The terms of reference for this inquiry relate to 'Indigenous workers whose paid labour was controlled by Government'. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, governments put in place extensive controls over the employment, working conditions and wages of Indigenous workers. These controls permitted, both explicitly and implicitly, the non-payment of wages to some Indigenous workers...

This report begins by examining what is, in the committee’s view, a fundamental question in the administration of the Migration Act – the nature of the Minister’s responsibility for the actions and administrative ‘culture’ of their department. It then assess the migration process in roughly the order in which an applicant will encounter them: initial...