Special Dept Suggested

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31449, 16 August 1967, Page 11

Special Dept Suggested

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Aug. 14.

The Government should be asked to set up a special department similar to the Maori Affairs Department to deal with the problems of islanders, Mr T. E. Skinner said in Auckland today.

Mr Skinner, president of the Federation of Labour, was speaking at a meeting called to consider the problem of assaults by Islanders on publicans and their staff.

He suggested that the Auckland Trades Council should ask the Federation of Labour executive to ask the Government to set up a special department to collate information on the Islanders before they came to New Zealand. In New Zealand they tended to congregate with their own kind and it became very difficult for them to learn the ways of this country. He did not think it would solve a great deal if these people were sent back to their own countries because they had been found guilty of fighting or drunkenness. Mr S. Young, president of the Hotel Workers’ Federation, said there was no suggestion of racial discrimination. Unfortunately some elements among the Islanders were not prepared to take the responsibility that went with equality and were jeopardising the esteem in which the vast majority of their people were held.

The meeting decided to set up a committee of representatives of the various Island communities, hotel workers, Auckland Hotel Association, Federation of Labour, Labour Party, Department of Anthropology of the University of Auckland and the Maori community.

' It will go Into ways and means of'establishing a better understanding between races.