Minister Given List Of Immigration Experts

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30934, 15 December 1965, Page 14

Minister Given List Of Immigration Experts

"The Pv«m** Special Service

AUCKLAND, Dec. 14. The secretary of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation (Mr P. J. Luxford) has submitted a list of names of Australian immigration experts to the Minister of Immigration (Mr Shand). He has suggested that Mr Shand should consult the experts. Last month representatives of 18 employers* organisations urged the Government almost to double the present rate of assisted immigration into New Zealand. Mr Shand, in an interim reply, said he conceded that the unanimous advice of economists who said rapid immigration would aggravate the problem of labour ahortages could be wrong.

However, Mr Shand said, i knowledge that professional advice had at times been wrong was not in itself a sufficient reason for ignoring that advice. “We must accept the probability that the expert, like the professional worker in a particular field of knowledge, Is more likely to be right than the lay observer who challenges his judgment,” said Mr Shand. “Since there Is such a strong doubt in the minds of tbe members of the organisations of the validity of the arguments by which the Government has been convinced, we might consider the nomination of a small group of responsible ettisem, not professfotial economists, who would be prepared to study the problems and examine critically the mass of technical argument which is available.’*

Mr Shand asked Mr Luxford, who was spokesman for the deputation last month, to consider whether such a group could be selected.

Mr Luxford replied that although a small group of responsible citizens had been proposed, the organisations believed the matter was so vitally important to the future progress of the country that it should be considered by an independent and competent authority. He listed the names of overseas immigration authorities, any one of whom, he said, would be competent to give the Government advice. The names were:— Sir John Crawford, director of the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra; Professor W. D. Borrie, professor of demography, Australian National University; Dr. J. Zubrzyckl, of the department of sociology, Australian National University: Mr P. Karmel, vicechancellor of Bedford Park College, Adelaide University, ter had first been raised in