CALWELL'S OUTSPOKEN REPLY
Received Friday, 11.50 p.m, CANBERRA, Feb. 4. In an outspoken reply to criticism of the deportation of Mrs. Annie O'Keefe and her eight children, the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calwell) tonight msisted that Mrs. O'Keefe would not be allowed to stay in Australia. "The Government will deport Mrs. O'Keefe if she doesn't go voluntarily. The marriage of an Asiatic woman to an Australian citizen gives her no right to remain in Australia by virtue of her marriage. The only people affected by the recent departmental action are those who sought sanctuary in Australia from 1940 onwards. These Asiatic wartime evacuees knew they would have to leave when the war ended. Wartime evacuees were a special class and they had all heen treated in the same way. More than 5000 of the 6000 have returned voluntarily to their own countries. "I am not making a drive against any Asiatics in, or arriving in, Australia within the categories under " whieh they can be normaily admitted. An awful tragedy awaits Australia if the economic standards are not protected by a strict observance of the immigration laws and practices whieh have stood the test of nearly a century."
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHRONL19490205.2.25.1
Bibliographic details
Chronicle (Levin), 5 February 1949, Page 5
Word Count
197CALWELL'S OUTSPOKEN REPLY Chronicle (Levin), 5 February 1949, Page 5
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Chronicle (Levin). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in