_limit

Provisions of the Act

The Act prohibited any Pacific Islanders from entering Australia after March 31 1904, and required all those entering before then to have a license. During the year 1902, the maximum number of licences that could be issued was limited to three-quarters of the number of Pacific Islanders who left Australia in 1901. During 1903, this license quota lowered even further, to half of the total departures in 1902. Any person who brought a Pacific Islander into the country contrary to the Act could be fined GBP 100.

Any Pacific Islander found in Australia after December 31 1906 could be deported immediately by order of the Minister for External Affairs, and any Islander found in Australia before that date, who had not been employed under an indentured labour agreement at any time in the preceding month, could be deported immediately. It was an offence to employ a Pacific Islander in any other way than an indentured labour agreement, punishable by a fine of GBP 100. All such agreements were cancelled on December 31 1906.

References

# Australian Human Rights Opportunity Commission, "A history of South Sea Islanders in Australia," [http://www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/forum/Erace/history.html online]

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