For Secret Talks

Nauruans In Canberra For Secret Talks

From our Canberra Correspondent Extraordinary secrecy shrouded a conference on the future of the Nauruan people held in Canberra at the end of February.

THE Nauruan people sent three of their leaders to Canberra to try to reach some solution to the im passe which has developed between the Nauruans and the Federal Gov ernment.

But so far as the Government was prepared to admit, the delegation might still have been in Nauru.

PIM in February (p. 17) reported that the Nauru Council wanted a small delegation sent to Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, and some other islands, including Fraser Island, to examine their possibilities for re-settlement.

As that report said, until this was done it was most unlikely that the Nauruans would reach any decision on the offer of the trustee countries to give them a new home on the Australian mainland or elsewhere.

The matter is to be discussed fully by a UN Visiting Mission which will arrive in Nauru in April (earlier it had been planned to arrive in March).

The delegation to Canberra in February comprised the Head Chief

of Nauru, Hammer Deßoburt and two members of the Nauru Council, Raymond Gadabu, and Joseph Det simea. Hammer Deßoburt left Nauru in the freighter Kookaburra on January 27. The Nauru News, an official news sheet published by the Administration, reported he was travelling to Melbourne on a business trip connected with the operations of the Nauru Co-operative Society.

However, the business of the society was only secondary to the main pur pose of his visit to Australia.

When the Kookaburra reached Adelaide on February 7 Mr. De- Roburt told Pressmen he would have talks with the Australian Govern ment on the resettlement scheme.

“We do not wish to be settled on the Australian mainland because we believe it would result in our extinc tion. We would rather be settled on Fraser Island off Queensland, where we could be self-supporting.”

Mr. Deßoburt added that negotia tions so far had been “friendly” and he hoped a satisfactory solution would be found. But in preliminary discussions there had been a ten dency for people outside Nauru to disregard the Nauruans’ wishes.

Mr. Gadabu was not with De- Roburt aboard the Kookaburra. He left Nauru later in the Triaster. Mr.

Gadabu, it will be remembered, was the man the Government sent to the UN last year as one of Australia’s first two observers from the Trust Territories, and who forthrightly told the Trusteeship Council the Nauruans did not agree with official proposals to settle them in Australia.

First inkling received in Canberra that the Nauruans were on a visit to the capital was when on February 20 the new Labour member for Wide Bay, Mr. Brendan Hansen, whose electorate includes Fraser Island, questioned the Minister for Terri tories, Mr. Hasluck.

Mr. Hansen asked whether the Government had any plans for the settlement of the Nauruan people on Fraser Island.

A maiden question asked on his first day in Parliament by a member sworn in only a few hours before,

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might have warranted a reasonable answer. But the Minister was vague and evasive.

He admitted that the Govern ment’s proposals had not been “immediately acceptable” to the Nauruans.

They had asked, he said, if they could look at certain sites in Aus tralia which might be suitable to them as a new home.

“With the agreement of the Queensland Government, the head chief of Nauru and—l think—one or two companions, recently visited two places on the Queensland coast,” Mr.

Hasluck said.

“But their visit involves no com mitment on the part of either the Queensland or the Commonwealth Governments.

“Discussions with the Nauruan people about a future home, which have been proceeding for some time past, will continue.”

There was certainly no frankness in the Minister’s reply. He did not bother to name the two islands.

The only thing that was clear in

his statement was his “no commit ment” reference, which implied that the Government had no intention of budging from its stand that the Nauruan people should be brought to the mainland.

The Minister’s mood communi cated itself to his department.

Even after the Nauruans arrived in Canberra one senior official, up to his eyes in direct negotiations with them, declined to name the two islands which the Minister had men tioned, on the ground that he had not been “handling that matter lately”.

Departmental officials declined to discuss the delegation, referred all questions to the Minister.

And the Minister was “too busy” to answer.

And because the Government was under censure while the delegation was in Canberra the matter could not be raised in Parliament as it normally might have been.

With the Territories Minister and his department silent, the other par ties to the talks, the Nauruans them selves, were inhibited.

The delegates were suitably “du chessed”*—lunch at Parliament House and other VIP treatments — and placed in a difficult position.

With true Island sensitivity for the courtesies of life they felt that for them to speak before the Minister or his officials would be a breach of the guest-host relationship. And presumably Mr. Deßoburt had already said enough in Adelaide.

The result was that the three Nauruans were well on their way back home—to meet the UN Dele gation due there early in April—be fore political pressures could be ap plied on their behalf in Canberra.

That was unfortunate for the Nau ruans.

They played the game according to their own rules, with natural courtesy instead of applying the log rolling tactics normally used by pres sure groups seeking advantages in Canberra.

But by playing politics they might have achieved more.

When the Government decided on its “mainland” offer it was firmly in office and notoriously indifferent to public opinion.

By the time the Nauruans arrived the climate had changed. The Gov ernment, precariously in power, was sensitive to the slightest criticism. * “Duchessing”.—A treatment evolved in the UK to soften up visiting Ministers and officials from Australia and other Commonwealth countries. The UK formula includes a week-end at the country house of the Duchess of X, tea with Lord and Lady Y, cocktails with Very Important People.