By Australian Socialists

How NG Women Were Robbed

AN attempt to ventilate one of the really scandalous things which have been done to the neople of Papua and New Guinea caused the suspension of Mr. H. L. Anthony. MP. in the closing hours of the Australian Parliament, re cently.

When the Australian Government abandoned 300 civilians to the Japanese in Rabaul, early in 1942, it deprived many scores of women of their bread winners. Those women had been evacu ated from Rabaul at the end of 1941, but the men had to remain there, and they disappeared when the invasion oc curred. Their fate (they were lost on the “Montevideo Maru” in the middle of 1942) was not definitely known for two or three years.

In the meantime, the Australian Gov ernment paid to the dependants of these men a living allowance, which was called an advance, and recorded officially as re payable.

In due course, the deaths of the Rabau] men were proved, and their dependants thenceforth, received an official pension, A large number of those men were public servants, and their heirs were entitled to certain funds which had accumulated by way of superannuation. When those payments were made to the women con cerned, the Australian Government de ducted, from the amount due, the sums which had been paid to the women in 1942-45 as living allowance.

The monstrous injustice of this proce dure is apparent to anyone. The living allowances became pensions as from the time when the deaths of the men oc curred: the deaths occurred in practically every case in 1942; yet, because the deaths were not officially confirmed until 1944 or 1945, the women were penalised in the way described.

One who was treated in this way by the Australian Government, and whose case was mentioned by Mr. Anthony in making a strong protest against such a procedure, was Mrs. Harold Page, widow of the late Government Secretary.

When the Minister (Mr. Ward) was re plying to Mr. Anthony he turned his usual spate of abuse upon that gentle man and insisted that he had misrepre sented the position. It was clear that Mr. Anthony had done nothing of the sort the facts are as stated above.

Mr. Anthony tried to make a protest by way of personal explanation, but he was blocked by the Speaker Mr. Sol, Rosevear, who has become notorious for his practice of stepping down from the Chair to make bitter fighting speeches in support of the Socialist Government—and when Mr. Anthony continued to protest, the Speaker suspended him.