Throughout its European history, Australia has solved recurrent labor shortages by importing workers from overseas. Situated on shipping lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the northern Australian pearlshelling industry became a significant locus of second-wave transnational labor flows (1870–1940) and by the 1880s was dependent on indentured workers from the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Exempted from the racially discriminatory Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, indentured Asian seamen, principally Japanese, maintained the industry until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. The Torres Strait pearlshelling industry, centered on Thursday Island in Far North Queensland, resumed in 1946 amid general agreement that the Japanese must not return. Nevertheless, in 1958, 162 Okinawan pearling indents arrived on Thursday Island in a controversial attempt to restore the industry's declining fortunes. This article is intended as a contribution to the history of transnational labor movements. It consults a range of sources to document this “Okinawan experiment,” the last large-scale importation of indentured Asian labor into Australia. It examines Australian Commonwealth-state tensions in formulating and adopting national labor policy; disputes among Queensland policy makers; the social characteristics of the Okinawan cohort; and local Indigenous reactions. Also discussed are the economics of labor in the final years of the Torres Strait pearling industry. This study thus extends our knowledge of transnational labor movements and the intersection of early postwar Australian-Asian relations with Queensland Indigenous labor policy. It also foreshadows contemporary Indigenous demands for control of local marine resources.

在整个欧洲历史上，澳大利亚通过从海外进口工人解决了经常性的劳动力短缺问题。位于太平洋和印度洋之间的航道上，北澳大利亚的珍珠壳业成为第二波跨国劳动力流动的重要场所（1870年至1940年），到1880年代，该行业依赖于太平洋和东南亚的契约工人。不受种族歧视的《移民限制法》的约束自1901年起，签约的亚洲海员（主要是日本人）一直维持该产业，直到1941年太平洋战争爆发。托雷斯海峡珍珠贝业一直集中在昆士兰州远北地区的星期四岛，于1946年恢复营业，因为人们普遍同意日本人不得返回。然而，在1958年，有162个冲绳珍珠凹痕到达星期四岛，这是有争议的尝试，以恢复该行业的衰落命运。本文旨在为跨国劳工运动的历史做出贡献。它咨询了各种资料来源，以记录这一“冲绳实验”，这是最近一次向澳大利亚大规模进口亚洲契约劳工。它审查了澳大利亚联邦制国家在制定和采用国家劳工政策中的紧张关系；昆士兰决策者之间的纠纷；冲绳人群的社会特征；和当地土著反应。还讨论了托雷斯海峡制珍珠业最后几年的劳动经济学。因此，这项研究扩展了我们对跨国劳工运动以及战后早期澳大利亚-亚洲关系与昆士兰土著劳工政策的交汇点的了解。它还预示了当代土著人对控制当地海洋资源的需求。