Absurdities Of

Permit System

More P-NG Criticism

AN urgent plea for the simplifica tion of the Permit-to-Enter system, under which Australian bureaucracy controls all Papua-New Guinea travel, was made in the P-NG Legislative Council in July by Mr. E. A. James.

He spoke especially for established residsnts of Papua. He said it was a most improper thing that well known citizens of this old Australian Territory should have to fill in the Sydney or Brisbane questionnaire, whenever they wanted to return home, or submit to Customs inter rogation whenever they wanted to move between Papua and New Guinea, just as if they were suspects from a foreign country.

He spoke in scathing terms of the system under which Papua residents were asked to put up a bond when they proposed to visit the Trustee ship Territory.

The Administrator apparently doubted the latter charge, and asked Mr. James to repeat it.

Mr. James said he had reason to believe that this demand was made not long ago.

All travel between Pacific countries is subject now to some form of con trol; but the system between Aus

tralia and Papua-New Guinea is a particularly irritating one. Travel lers from Sydney must first get a form from the Territories Depart ment office, away out on George St. North. Therein they are asked a whole series of questions about themselves, their ancestry, and their business —a well-known person, travelling on a clearcut mission, is treated exactly as if he were an unknown wanderer from behind the Iron Curtain. He fills in the form and returns it; and is informed— if he does not make strong and urgent protest—that he will get a reply in a fortnight. If he protests,

he can get an answer in a few days.

When the Permit is graciously granted, he cannot get it unless he goes personally to the isolated office and does some more signing.

It is an absurd, time-wasting, ex pensive system, typical of the worst and stupidest kind of bureaucracy.

If the Territories Department were half as efficient as it claims to be, it would make some arrangement under which Territories residents and well-known officials, merchants and professional men, going to Papua-New Guinea in the course of their work, would merely have to fill in the usual form for Customs

check-up. Or the operation under which all persons must seek a Taxation clearance, surely could be made to serve the double purpose of taxation clearance and customs and security screening.