Up Front

with the Editor

That some of us still have the impudence to make political predictions after having fallen flat on our faces is probably an indication of our rashness, if not our stupidity. But, for some of us, old joys die hard, and we will continue to make predictions until the sky falls in.

Last month I confidently predicted that Papua-New Guinea’s Admin istrator, Mr. David Hay, would con tinue to hold his post as Administra tor despite the rumours that he was about to resign or be appointed to some other job. I climbed confidently out on a limb to state that the status quo would be maintained in New Guinea.

The ink was not dry before I was proved wrong.

I should have known that my information was too good to be true.

I had spoken to everybody but Prime Minister Gorton, and it now seems he was the only bloke I need have spoken to.

But self-appointed oracles like me can’t really afford to make such fools of themselves and this month you find me contemplating my navel, in humble mood. I have to fill this column with something, but I’ll try not to make more than two wrong predictions in each paragraph.

Of course, being wrong is not quite the same thing as being told by somebody that they think you’re wrong. Two years ago, for instance, I got quite a number of expressions of dissent, some of them pretty blunt indeed, as a result of an Australian Broadcasting Commission radio com mentary I did on Australia’s so called White Australia policy.

Australia really hasn’t got a policy aimed at keeping the country white, but it certainly gives preference to Europeans. It does, of course, allow in other races—hundreds of Filipinos came in last year—but it’s a lopsided, hit-and-miss business.

In this particular radio broadcast I supported the views of the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, who were point ing out at that time (and it is still true) that job opportunities there were not keeping pace with the

increasing population and that the real hope for the colony was that it be allowed to export its manpower.

I proposed that Gilbert and Ellice Islanders be invited to migrate to Australia under a quota system, or be allowed in under a contract system, to work in the developing mining industries of Queensland and Western Australia. I pointed out that the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders had much experience at phosphate mining and that they were indignant that Australia paid more attention to South-east Asia than to the South Pacific Islands on its doorstep.

I believe

1 pointed out that the problems of the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders were shared by other Islanders in the Pacific, particularly the Fijians and Tongans, and I said the constant questioning by Islanders of Austra lia’s immigration policy would, in turn, build into resentment. I added for good measure that over the last few years of constant travel in the South Pacific I felt there was resent ment building, and I added: “I am not advocating the opening of those almost proverbial flood gates of im migration—but Australia, I truly believe, needs to review its immigra tion policy on South Pacific Islanders before our friends become our enemies.”

This was a case where a number of people thought I was wrong, and said so—both in letters to the ABC and to me. They were against this immigration.

It was suggested by somebody I should be removed from the panel of ABC commentators, but fort unately Aunty ABC is more broad minded and fair-minded than she often gets credit for.

I am telling the story now, because

in recent times I have said something along the same lines on the air with out —this time—e/eating a ripple of unfavourable reaction. And, in early May, at a Pacific symposium in Sydney, a number of speakers made the same points and actually achieved a favourable reaction. This is strong indication, in my view, that the climate of opinion in Australia about Islands immigration is changing.

Not before time, of course. There is no valid reason why quotas of Islanders shouldn’t be allowed to permanently settle in Australia. Or work here temporarily, for the money they can send home to their families—as the Samoans and Cook Islanders are doing in New Zealand and the New Hebrideans are doing in New Caledonia (and the Gilbert and Ellice Islanders are doing in the New Hebrides).

One of the speakers at the Pacific symposium, Professor Keith Sinclair, Professor of History at the Univer sity of Auckland, said, “It seems clear that Australia and New Zealand will have to do far more to help the Polynesians and Melanesians than they do now.

New demands

“In the Pacific Islands there are now universities . . . there are political arguments and ideologies.

There are demands, not merely for self-government, where that has not been granted but for welfare measures and a rising standard of living. Certainly it seems that the local resources in some islands can not support what is demanded.

“Here is a fertile soil for agitators and radicals of all sorts. And for foreign aid. If we do not provide the aid in future someone else may: Perhaps a power unfriendly to our way of life. At present New Zealand is the only country which readily admits immigrants from several Pacific Island groups. Before long, Australia may have to consider doing so, to relieve the political and popu lation pressures in the islands.”

I agree with Professor Sinclair one hundred per cent. But I don’t think Australia should have to be forced into doing what it has a human duty to do in this area to help its friends.

I don’t see why we have to wait until the Prime Minister of the new Dominion of Fiji gets to a Common wealth Prime Ministers’ conference and lets off a blast about Australian immigration restrictions, as he surely will. Or wait until the Premier of Tonga, which is to be fully indepen dent in June, says the same thing in the same place. I hope Australia hasn’t become incompetent at acting

on its own initiative.

Stuart Inder