PM Transcripts

BROADCAST BY THE PRIME MINISTER ( MR. MENZIES)
for the
OPENING OF WORLD REFUGEE YEAR IN AUSTRALIA
1959 has been named World Refugee Year by the United Nations.
In the resolution carried in November of last year, it was
decided to focus interest in the refugee problem and to encourage
additional financial contributions from Governments, voluntary agencies
and the general public.
An Appeal was made to all Member States to promote World
Refugee Year. This humane resolution was carried against the votes
of the Soviet Bloc. Australia has fully accepted and is participating
in it. Since the war the problem of refugee has been both melancholy
and acute. There are many thousands of refugees in Europe
and these are added to every day. In the Middle East there are a
million Arab refugees. From China have come thousands of refugees
of European origin. In Hong Kong there are at least a million Chi-.
nese refugees. We, in Australia, have in earlier years brought over
200,000 refugees to our shores. Our country is, on a population basis
the leading country of refugee settlement. Living unler good
conditions and with complete freedom, we night have had little reason
to understand the heart-breaking experience which has been undergone
by so many people driven from their hones and occupations
into strange countries, there to eke out a miserable and precarious
living in completely unaccustomed circumstances. The refugee problem
is in that sense one of social and eccnomic resettlement. In
another sense it is a moral problem.
It is to Australia's credit that she has, in fac,, understood
such matters very well, In one sense this, of course, is a
problem for Governments; in another, a problem for the Churches;
but in the major sense it is a problem for pivate citizens who desire
to make some humane contribution to its soluticn.
The Commonwealth Government gives a lead. We have promised
a cash contribution of œ 50,000. and also that ' public donations
to this fund will be allowable deductions for income taxpurposeso
The matter is non-party. The Right Honourable the Leader of the Opposition
is supporting it. But bearing in mind the splendid tradition
of generous giving in Australia for -ood causes, I e no
doubt that the public response will be immediate and great,
It has not been easy for organised world opinion in the
United Nations or elsewhere to act directly in respect of some of
the dreadful events which have driven so many people from their own
hones and their own fatherland, but at least \ e can in the : most
practical fashion show our sympathy for those less fortunate than
ourselves who have been the innocent victims of conflicts and upheavals
of which in our own land we have been happy enough to kn. w
nothing. It is a good thing that Australia should have earned a
reputation for a sensitive understanding of the problemsof people in
other lands; that we should not come to be regarded as people who
are detached from the miseries of the world. I know that we will
not come to be so regarded, for I believe that there are no people
anywhere with warner hearts and more generous imprl' ses, This aprea"
therefore, is at one and the sane time a challenge and an opporlun--
ity. I am confident that we shall make a contribution which
will serve as one more proof of our instinctive national and individual
understanding and genercsity.
CANBERRA 27th September, 1959.