Ashmore and Cartier Islands 🏳

Fishermen from the Indonesian archipelago discovered the reefs and visited them regularly to collect trepang and other marine resources. This established a pattern of traditional use that long predated European claims and would later shape Australian policy on access rights.

Nash sighted the reefs while sailing the vessel Cartier, giving the feature its European name. It was the first recorded European encounter with the southern part of the territory, though Dutch and Portuguese vessels may have passed through earlier.

Ashmore's sighting brought the reef into European charts and gave it his name. The discovery laid the basis for later British claims over the group.

From the mid-1800s whaling crews extracted guano from the islands, the first commercial exploitation of the territory's resources. The deposits ran out by 1891, ending the only significant extractive industry the islands ever supported on land.

After HMS Barracouta visited in 1876, the colonial government of Western Australia sent a chartered vessel whose captain was authorised to take possession. The Colonial Office initially repudiated the act as beyond colonial authority.

Britain formally annexed the reef after the earlier colonial attempt was disowned, securing sovereignty over the group. Rival claims were made on behalf of the Netherlands and the United States, but neither was pressed.

The American whaling captain purported to rename the group the Caller Group after his vessel, the Sadie F. Caller. The U.S. Department of State rejected the claim two months later, and Webber instead formed the Melbourne Guano Company with Australian investors to work the guano under licence.

Captain Ernest Gaunt landed with five officers and around 200 seamen, raised the Union Jack and sang "God Save the King" while the ship fired a 21-gun salute. The display reaffirmed British sovereignty amid competing interest in the reefs.

The British claim of 1878 was widened to cover Cartier Island, unifying the group under a single title. This completed the territorial extent later transferred to Australia.

The state repeatedly asked the federal government to act against perahu from the Dutch East Indies operating around the islands and within state waters. Federal responses were constrained by Australia's lack of sovereignty over the territory.

The Australian businessman asked the Department of External Affairs for exclusive rights, complaining that perahu from Java and Timor were stripping the reef of trepang, trochus and seabirds. The petition highlighted the absence of any effective Australian jurisdiction over the reefs.

The Premier of Western Australia asked that the territory be brought under his state's jurisdiction to combat illegal fishing, while the British Colonial Secretary proposed that Australia manage fishing licences. Prime Minister Stanley Bruce told the state in February 1925 that Britain was prepared to transfer the territory, and Western Australia offered to administer it.

In July 1931 the British government issued an order-in-council placing Ashmore and Cartier Islands under Commonwealth authority, providing that the uninhabited islands would pass to the Commonwealth of Australia once Australia legislated to accept them. It set the legal mechanism for the eventual handover, with formal administration beginning in 1933.

The Act was passed on 15 December 1933 and the islands formally became part of Australia on 10 May 1934. It authorised the Governor of Western Australia to make ordinances for the territory, giving Australia sovereignty over the reefs for the first time.

Legal complications led Western Australia to abandon its attempt to control the islands in 1937. From 19 July 1938 the federal government designated the territory as part of the Northern Territory.

Naval ships called at the islands during the Second World War, and in the following years the territory was used for weapons testing. Cartier Island served as a defence weapons range for training exercises until sometime before 1980.

The sighting was the first record of the species in the territory in thirteen years. A dugong was similarly observed at Ashmore Reef in 2022 for the first time since 2005, suggesting some recovery of rare marine fauna.

A survey concluded that populations had not recovered from illegal harvesting during the 1980s. The finding underlined the long-term ecological cost of unregulated fishing in the reserve.

The court found the 2002–2013 declaration of the islands as a port invalid, meaning some 1,600 asylum seekers who arrived there should not have been treated as offshore arrivals. Later that year the Australian government passed a law retroactively validating the 2002 proclamation, restoring the offshore designation.

As of 2018 there were six production licences, sixteen exploration permits and nine retention leases in the Ashmore and Cartier Islands. Offshore hydrocarbons constitute the territory's principal economic significance.

A passenger lit petrol aboard the boat in the belief that those on board would be returned to Indonesia. Five people died in the incident, which became a focal point of debate over Australian border operations.

Stricter policing of the prohibition within the Marine Park followed. The shark population at Ashmore Reef has grown significantly since.

Ashmore and Cartier Islands, together with Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and other offshore sites, were removed from Australia's migration zone. The change prevented those arriving there from claiming protection in Australia and made the reefs central to offshore processing policy.

Cartier Island, a former bombing range, was declared a marine reserve in 2000, extending formal protection to the southern part of the territory and complementing the 1983 Ashmore Reef reserve. Together the two reserves placed almost the whole territory under conservation management.

The arrival came as large numbers of refugees from Afghanistan and Middle Eastern nations began moving through Malaysia from the late 1990s. The islands became a first point of Australian territory for irregular maritime arrivals.

Canberra clarified that fishermen using engines or motors fell outside the traditional category protected by the 1974 MOU and were barred from the area. The decision narrowed Indonesian access rights considerably.

Munitions left from years of use as a weapons range were removed. The clean-up followed the end of live-fire training at the island.

Ashmore Reef, which supports a rich and diverse avian and marine habitat, was declared a National Nature Reserve in 1983. The reserve protected the reef and prohibited fishing in surrounding waters shallower than 50 metres, marking a shift from a resource frontier to a conservation area and constraining traditional fishing access.

Self-government for the Northern Territory did not extend to Ashmore and Cartier Islands, which stayed under direct Commonwealth control. This preserved federal authority over the strategically and legally sensitive reefs.

The MOU permitted traditional Indonesian fishermen to access parts of the Ashmore Islands and fish in surrounding waters, in an area later known as the MOU Box. It formalised centuries-old use rights within Australia's exclusive economic zone and remains the framework for access. Most users came from Rote, particularly the villages of Pepela and Oelaba.

Infrastructure for navigation and meteorology was placed on the islands over two decades. These installations gave Australia a permanent technical presence on otherwise uninhabited reefs.