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Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901
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.
Royal assent	17 December 1901
Introduced by	Edmund Barton, Prime Minister
Amended by
1906
Related legislation
Immigration Restriction Act 1901
Status: Unknown

The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (Cth) was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which banned the further immigration of Pacific Island labourers (a term given wide definition) from 1904 and the deportation of all such persons from 1906. Together with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth) it carried into effect a national White Australia policy.

Following a Queensland Royal Commission, a power to allow certain exemptions to the Act was granted to the relevant minister by the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1906 (Cth). The first attempted deportation under the Act resulted in a challenge to the constitutional validity of the Act which was dismissed. Its implementation resulted in the expulsion from Australia of more than 7,000 South Sea Islanders from Queensland and northern New South Wales. The Act was amended in 1906 to allow some exemptions and about 1,000 others otherwise escaped the enforcement of the law.

The Act was held valid by the High Court of Australia when the first deportation was challenged. It was repealed by the Migration Act 1958 (Cth).

Background to 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.

The "main instruments for carrying into effect a national White Australia policy which had been supported by most members during the election campaigns" were the Immigration Restriction and the Pacific Island Labouers Bills and these were the cause of the "first great debate" of the new Parliament.

Provisions of the Act

The Act prohibited any Pacific Islanders from entering Australia after 31 March 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 31 December 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 31 December 1906.

Queensland Royal Commission

In April 1906, the Queensland Government established a royal commission in response to concerns about the impact of the Act. The commissioners were given terms of reference:

1."... to determine the number of islanders to be deported, their present residence, and the locality to which they may be deported in tho most efficient manner, repatriating them; with the probable cost thereof";

2. "Whether there be in the State of Queensland any islanders whose compulsory deportation would be inconsistent with humanity or good faith" ...;

3. "Whether sufficient labour for carrying on the Queensland sugar industry is likely to be available in the State of Queensland when Pacific Islanders can no longer be lawfully employed, and ... the best means of supplying the deficiency."

The commissioners reported on 30 June 1906. They recommended that several groups be exempted from deportation: "those unfitted for life in the Islands by age, infirmity or long residence in Queensland; those who had fled to escape punishment and would be killed on return; those married to a woman of another Island or a white or Aboriginal woman and whose lives would be or a endangered because of that; those whose children had been educated at State schools and those who had acquired freehold or leasehold land."

1906 Act

The Deakin Government accepted the recommendation of the Queensland royal commission in part. By the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1906, the relevant Minister was granted a power to issue a certificate of exemption from the provisions of the 1901 Act. The certificate might be issued to any Pacific Island labourer on the grounds of "age, infirmity, or marriage with a non-Pacific Island native".

Constitutional validity

The Act was challenged in the High Court of Australia in Robtelmes v Brenan [1906] HCA 58; (1906) 4 CLR 395 (2 October 1906). The Court (Griffith CJ, Barton and O'Connor JJ) unanimously in three concurring judgments dismissed the challenge "accepting that the power to admit, exclude, or expel aliens is a prerogative of government and an inherent part of state sovereignty".

Repeal

The Act was repealed by the Migration Act 1958 (Cth).

Further reading

On the background to and the operation of the Act:

• Joe Harris and W. J. Harris, "The Struggle against Pacific Island Labour, 1868-1902", Labour History, No. 15 (Nov, 1968), pp. 40-48, JSTOR 27507908;
• Peter Corris, "Pacific Island Labour Migrants in Queensland", The Journal of Pacific History, Vol 5, (1970), pp. 43-64 JSTOR 25168020;
• Charles A. Price and Elizabeth Baker, "Origins of Pacific Island Labourers in Queensland, 1863-1904: A Research Note", The Journal of Pacific History, Vol 11, No 2, Labour Trade [Part 2] (1976), pp. 106-121, JSTOR 25168255;

On the Act in Australian immigration law:

• Eve Lester, "Imagining the 'promise of justice' in the prohibition on racial discrimination: paradoxes and prospects" [2007] IHLRes 8 (28 June 2007);

On the Act in a labour migration policy setting:

• Lenore Layman, "'To Keep up the Australian Standard': Regulating Contract Labour Migration 1901-50", Labour History, No 70 (May, 1996), pp. 25-52, JSTOR 27516408.

External links

• Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (Cth), Documenting a Democracy, Museum of Australian Democracy, Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
• Tracey Flanagan, Meredith Wilkie, Susanna Iuliano, "A history of South Sea Islanders in Australia", Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Commonwealth of Australia, 2 December 2003

Category:Commonwealth of Australia laws Category:Labour history of Australia Category:Immigration to Australia Category:1901 in Australia Category:Repealed Australian legislation