Maltese immigration into Australia : 1883-1949

Abstract

Australia's famous Sydney Opera House is reserved for the most special occassions. lt was thus fitting that on October 3, 1983, it should have been the venue for a celebration of the centenary of organized emigration from Malta to Australia. One hundred years earlier, seventy labourers and nine stowaways, accompanied by Father Ambrose Cassar, arrived at Townsville, in Queensland, on board the SS Nuddea. The labourers had been contracted to work on sugar cane fields, but they apparently became discontented on learning that they were being paid at lesser rates than Australian workers, and walked off the job, The plantation owners sought to exploit the Maltese as a source of cheap labour. The Pacific Islanders, or Kanakas, whom they usually employed at extremely low wages, were being outlawed by government legislation. The planters thus had to look elsewhere. They turned to poor countries with hot climates and non-Negroid and non-Asian populations: Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Malta. The Malta connection with Australia, however, dates back beyond 1883. It could be said that the first organized emigrants were in fact the eight who accompanied Francesco De Cesare, a member of the Maltese Government, when he undertook a fact-finding mission in Australia in 1882. De Cesare lobbied hard for Australian acceptance of Maltese immigrants and laid the foundations for the Nuddea group. [excerpt]