ARBITRARY AUTHORITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26114, 29 March 1946, Page 6

ARBITRARY AUTHORITY

LACK OF CONSISTENCY

(N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY, Mar. 28. The refusal of Mr Calwell to issue passports which would permit a small team of Australia’s leading lawn tennis players to attend the championships at Wimbledon has again directed the attention of the people of the Commonwealth to the arbitrary nature of the authority responsible for granting or refusing Australians permission to leave their own country. The players affected would probably have been Pails, Bromwich, Quist, and Brown, whom the tennis authorities here consider would benefit from first-class international competition before facing the responsibility of defending the Davis Cup against all comers. There does not appear to be any consistency in the decision of the Immigration Department to refuse passports for these players while permitting John Harpur and von Nida to travel to England by sea to compete in tennis and golf championships respectively. The reason given by the department was transport difficulties due to the demand for accommodation for the wives of Australian servicemen. Many Australians are wondering why this debars official Australian representatives while releasing Harpur and von Nida neither of whom had any trouble over the passport question. Passport trouble is no new thing in .Australia. For months now individuals and representatives of charitable organisations have not been able to count on receiving authority to leave the country in spite of the most valid of reasons. Doctors and nurses were held up late in 1945 when wishing to proceed to China for service with U.N.R R.A. Trained women of the Guides’ organisation, whose mission was to assist Red Cross workers and rehabilitation organisations in Malaya, were delayed until press, reports brought the matter to the notice of the public. The case of the girls who were whisked off to Manila by a United States plane simply because American headquarters where they' worked as typists had been transferred there, is perhaps the best known. The girls neglected to apply for passports because they though the United States authorities had attended to those details. After they had been Deremptorilv recalled Mr Calwell refused to consider their applications. Subsequently he permitted other girls to obtain passports for Manila, but insisted on banning the original 12. - Tt was during this incident that the Minister took the unusual step of “declaring black ” a large- section .of the Australian press—a ban which still C3 ln Yione of these cns<=s had transport anything to do with the Immigration Department’s decision. The doctors nurses, and Guides had already booked their passages, and the girls were already in Manila when Mr Calwell became aware of the position Cases of exit permits being granted illustrate a lack of consistency. It is understood that Mr Calwell’s decision concerning ’ the tennis players applied to a sea voyage only, but this does not alter the fact that Harpur and von Nida travelled to England by sea only a few weeks ago.