From 1858, Chinese migration to Australia again spiked due to the gold rushes, but this was mostly voluntary travel. These events together with concurrent disasters in the Chinese coolie trade to Cuba and Peru, ended Asian coolie transportation to Australia by 1855. Out of nearly 250 coolies who had embarked on Spartan, only 180 arrived in Australia. The second-mate and ten of the Chinese were killed before the captain was able to regain control. The poor conditions on board the vessel Spartan, chartered by Robert Towns, sparked a rebellion of coolies against the crew of the ship. There were no berths, bedding, medical, or toilet facilities available on the vessel and a great deal of kidnapping was involved in the recruitment process. The inquiry found that 70 coolies had died aboard General Palmer during the voyage from Amoy to Sydney and that others had died from sickness once in Australia. A number of scandals occurred that caused a government select committee to be formed to investigate the importation of Asiatic labour.
Around another 1500 Chinese coolies were shipped into Australia up to the year 1854 with Robert Towns and Gordon Sandeman again being the principal organisers of the trade. Many of these coolies were abandoned, perished in the bush, were jailed, or were found wandering the streets of Melbourne with no food or shelter. Toward the end of 1848, Nimrod and Phillip Laing brought a further 420 mostly Chinese coolies into the Port Phillip District. Indian coolie transportation was largely discontinued after this but the first shipment of 150 Chinese coolies arrived in Melbourne in 1847 aboard the brig Adelaide and another 31 arrived in Perth a year later. Those who protested their condition as breach of contract were often imprisoned. Many of these coolies were subject to beatings, were left unpaid, unfed or unclothed, and some died of exposure or by attacks. Some were leased out to Helenus Scott's Glendon property in the Hunter Valley. These coolies went either to labour on Wentworth's pastoral properties such as Burburgate on the Namoi River or worked as servants at his Vaucluse House mansion. Wentworth and Robert Towns arranged a shipment of 56 Indian coolies who arrived in a state of starvation in 1846. Davidson imported 30 Indian coolies into Melbourne, and in 1844 Sandeman and Phillip Freil organised a shipment of 30 Indian coolies, most of whom were sent to work on their properties in the Lockyer Valley. Government enquiries delayed further coolie importation, but in 1842 a number of colonists, including William Wentworth and Gordon Sandeman, formed an Association to Import Coolies to pressure the colonial government into allowing further intakes. The coolies were also subject to assault, slavery, and kidnap. The contracts included a 5 or 6 year term of indenture with food, clothing, pay and shelter to be provided, but many absconded, due to reasons of these conditions not being met. This was the first sizeable transport of coolie labour into Australia and Mackay leased most of them out as shepherds to work at John Lord's Underbank land-holding just north of Dungog. John Mackay, an owner of indigo plantations in Bengal and a distillery in Sydney, organised the import of 42 coolies from India who arrived on 24 December 1837 on board Peter Proctor. In 1837 a Committee on Immigration identified the possibility of importing coolie labourers from India and China as a solution. With the ceasing of convict transportation to New South Wales becoming imminent by the late 1830s, colonists required a substitute cheap form of labour.
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