What is the Colour of Your Eyes

Your Eyes and Hair!

ALTHOUGH the Menzies Government pledged to wipe out Socialist practices and bureaucratic absurd ities —has been many months in office in Australia, persons desirous of travelling to Papua-New Guinea are still forced to submit to the ridiculous permit system invented by the Wardist regime.

Any person planning to go to these Territories must apply for a permit to enter; and, in making application for the permit, he or she must give all sorts of details. Name, address, occupation, age and nationality should be sufficient; but this super-cautious Department wants, also, to know how long you have been in Australia, the name and address and birthplace of your spouse, the names and ages of your children, what you are going to do in the Territory and how long you will stay, your sex, your height, the colour of your eyes and hair, and whether you have previously resided in the Territories.

As a war-time measure, this elaborate questionnaire may have been justified.

Under to-day’s conditions it is not. One may move around any other Pacific territory with a passport; or, failing a passport, by giving only the usual partic ulars (name, address, occupation, age and nationality.

There is much movement between Papua-New Guinea and Australia: but everyone, including the oldest Territor ian, has to answer the 14 questions in this absurd form every time he moves.