South Sea Islanders

It’s something that the Australian Government should do again as part of its Pacific ‘Step-up’ foreign policy to promote connections between the Pacific people, said Ralph Regenvanu.

“The Australian Government did have a programme dedicated to assist South Sea Islanders financially, to come back to Vanuatu to find and get to know their roots,” he said.

“I think it’s a good step if the Australian Government could restart that programme as a first step towards what more we can do.

“It’s something that the South Sea Islanders have called upon.

The Mayor of Bundaberg, Jack Dempsey, on Friday issued a formal apology for the trafficking of around 62,000 people from Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, who worked in Queensland's sugar cane fields between the 1860s and the early 1900s.

Jane Smith, a Bundaberg resident whose grandparents were taken from Tanna island in Vanuatu, said it was hard not to see the parallels between blackbirding.