The Rights Of

New Guinea And

Fiji Citizens

What are to be the rights of citizen ship in an independent Papua New Guinea? Obviously nobody has any right to decide until it is known what constitutional arrangements an inde pendent New Guinea will have, but the Administrator’s Executive Coun cil, or Cabinet, decided in May that now was a good time at least to get an expression of opinion. So we can expect to have the matter discussed by the House of Assembly soon.

Official spokesman for the council, Mr. Tom Leahy, said in Wau in May, where the AEC met, that the council had been discussing the rights of Aus tralians and other expatriates living in the territory.

He himself felt that it was a good idea for the Assembly to set out citi zenship requirements before next year’s elections—which will bring self-government closer—because this would prevent a newly independent government introducing legislation “in what might be a strongly emotional or even racial atmosphere”.

Mr. Leahy said there should be either a select committee or a White Paper on the question of citizenship.

Some of the issues to be decided were whether all racial groups should be eligible, the length of the qualifying period and whether children born in the territory should be eligible for citizenship. He personally favoured a residential period of 10 to 15 years, because a citizen should have a good grounding in local society and this could not be achieved in a shorter period.

Mr. Leahy added that citizenship proposals would make expatriate busi nessmen feel more secure, as most fears held by expatriate businessmen were due to instability.

Women’s rights in Fiji were strongly defended in May by out spoken senator, Dr. Felix Emberson, who declared in a Senate debate that Fiji’s Citizenship Bill was exercising “blatant discrimination” against females.

He claimed that Fiji’s women had diminished privileges.

“There are politicians who will not admit that there now exist in Fiji different classes of citizenship with varying privileges,” said Senator Emberson.

A male citizen could marry almost indiscriminately, he declared, with every assurance that he would have

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immigration and citizenship favours for his new bride.

Women could not do this. If she married a man from abroad, a woman was submitted to difficult tests.

Part-Europeans tended to go abroad more than other races. Be cause of this fact, they were penal ised more than other people. (He was referring to the fact that part- European women sometimes went abroad and married outsiders).

Then Senate’s only woman mem ber, Senator Anaseini Qionibaravi, disagreed with Senator Emberson, spying that she didn’t believe that Fiji should open its doors to “foreign husbands of Fiji women”.

She suggested that the opening of the doors could lead to increasing unemployment among local people.

The bill protected innocent women who might be exploited by foreign men marrying them for their own convenience.

Senator M. T. Khan felt that the whole situation was one that needed “quiet diplomacy” and work in the background, rather than “bombastic speeches in this House”.

“To say that because we do not allow women of this country to bring in their husbands freely here and settle, we are creating different classes of citizenship, in my respect ful view is far from the truth,” he said.

Debating the Citizenship Bill in the Upper House, the senators seemed to agree that Fiji was justified in its strict laws relating to entry permits for outsiders.

Senator Livai Volavola urged even tighter control, saying that if out siders were allowed to make Fiji their home, there would be an ac celeration in the growth of popula tion. This would make “my Fiji, our Fiji, not a heaven but a hell for future generations.”

The senator claimed that if tighter control was not introduced on the immigration of Asians, who had the highest birthrate in the world, then the door was open for them to enter and increase Fiji’s birthrate.

“The future generations of this country would reap the fruit of our negligence— poverty, unemployment, bloodshed and so on,” he said.

“Fiji is already afraid of over population because of the rate of births.”

Senator Volavola disagreed with opinions that professional and busi nessmen should be allowed to stay

so long as their services were required.

He argued: “When their term has expired, they should go and should leave their businesses and professions to the local people, who could con tinue the good work. All not bora here who wish to be citizens should go through the legal procedure.”

So far as Senator Ratu Mosese Varesekete was concerned the heart of the matter was for Fijians to be able to hold their own against other races—not in numerical terms but in terms of ability, professionalism and contributions to the country.

He praised his people for the peace ful way in which they had accepted and accommodated races from many parts of the world and stressed that there could have been “endless bickering” in other circumstances.

“The Fijian people have displayed a great sense of justice and humanity in turning their backs on narrow minded policies as regards citizenship and have thrown in their lot with the other great races which have settled in Fiji,” he said.

“We have agreed on citizenship without any of the warring and bloodshed which has been experienced in some other parts of the world.”

What’s sauce for the goose isn’t always sauce for the gander as the worthy senators set out to demonstrate when they discussed Australia’s im migration policies.

Speaking on a motion welcoming the Prime Minister’s proposed visit to Australia—postponed because of the dock strike—some of the senators had harsh comments on Australia’s policies.

Senator Kapadia was one who urged a more liberal attitude by Aus tralia.

Complaining of the “great difficulty in obtaining visas from the Australian High Commission, even to go to Aus tralia on a temporary basis,” he said Fiji people did not want to dictate to others what their policies should be, but, “if we have friends, it is my personal view, let them be sincere friends. I for one do not like hypocrisy.”

Senator Ratu Tuisawau was one who said he could see Australia’s point of view on permanent immigra tion, because any country which opened its doors to unlimited im migration could suffer grave social consequences.

He hoped, however, that the Prime Minister’s visit would result in seasonal labour being absorbed from Fiji into Australia.

He added that to a lot of people who supported the idea of the British Commonwealth of Nations, it seemed inconsistent that Australia allowed un restricted immigration from non-Com monwealth countries.

At the same time there were very stringent rules against some people within the Commonwealth (such as Fiji).

“Some of the applications of these rules border on the ludicrous in that some of those that we have fought against as aliens or enemies in the Second World War, are able to come in unchecked and thrive in this Com monwealth of Australia,” said Senator Tuisawau. • Deported from Australia on March 4 this year, 23-year-old Dewan Chand, of Fiji, attempted to enter the country two months later with another man’s passport. Chand, who pleaded guilty in a special Federal Court on May 11 to attempt ing to gain illegal entry into Aus tralia, was gaoled for three months.

The court was told Chand admitted obtaining the passport from Sohan Lai in Fiji on the pretence of getting a permit for Lai to enter Australia.

He used the passport to book a pass age for himself as a tourist in the Taiyuan but was detected after the ship had called at Brisbane before sailing for Sydney.