In Robtelmes v Brenan 120 years ago, Australia’s newly established high court approved an act of ethnic cleansing. Between 4,000 and 6,000 Australian South Sea Islanders were to be forcibly expelled as “aliens”, despite the majority having full legal belonging as “British subjects”.

To this day, the high court still cites Robtelmes for the right to expel or detain non-citizens “for any reason”. Ominously, the commonwealth also argues that potentially half the permanent population of Australia are “aliens” and subject to this power.

From an Australian South Sea Islander perspective, this case is not simply a historical wrong: it is a legal wound that remains open. Many South Sea Islanders know their ancestors were “blackbirded” to Australia, built families and communities here and many were legally British subjects. Yet the decision legitimised the forced removal of an entire community under the White Australia policy.

In Blackbirding: A Reckoning with the Australian Slave Trade, Ryan Butta describes how Sir Samuel Griffith, the first chief justice of the high court, had been a leading opponent of the kidnapping of South Sea Islanders when premier of colonial Queensland. But, as Butta says, slave trade opponents like Griffith “did not object to the introduction of slaves … they objected........

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