Minister On Defensive

Defensive

From our Canberra Correspondent; The cult which led to the refu of the Hahalis Welfare Society j Buka to pay taxes had a f ana til religious element, the Minister Territories, Mr. Hasluck, told I House of Representatives.

ITS fanatical nature was shown one of its tenets —that j function was to breed a master rj To produce this master race, Hahalis selected 10 men andl women for promiscuous breeding.

Mr. Hasluck said the anti pological history of New Guinea ' full of incidents such as that on Bi A primitive people had beet confused in trying to adjust th selves to the new world that had b thrust upon them.

So they had formed a cult wl was trying to resist the advancen taking place around them.

It was not merely a taxation is but the matter came to a head w other native people in the rej imposed taxes on themselves finance the Local Governn Council.

"Impeded"

These neighbouring people c plained that their chance of prog was being impeded by the Hah refusal to pay taxes.

The Administration therefore posed a personal tax.

“This was frankly a device to to force the Hahalis people, ui the sanction of the personal tax drop opposition to the Local Gov ment Council, join the council to pay taxes to it,” Mr. Hasluck !

“If people are already paying t to their own Local Governt Council, the amount of tax pai< the Council is a rebate against personal tax.”

Mr. Hasluck said that afte patrol of about 30 Native Af officers had met with resistance, Administration tried a variety measures to attempt to persuade Hahalis.

Thousands of leaflets in their language were distributed, a sp small broadcasting station was up, and two very prominent ni members of the Legislative Coi were sent to try to persuade thei But the Hahalis still comm acts of open defiance.

Mr. Hasluck said that ultimate

(Continued on p. 130)

large force was sent, because a small force would have merely encouraged violence.

If the Administration could present the appearance of superior force and it could wait long enough for opposition to wilt away, a peaceful solution might be possible with a minimum of violence.

A week later, after his first state ment, after arrests had been made, Mr. Hasluck claimed that the Administration had brought “great credit” to Australia by its handling of the dangerous and touchy incident.

Officials had been able to dis solve, without loss of life, more than 1,000 people who were whipped into a state of mass fanaticism, he said.

Mr. Hasluck said that poll taxes were a traditional form of taxing native people.

The present P-NG personal tax was imposed only on districts where the level of income was high enough to bear it.

It was imposed so that those who had money and who did not pay either income tax or Local Govern ment tax could make a contribution to the general cost of undertakings on their behalf.

As most Local Government councils levied at least £2 a year

the effect was that people in Lo< Government council areas did r pay personal tax.

It could be argued that if people in a district were original liable to personal tax and the supporting their own counc voluntarily replaced this tax with Local Government tax—which w possibly greater—then those w] stood out against the local tax shou not cease to be liable for a co tribution to local funds.

Any other view would mean th a native could avoid paying anythii by the simple method of refusil to join a Local Government couni when one was formed in his distri( Throughout the first week ( Parliament Labour members kej Mr. Hasluck continually on tl defensive over the Buka incident.

At one stage Mr. Clyde Camerc (Labour, SA) stung the Ministi with allegations about “nitwii decisions.

Mr. Hasluck provoked an angi answer from Mr. Cameron by tun ing the argument and claiming th* Mr. Cameron had referred to patn officers as “nitwits”.

Other questions were directed * finding out whether the natives undei stood the meaning of taxes an whether those arrested had beei manacled and marched for 23 miles Veteran Country Party membe David Drummond mounted an ol( hobby horse and asked why tea: gas could not be used instead o:

; lethal weapons in dealing with re riots. r. Hasluck claimed that in ical conditions, where natives d quickly disperse into jungle, gas would be ineffective.