HEADACHE FOR AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION MINISTER

Wanganui Chronicle, 16 April 1949, Page 8

HEADACHE FOR AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION MINISTER

Judgment Of The High Court In The O'Keefe Case

(By (.'. R. Ment.iplay, Special Australian Correspondent of the N.Z.P.A.)

SYDNEY (By Airmail). —When the Australian High Court ruled that the Commonwealth Government could not legally deport the Indonesian, Mrs. Annie O’Kiefe, ami her children, a situation was created which threatened to cause I he entire system of administration of the so-ealled White Australian Policy to collapse. Though there is no possibility of the restrictive system being abandoned, drastic legislation is needed as soon as possible to save the Government from further serious embarrassment.

In effect the judgment invnli-1 dates several of the main prin- ■ eiples of Mr. A. A. Colwell's interpretation of the law. Previously the Department of Immigration held strictly that no matter what the nationality or marital state of a coloured person, he or she was automatically excluded from permanent residence in Australia. In a recent challenge the ease, of the Maoris was brought forward, and the Department gave ground to the extent of treating them as fully fledged citizens, but the ban on other peoples of island blood remains. According to the judgment any person can stay permanently in Australia providing he or she is married to an Australian, or is a British subject. This does not apply, of course to anyone with a police record, or to anyone who enters the country originally on a visitor’s permit—but there is reason for\ thinking that it may apply to Chinese and members of other coloured races born in British Territory. NEW LEGISLATION Whether an application by a coloured British subject can succeed is a matter for the courts alone to decide. Judging by the outcry which has followed the judgment and the number of people involved this test is bound to come, unless the Government can get in first with some legislation which will have the effect of validating past deportations and closing the door on future challenges. This is the legislation on which Mr. Calwell and his department are working now. It is believed that it will, conlirm the power of the Minister to order the deportation of any migrant who fails to pass a dictation test, no matter how long the migrant may have been in Australia. At present the Act lays down that the test must be applied within five years of the entry of the migrant, which fact was overlooked by the Department in the case of Mrs., O'Keefe. It may also contain a retrospective clause protecting the Government from claims arising out of its actions previous to the judgment. This new legislation cannot come before Parliament until May 18, when the House of Representatives sits again. In the meantime the Department of Immigration has trouble enough on its hands. Since the wax’ it has busied itself, by applying the strict letter of what it imagined the law, in purging Australia ot thousands 01 non-white and semi-while people stranded here during the war years. Malayan seamen, many of them married to Australian girls, were returned to their native country, as were hundreds ot Chinese, many of whom had spent most of their lives in Australia. They were informed that they had to sell up their assets and get out on a certain ship at a certain time. Those who missed the ship were rounded up and held in goals until another vessel became available. The Department acknowledged no exceptions. Ils net encircled seamen and student alike. The victims included a Tongan woman married to a

white Australian, and her children, some Malayan and Burmese students who overstayed their visitors’ permits because they could not complete their courses of study in time, and a highcaste Indian who came here as a trade representative. Since the O’Keefe judgment the Department has been forced to stay its hand. Over 500 Chinese are uneasily awaiting their fate, while the new legislation is being prepared. Others, less docile, have threatened legal proceedings on any one of a number of counts. Two main cases and a number of minor ones have not made things any easier. FILIPINO AN AMERICAN CITIZEN Sergeant Lorenzo Gamboa, a Filipino who fought with American forces in the Pacific War, and who is by that fact an American citizen, married an Australian girl in Victoria in 1943. After two more years of service he obtained his discharge in Australia and took employment here. On being told that he could not remain, as he was not then an American citizen, he went to the United States in 1946,’ reenlisted, and secured his final naturalisation papers. The Department of Immigration now denies him the opportunity of returning even temporarily to visit his wife and family. The department at first refused to discuss the case. Then, when General MacArthur became interested in the matter, it said that because it was known Gamboa wished to remain in Australia permanently, and had sought permission to do so, his application to return temporarily “Could not be regarded as coming within the policy allowing for the admission of visitors.” Subsequently the department offered to pay the fares of Mrs. Gamboa and her- family to America or the Philippines—a gesture which, not surprisingly, was declined without thanks.

The Gamboas have not been made happier by the reflection that recent arrivals in this country on visitors’ permits include two Filipino golf professionals in search of tournament purses, and a troupe of African pygmies who will be on exhibition at Sydney’s Royal Show. Another case is that of Mrs. Ruby Greaves, a New Zealander living in Sydney, who last week went to Rose Bay flying base to meet Mrs. Greaves’ seven-year-old daughter Valerie Kuhtz. The child was born in New Zealand of an Indian father. Customs officials at first said she would not be permitted to land, but later the department of Immigration agreed to grant her a permit as a visitor for three months. It is considered unlikely that Valerie will be permitted to stay peranently with her mother in Australia.

These cases have roused a great deal of sympathy among Australians, but hardly enough to'achieve a complete revocation of the White Australia Policy. No party is strong enough to oppose that system and so risk the denunciations of those who would accuse it of exposing the Commonwealth to the influx of Asiatic hordes. Perhaps, however, public opinion may enforce a more human, or at least a more tactful, application of the restrictive policy.