"AUSTRALASIA"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 213, 3 May 1932, Page 5

"AUSTRALASIA"

("Post" Special Commissioner)

OFFICIAL OBJECTION TO USE OF TERM AS INACCURATE ACTION IN LONDON

WELLINGTON, Mon. Objection to the use of the word "Australasia" was voiced in a motion carried by the Legislative Council last year. In the Council this afternoon the Hon Dr. W. E. Collins (Wellington) asked the Leader of the Council Sir James Parr) what action the Government had taken in regard to the motion. Sir James Parr replied: "On November 11, 1931, the following resolution was passed by the Legislative Council on the motion of the Hon. Dr. Collins. "That in the opinion of this Council the Government should instruct the High Commissioner: 1. To take such steps as may be necessary to draw the attention of English publishing houses, particularly those which are responsible for the issue of standard works of reference, to the fact that New Zealand is one of the great self-govern-ing Dominions of the British Empire; that it is not, and has not for some ninety years, been governed from Australia from which it is separated by 1200 miles of open ocean and that the term "Australasia" as including Australia and New Zealand, is both obsolete and geographically misleading, and 2. To request those houses when referring to the Commonwealth and the Dominion collectively, to use the phrase "Australia and New Zealand." "A copy of the resolution was f orwarded by the Prime Minister to the High Commissioner for New Zealand in London with a request to give efect to its terms, and I am advised a reply has now been received from the High Commissioner stating that action has been taken by him in the dixection desired, and that the terms of the resolution have been conveyed to forty publishing firms in Great Britain.