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5 law&history 117 (2018)
Australia's Most inhumane Mass Deportation Abuse: Robtelmes v Brenan and Expulsion of the Alien Islanders

handle is hein.journals/lwanhist5 and id is 125 raw text is: 'Australia's Most Inhumane Mass Deportation Abuse': Robtelmes v Brenan and Expulsion of the 'Alien' Islanders Peter Prince* In 1906, the High Court ofAustralia decided a case that is still cited today in support of the Commonwealth's sweeping power over 'aliens' under the Constitution. The significance of the case as a violation of the rule of law has, however, yet to be appreciated. In Robtelmes v Brenan (1906), the High Court declared the country's entire community ofSouth Sea Islanders to be 'indisputably alien' people who could be forcibly deported' under the 'aliens power' in the Constitution. Under legal principles unchanged since Calvin's Case (1608), nationality and alien status had nothing to do with the colour of a person's skin. Contrary to law, the newly established Australian High Court held that all Islanders were aliens because of their race. Moreover, in their previous political careers, the three judges - ChiefJustice Griffith and justices Barton and O'Connor - had been leading advocates for replacing Islanders with white labourers for plantation labour. It was also, then, as this article demonstrates, a major conflict of interest for these High Court judges to uphold the expulsion of Islanders in their judgment in Robtelmes. The article argues the expulsion of the Australian Islander community was therefore unlawful. Keywords: aliens power, Pacific Islanders, Robtelmes v Brenan, forcible deportation, New Hebrides, Samuel Griffith * The author thanks the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their valuable comments and suggestions.