letter day

Islanders’ red black letter day

From MAURICE DICK in Auckland Pacific Islanders in New Zealand as illegal immigrants are watching their mail boxes. A letter from the Labour Department is very welcome right now, but the longer it takes to arrive the less well received it will be.

This is because the government has started mailing out letters which grant permanent residency to those who came forward during an “amnesty” on illegal immigrants. But “amnesty” proved to be the wrong word, when police began executing arrest warrants on Islanders after they had signed up. The reason given was that the warrants were in existence prior to the amnesty. The furore caused Im migration Minister Frank Gill to reverse proceedings and waive the earlier warrants.

But now things have taken a turn for the worse again, with the dis covery that 50 per cent of Western Samoans so far considered have been refused permanent residency. Island leaders, who advised their people to come forward, expected a much higher rate of acceptance in New Zealand.

Western Samoa’s Prime Minister, Mr Tupuola Efi, is saddened by the decision.

“It will create hardship in Samoa and in other Pacific Islands,” he says.

“I do not think a 50 per cent rejection rate is anywhere near an act of friendship.”

One of the interesting aspects oi me so-called amnesty is that many Pacific Islanders have already been told to leave New Zealand, and many more have moved from their original ad dresses and are believed never to have received the Labour Department s letter telling them to go.

Another tricky aspect is that while the Islanders who came forward are getting the treatment, there’s no evidence that the government is doing anything to track down the 4000 British illegal immigrants which Im migration Minister Gill himself lamented had not volunteered their names.