Admission Impossible is the true story of the behind-the-scenes political forces and the propaganda campaigns that attempted to populate Australia with “pure white” migrants.
Between 1865 – 1900 Pacific Islanders were kidnapped from their Island homes and brought to Australia for use as slave labour. They were rounded up and taken off to “they knew not where” in sailing ships.
The cruelty and savagery they experienced, at the hands of European recruiters, was appalling but after the first ones returned bringing back guns and steel tools, Islander life was transformed.
After that, a steady stream of men were sent over, not necessarily by choice, they were sent by the elders to bring these things back. So what had been a kidnapping service became a routine trade in human cargo.
Up until that period of time [c. 1890], they thought that only black men could do that hard manual outdoor labour; and the white man he had to work in the shade because his lily-white skin would get sunburnt.
Once they got to Queensland, as many as one third of them died. They worked from dawn, long before dawn in fact, until night with no food, little rest. They were beasts of burden. They were sold virtually on the dock, by the head, as commodities.
Pacific Islander ‘Kanakas’ are brought to Queensland as ‘a routine trade in human cargo’ to harvest cane. Reaction against them is instrumental in the formation of the White Australia Policy, which Phillip Adams discusses.
For much of the 20th century, successive Australian governments pursued a policy of deporting and barring entry to any race of people they considered undesirable, this was known as the White Australia policy.
In 1901 The Commonwealth of Australia becomes a self-governing member of the British Empire and the Immigration Restriction Act passed in Federal Parliament introduces a ‘dictation test’ with the prime purpose of excluding non-European migrants while the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act allowed for deportation of Pacific Islanders.
1903 Naturalisation Act excludes Asians and non-Europeans from the right to apply for naturalisation.
1904 Saw the deportation of Pacific Islanders from Queensland and the assisted immigration of Britons revived.
