Reassurance on Immigration Bill

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 2

Reassurance on Immigration Bill

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 22.

The 1971 British Immigration Bill does not involve any derogation from the commitments entered into in the Treaty of Waitangi, the Acting Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) has told Mr M. Rata (Lab., Northern Maori), in a letter.

Mr Marshall has reassured Mr Rata that the bill, while retaining existing entry formalities for some New Zealanders, “does not affect their status as British subjects, whether they be Maori or pakeha New Zealanders, or citizens of any other Commonwealth country. The bill, in general, makes no changes in the rights New Zealanders enjoy in that respect,” he

says. Mr Rata had asked the Government to make representations to the British Goveroment about the bill, suggesting that it was contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi. Few Maoris could claim “patrial status” for entry into Britain.

Earlier this year, a petition was presented to Parliament by another Maori, Mr R. Love, of Petone, who suggested that the third article of the Treaty of Waitangi had been abrogated by the bill. This treaty conferred “all the rights and privileges of British subjects” on Maoris. Because of the bill, Britain would have to require the Queen to relinquish sovereignty over New Zealand as conferred upon her by the same treaty. In his letter, Mr Marshall says that the determination

of immigration policies is the prerogative of individual governments, and that he would not feel justified in making the representations sought by Mr Rata. “Britain has chosen to meet its own special circumstances in the Commonwealth context by means of an immigration policy based on family relationships,” Mr Marshall says. “The British Immigration Bill, if it is enacted, will restore to New Zealanders with close and recent family links with Britain the rights of entry they enjoyed before 1962,” says Mr Marshall. “The minority who may be unable to claim exemption from any new controls should be, to all intents and purposes, no worse off than they are now.”

Navy frigate due. The Royal New Zealand Navy frigate Taranaki, commanded by Commander N. R. Win (formerly of Christchurch), is due at Lyttelton from Auckland next Monday evening in the course of a routine training cruise. The Taranaki was at Lyttelton last month, and also in December. She will leave for Tauranga next Thursday.