Clampdown on Islanders' migration

Immigration controversy was the “in thing” in March and April. It ranged over a wide field in the South Pacific—Papua New Guinea, Aus tralia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga.

Great Britain was also in the picture.

Much heat was generated as some issues became emotional. National rights were seldom mentioned.

There were howls of rage from Fiji and among Fiji citizens in Aus tralia, when people, who had come to Australia on holiday permits over stayed their permits and taken em ployment, were deported. In New Zealand, the government deported a number of Tongans who had over stayed their permits. In Papua New Guinea, the Chief Minister, Mr Michael Somare, said one measure suggested by the Constitutional Plan ning Committee would make South African apartheid appear as some thing of no consequence.

New Zealand decided on a com plete overhaul of its immigration policy, under which people from most Commonwealth countries, including Britain, lost their right of free and unrestricted entry. Australians were exempted from the new policy, and

it will not apply to Niueans or Cook Islanders.

In Australia, the “easy visa” system has been badly abused. According to the Immigration Department, there are more than 20,000 illegal im migrants from many parts of the world in the country. It is going to take a long time to round them all up and deport them.

It is alleged that people from Fiji, more than any other South Pacific Islanders, have abused the system, so much so that it has been closed to them, and also to people from Colombia, who were believed to have abused it. These people arrive in Australia with very little money for three months’ holidays. Obviously, they have to work to live.

Australia does not accept the guest worker system which New Zealand uses for South Pacific Islanders— allowing people in for working holi days, or for specific tasks, such as cutting out nasella tussock in North Canterbury.

In Australia and New Zealand, many of these illegal immigrants are exploited by landlords. The landlords

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know they are in the country illegally, and if they protest about exorbitant rents the landlord threatens to report them to the authorities.

There are other methods of ex ploitation, such as banking money the immigrants earn, and refusing to hand it all over when requested, and threatening to go to the police if rights are insisted on. The language gap does not make matters easy for many of these Pacific Islanders.

Too many of them, used to un employment in their own islands, look on the employment-starved fac tories of Australia and New Zealand as El Dorados. They are prepared to take the risk of getting caught to earn, for them, big money.

Matters surfaced recently in Aus tralia when the Immigration Depart ment became suspicious of the bona tides of 12 Fijians who ostensibly arrived for a holiday. These men were quickly deported.

A number of men from Fiji were arrested in Brisbane and held in prison pending deportation. These men had a Fiji-bom Indian lawyer, who acted as their spokesman. He complained the men were arrested in their homes at 6 am. Later some of the men alleged they were ill-treated in gaol, and treated like criminals.

Some of them admitted they were working, although they were in Aus tralia on holidays.

In New Zealand, there were com plaints about early morning arrests, and the Immigration Minister, Mr Colman, banned further dawn raids The proposal in PNG which worried Mr Somare, and the leaders of other political parties, was the definition of a citizen. Automatic citizenship would go to children of a PNG father and a non-indigenous mother, but the children of a non-indigenous father and a PNG mother did not have the same rights. .

There was also the question of naturalisation for non New Guineans.

The committee proposed a qualifying period of eight years, but it was not clear whether the eight years would start at independence, or whether those who had been in PNG eight years or more would automatically qualify. Mr Somare is aiming at a multi-racial society, and it is likely that some of the committee suggest ions will be drastically amended. 9 Petrol, kerosene and diesel prices rose in PNG by an average of 25 per cent on April 1. Further rises are expected in the next few months.

Petrol went up by 10.4 c a gal to 57.3 c a gal. Lighting kerosene rose by 10.2 c and diesel fuel by 11c a gal.