Scott Morrison has sparked outrage by saying there was no slavery in Australia despite shocking images showing aboriginal people in chains in the 19th century.
In an interview on Sydney radio 2GB, the Prime Minister was asked whether statues of Captain James Cook should be removed in response to a movement in the UK to topple monuments to slave traders.
He rejected the idea and said: ‘It was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia.’
Thousands of activists have pointed out that although slavery was never legal Down Under, convicts, Indigenous Australians and Pacific Islanders were all victims of forced labour.
Mr Morrison’s critics said he should ‘read a book’ and shared images of chained-up Aboriginal people from a Western Australia state library collection which resurfaced earlier this year.
Scott Morrison has sparked outrage by saying there was no slavery in Australia despite shocking images showing aboriginal people in chains in the 19th century
Shocking black and white photos showcase the cruel ways Aboriginal people were treated from the late 1890s
Huge groups of Aboriginal men and boys are pictured chained together, standing or sitting, wearing just a cloth around their waist, as white policemen and ‘Aboriginal trackers’ stand beside them with four rifles
Aboriginal prisoners (pictured) were chained and forced to lay a railway near Derby, Western Australia, about 1897
The images show Aboriginal prisoners – many of whom were accused of petty crimes such as killing cattle – shackled with heavy chains around their necks, guarded by white men armed with rifles.
Sometimes police were paid per indigenous prisoner they caught and brought them into jail using chains. Some prisoners were put to work on boats while others were forced to lay railways.
Even aboriginal people not accused of crimes were used as unpaid labour until the 1960s, particularly in the agricultural industry, with only rations and a bed to show for their toil.
Before then, convicts shipped to Australia from Ireland and the UK were treated as slave labor. They were subject to ‘assigned service’ where they were leased out to rich landowners to use as a cheap workforce.
And from the mid-19th century, around 60,000 pacific islanders were illegally kidnapped from their homes and taken to Australia by colonialists who forced them to work on farms in a practice known as ‘blackbirding’.
Emelda Davis, President of the Australian South Sea Islanders, wrote in a 2017 article for The Conversation: ‘The treatment of the Islanders was atrocious, exploitative and akin to slavery.
‘When plantation owners went bankrupt, the workers were transferred as an asset with the sold property.’
Some Aboriginal prisoners were put to work on a boat (pictured) while other prisoners were forced to lay railways
Police were paid per indigenous prisoner and cruelly brought them into jail using chains where they were forced to work
In early Australia, incarceration was used as a tool to weaken the Aboriginal people and were often arrested for petty crimes
The haunting collection of photographs show Aboriginal people chained, captioned ‘Native Prisoners on N.2’, in about 1930
A chilling image shows one lonely Aboriginal man (pictured) standing in chains as he leans against a tree with a piece corrugated iron at the stump of the tree as well as a hat and pile of cloth
Another image shows white man dressed in shirt and trousers holding a chain connected to two elderly Indigenous prisoners
Hundreds of Aboriginal prisoners were captured and chained, forced to work on many projects including laying rails
Two white men are pictured with three horses, with one of them leading an Aboriginal man by a chain to his neck
At least 20 Indigenous Australians were photographed standing in a shallow river, all chained together (pictured)
Haunting photos show the disturbing history and abuse of aboriginal people in the early twentieth century (pictured 1930)
Australia is marking their ten year anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
One decade ago, the declaration was passed to combat the discrimination, marginalisation and human rights violations of the 370 million Indigenous people living in more than seventy countries today
A line of Indigenous men were photographed at the turn of the century wearing chains during their transit to jail (pictured)
At least 30 Aboriginal prisoners are pictured chained together being led to Cossack Gaol in Western Australia around 1902