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A century ago their forbears were thrown out under the White Australia policy, but a new generation of South Pacific Islanders could be invited back to the country to work as farm labourers.
As the economy booms and unemployment hits a 33-year low of 4 per cent, Australia
is considering following New Zealand's lead in allowing in Pacific Islanders to pick fruit and vegetables.
The National Farmers' Federation says at least 22,000 farm labourers are urgently needed and wants the Government to admit islanders from impoverished South Pacific nations.
A century ago villagers from present-day Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, formed the backbone of Queensland's sugar industry, cutting cane under near slave labour conditions.
Known as kanakas, some were kidnapped or lured through trickery on to blackbirding ships which roamed the South Pacific.
They were a key part of Queensland's fledgling economy until 1901, when the separate Australian colonies federated and introduced a White Australia policy under which the islanders were expelled.
The NFF wants the Labor Government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to create a new visa to allow islanders to work in the agricultural sector.
It says that in contrast with the past, there would have to be strict laws safeguarding the labourers' rights and working conditions.
There would also have to be measures to ensure that they did not overstay their visas, the NFF said.
Visas would be three to six months long, allowing islanders to fly to Australia, work a harvest, and return home.
"There's a frustration within the region that Australia allows in backpackers from Europe on working- holiday visas but denies work opportunities to people in its own backyard," a spokesman for the NFF said yesterday.
"They would be paid wages according to the market rate, in line with what Australians earn."
An initial pilot scheme would be modelled on recent experience across the Tasman. "Early indications from New Zealand are that it has worked incredibly well. It has alleviated their labour shortages, which are less acute than ours," the spokesman said.
The easing of Australia's long-running drought has brought bumper crops and farmers fear they do not have enough manpower to harvest them.
The proposal will be discussed when Mr Rudd meets island leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Niue in August.
His predecessor, John Howard, consistently stonewalled the idea but Labor has indicated that it may be more sympathetic.
A report released last month by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute recommended a "measured opening of borders that would allow Pacific Islanders to work more easily in Australia and Australians to work more easily in the Pacific Islands".