Australian South Sea Islanders Port Jackson

The Australian South Sea Islanders – Port Jackson (ASSI-PJ) represent the interests of the Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) people with regards to supporting and promoting ASSI culture, identity, human rights, well-being, economic, social and educational interests within the context of being one of the many contributing cultures of non-European origin in Australia.

Today ASSI people remain marginalised, unrecognised, and even unknown to exist as citizens of Australia, with their labour contribution to the nation’s economic base hidden in history, and their own history hidden even from themselves as a community.

The term “Australian South Sea Islander” refers to the Australian descendants of people from more than 80 islands in the Western Pacific including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in Melanesia, the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Rotuma (Fiji), Tuvalu in Polynesia and Micronesia who were recruited to the indentured labour trade which was akin to slavery, and started in NSW in 1847 (through Benjamin Boyd), with an influx to QLD between 1863-1908, to work and establish Australia’s economic base in sugar cane, maritime and pastoral industries.