|
Year
|
Legislation
|
Purpose
|
|
1868
|
Polynesian Labourers Act
|
Created
to enable people to carry on their operations in tropical and semi-tropical
agriculture, to secure proper treatment and protection for labourers, and
security for the employer that the immigrant would fulfil their agreement.
To ensure employers
notified the government of the number of indentured labourers and guarantee
they were returned to their homeland after the term of the indenture (three
years). To provide for a government representative on each recruitment vessel
to ensure that recruits were aware of the terms of the indenture.
|
|
1872
|
Pacific Islanders Protection Act
1872 and 1875
|
Created to provide
further protection for South Sea Islanders against kidnapping. Labourers and
vessels carrying labourers required to have licenses, with fines issued or
court action for non-compliance.
|
|
1880
|
Pacific Island Labourers Act
|
Repealed the Act of
1868.
Created to regulate
and control the treatment of labourers, limit the age of recruits and return labourers
to their rightful islands. To provide for medical treatments, rations and
dress allowance.
|
|
1884
|
Pacific Island Labourers Act
|
Amendment to the 1880
Act.
Created to apply
further restrictions on labourers so that they could only work in unskilled
agricultural work, specifically the
cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, tea, coffee, rice, spices, or other
tropical or semi-tropical productions or fruits. To make illegal the supply
of fire arms to South Sea Islanders.
|
|
1887
|
Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880
Amendment Act
|
Amended the definition
of Pacific Islanders in the Act.
|
|
1901
|
Immigration Restriction Act 1901
|
The newly formed
government of the Commonwealth of Australia enacted this legislation. Created
to place restrictions on immigration by applying a dictation test. The
intention of the test was to restrict entry to Australia of all non-European
immigrants, such as Asians and South Sea Islanders. The Act provided for the
removal of prohibited immigrants, such as South Sea Islanders.
|
|
1901
|
Post and Telegraph Act
|
Section 15 of the act
provided that ships carrying Australian mail, and therefore being subsidised
by the Federal government, were to only employ ‘white’ labour.
|
|
1901–1906
|
Pacific Islands Labourers Act
|
Modelled on the
Queensland Pacific
Island Labourers Act 1884. Created and enacted by the Commonwealth of Australia. Provided
for the regulation, restriction and prohibition of labourers from the Pacific
Islands. Provided for the deportation of Pacific Islanders from Australia. Exemptions were Pacific Islanders who were
brought to Queensland before 1 September 1879.
|
