![]() ![]() They suffered the highest death rate by far of any contemporaneous immigrant group to Australia. Some were abducted, while others came after signing dubious contracts.Īll were treated somewhere between poorly and viciously. These workers hailed from islands in what are now New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and east of Papua New Guinea. ![]() Some 62,000 people were shipped to Australia between 18, mostly to Queensland, where they worked mainly in the sugar trade. ![]() Also at the heart of Australia’s history of slavery are the lives of South Sea Islanders.Ħ2,000 South Sea Islanders were shipped to Australia to work on plantations. There was plenty of forced labour in Australia, not least of Indigenous people. “I never knew we had slavery in Australia,” he says mournfully. Quinn conveys to the audience both police procedure, and the appalling labour practices of the 19th century and the more recent past.ĭespite having grown up in the town, Quinn has to google James Ashford when the statue is vandalised. Cormack butts heads with the local senior sergeant who would rather the skeletons of the past stay firmly in the closet.īut Cormack befriends the town’s rookie cop, Dale Quinn (Gulliver McGrath). ![]() He’s a cold-case specialist from the city with baggage of his own. Isabel’s letter brings detective James Cormack (Travis Fimmel) to town. Isabel’s death, the botched investigation and cover-up reflect that 1994 was only the beginning of a much-needed reckoning with the history of forced labour in Australia. ![]()
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