"Australia when it was founded as a settlement, as New South Wales, was on the basis that there'd be no slavery...It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia."
- Scott Morrison
Hold my beer...(1/7)
- Scott Morrison
Hold my beer...(1/7)
The Australian colonies were built with convict labour. Most convicts were leased out to private citizens and placed entirely under their control. The unwillingness of wealthy landowners to give up convict labour was the reason it continued for so long in Australia. (2/7)
Indentured labourers, known as Coolies, were brought to Australia from India and China in the 1800. They were given contracts to work for 5-6 years in return for food, lodging and minimal pay (which most never received). (3/7)
Many Coolies absconded due to poor conditions. They were subject to assaults, slavery and kidnap. If they complained about their conditions they were often imprisoned. (4/7)
Sugar plantation owners in NSW and Queensland engaged in the practice of 'blackbirding', kidnapping or coercing Pacific Islanders for use as unpaid or poorly paid labours. This practice continued into the early 20th century. (5/7)
From the beginning of British colonialism until the 1960s, Indigenous Australians were used as unpaid labour in a range of industries from pastoralism to prostitution. Aboriginal children were regularly abducted from their families and sold as domestic labour. (6/7)
All of these practices meet the modern definition of slavery. When Scott Morrison, or anyone else, denies Australia having a racist past, they are setting us up for a racist future.
Don't let them do that. (7/7)
Don't let them do that. (7/7)
And for those who don't like to dwell on the past, in 2016 the Global Slavery Index estimated there were 15,000 people living in illegal conditions of modern slavery in Australia.
