Bitter truth about sugar PM slavery claims ‘an insult to islanders’
SCOTT Morrison’s claim there was no slavery in Australia’s history was a “slight” to the South Sea islanders and Melanesians who built the region’s sugar industry, a North Queensland MP has said.
State One Nation MP Stephen Andrew, whose family were South Sea islanders, said the Prime Minister was “terribly misinformed” on Australia’s dark history.
This week, the Prime Minster told 2GB there was no history of slavery in Australia – a comment that angered many in indigenous communities.
“Australia, when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there would be no slavery,” Mr Morrison said.
“As slave ships continued to travel around the world, Australia was established, and sure, it was a pretty brutal settlement … but there was no slavery in Australia.”
His comments have drawn heavy criticism from historians and indigenous Australians, who said Mr Morrison had forgotten both blackbirding and the stolen wages of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The comments came as Mr Morrison was asked if statues, which honour people like Captain Cook, should be removed or reconsidered.
Townsville’s founder Robert Towns, who is immortalised in a statue near Bulletin Square, gazetted the Port of Townsville and was the first person to bring in South Sea islanders to North Queensland through the port from 1866.
The islanders cleared land for cane farms and cut cane to build one of the state’s biggest industries – sugar.
Melanesian labourers were bought through the port at Bowen.
Mr Andrew said the Prime Minister’s lack of knowledge about blackbirding was a slight on all South Sea islanders.
“My grandad remembers it all too well and … for him (Mr Morrison) to not even know … I can’t get over his level of understanding of what has happened in his country,” Mr Andrew said.
He added his great grandmother was “stolen” beach in Vanuatu.
Mr Town Towns, who was the prim primary exploiter of blackbird blac labour unti until 1867, cla claimed the S South Sea isl landers were ““savages who did not know the use of money” and p paid them in tic tickets at the end of their worki working in terms. Black Blackbirding kb was the aac act of tricking peo people through de deception or k kidnapping to work unpaid or as poorly paid labour rers. Blackbirded people were bro brought to Australia from islands in the P Pacific Ocean to work in the sugar and cotton industries. ind They were known as Kanakas and the act was especially prevalent between 1847 and 1904. The Queensland Government first tried to control blackbirding in 1868 with the Polynesian Labourers Act, but it was not effective. Blackbirding died out in 1904 as a result of a law, enacted in 1901, which called for the deportation of all Kanakas after 1906. off a