‘Discriminatory’ migration

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 13

‘Discriminatory’ migration

(N.Z. Press Assn.— Copyright; LONDON, Dec. 22. Britain’s Race Relations Board said today that the Australian Government’s assisted passages scheme for immigrants to Australia discriminated against people of non-European origin. In a call to the Government to cease British financial contributions to the assisted passage scheme, the board said that it believed that the making of such a contribution was incompatible with the British Race Relations Act. However, the call came just too late. The British Government announced last night that it would end its subsidy as from May next year.

The Race Relations Board said that there could be no doubt about the scheme being discriminatory on the basis of statements by successive Australian Ministers for Immigration and by the Australian High Commissioner in London. It said that it had received a complaint from Mr J. A. St C. Allen, a British subject, bom in Jamaica, who said he was refused an assisted passage for emigration to Australia because of the colour of his skin. The board said that the Australian Government had been unwilling to co-operate on the complaint . It maintained that the

board had no locus standi because the British Race Relations Act had no application to Australian immigration procedure. “The board have doubts about this argument,’* it said. “They do not claim to interfere with Australian im-

migration procedure: they are only concerned with the assisted passages scheme. “But they are conscious of the fact that the Australian Government would be entitled to invoke diplomatic immunity to prevent proceedings in the English courts if the board were to proceed further. “In these circumstances, the board have concluded that no useful purpose would be served by continuing their investigation.,” it said. “The Times” newspaper quoted an Australian immigration spokesman in London as saying last night that Mr Allen was now living in Melbourne, but he had not been given assistance and had paid his own way to Australia.

The spokesman added that the Australian Prime Minister (Mr William McMahon) had announced on December 6 that after next May the British Government would

withdraw its contribution to the scheme. Australia would then pay the full amount for all assisted passages. Under the Australian Government’s policy, non-Euro-peans with “positive skills’* were permitted into Australia as long as they paid their own -fares, he said. A British Foreign Office spokesman said last night that Britain's cancellation of financial assistance to migrants only affected Australia and not New Zealand. "The decision announced today is restricted to the United Kingdom - Australia migration agreement,” the spokesman said. However,, the spokesman added, he was not aware of any assisted passage agreement between New Zealand and the United Kingdom that involved any contribution from Britain. "But if there is, this decision today will not. affect it," he said.