Nancy Prasad is an Australian woman of Indo-Fijian descent who as a child was the centre of a deportation drama in Australia.
On August 6, 1965, the five-year-old Prasad was scheduled for deportation to Fiji from Sydney Airport. However, Charles Perkins, an Aboriginal Australian activist, staged a fake "kidnapping" of Prasad, taking her from immigration officials at the airport. Perkins' intent was to highlight what he viewed as the injustice of the country’s "White Australia" immigration policy. [1] Many Australian newspapers covered the event. [2] The next day, Prasad was deported to Fiji.
In March 1973, Prasad was allowed to immigrate into Australia. A Daily Telegraph article in August 2015 described her role in Australian immigration policy history. [3]
Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about 110 are permanently inhabited—and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The most outlying island group is Ono-i-Lau. About 87% of the total population of 883,483 live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts: either in the capital city of Suva; or in smaller urban centres such as Nadi—where tourism is the major local industry; or in Lautoka, where the sugar-cane industry is dominant. The interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited because of its terrain.
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical racial policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting in 1901. Subsequent governments of Australia progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973.
Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport is an international airport in Sydney, Australia located 8 km (5 mi) south of the Sydney central business district, in the suburb of Mascot. The airport is owned by Sydney Airport Holdings. It is the primary airport serving Sydney, and is a primary hub for Qantas, as well as a secondary hub for Virgin Australia and Jetstar, as well as a focus city for Air New Zealand. Situated next to Botany Bay, the airport has three runways.
Julia Eileen Gillard is a British-born Australian politician who served as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia and Leader of the Labor Party from 2010 to 2013, the first and only woman to date to hold either role. She previously held the roles of Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion from 2007 to 2010.
Peter Craig Dutton is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as Minister for Defence and Leader of the House in the Morrison Government since March 2021. He has been a member of cabinet since 2013 and represented the Queensland seat of Dickson since 2001.
Pauline Curuenavuli, known professionally as Paulini, is a Fijian-Australian singer, songwriter and actress. Born in Suva, Fiji, Paulini moved to Sydney, Australia with her family at the age of four. She rose to fame in 2003 as a contestant on the first season of Australian Idol and placed fourth in the competition. Paulini subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony BMG Australia and released her debut studio album One Determined Heart (2004), which debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart and was certified platinum. The album included the platinum single "Angel Eyes", which spent three consecutive weeks at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart. Paulini received two ARIA No. 1 Chart Awards for both the album and single.
The Australian continent was first settled when ancestors of Indigenous Australians arrived via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea over 50,000 years ago.
Charles Nelson Perkins AO, commonly known as Charlie Perkins, was an Australian Aboriginal activist, soccer player and administrator. He was the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate tertiary education, and is known for his instigation and organisation of the 1965 Freedom Ride and his key role in advocating for a "yes" vote in the Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals). He had a long career as a public servant.
Immigration detention is the policy of holding individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, as well as those subject to deportation and removal until a decision is made by immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Mandatory detention refers to the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people seeking political asylum, or who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorized arrivals into a country. Some countries have set a maximum period of detention, while others permit indefinite detention.
Islam in Australia is a minority religious affiliation. According to the 2016 Australian Census, the combined number of people who self-identified as Muslim in Australia, from all forms of Islam, constituted 604,200 people, or 2.6% of the total Australian population, an increase of over 15% of its previous population share of 2.2% reported in the previous census 5 years earlier.
Peter Clarence Foster is an Australian career criminal who has been imprisoned in Australia, Britain, the United States, and Vanuatu for a variety of offences related to weight loss and other scams as well as absconding from justice. His convictions range from fraud and money laundering to contempt of court and resisting arrest.
Jarryd Lee Hayne is a former professional rugby league footballer who also briefly played American football and rugby union sevens. In March 2021, he was found guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a woman at her home in Newcastle, New South Wales in 2018. He is now serving a prison sentence of a minimum of three years and eight months, with earliest release in January 2025.
James Saleam is an Australian far-right extremist and the chairman of the Australia First Party. Saleam has been described as a white nationalist, who has been a strong advocate of barring further immigration to preserve a "self-contained, predominantly white nation resistant to further immigration or watering-down of its culture". He has been observed wearing a swastika armband and associating with neo-Nazi skinheads.
Chris Reason is a senior reporter and presenter for Seven News in Sydney, Australia. He was awarded the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of the Lindt Cafe siege in December 2014.
Scott John Morrison is an Australian politician serving as the 30th and current prime minister of Australia. He assumed office in August 2018 upon his election as leader of the Liberal Party.
Amber Augusta Rudd is a British energy and cyber security consultant. She is a former politician who served as Home Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2018 to 2019. She was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hastings and Rye being first elected in 2010, representing the Conservative Party, and stood down from parliament in 2019. She identifies herself as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies.
New Zealand Australians refers to Australian citizens whose origins are in New Zealand, as well as New Zealand migrants and expatriates based in Australia. Migration from New Zealand to Australia is a common phenomenon, given Australia's proximity to New Zealand, its larger economy and cultural links between the two countries.
Semi Radradra Turagasoli Waqavatu is a Fijian professional rugby union and rugby league footballer. He currently plays rugby union for the English club Bristol Bears and the Fiji national team. Nicknamed 'Semi Trailer', Radradra has played primarily as a wing in both codes.
The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian national rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams — seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded at the end of 2020 following the change of the Australian rugby TV broadcasting deal from Fox Sports, who funded the competition, to Stan Sport. The 2020 competition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shyla Angela Prasad is a model, actor and beauty pageant titleholder, holding the titles of Miss Australia, Miss Fiji and Miss Oceania.