§ Mr. McGOVERNI rise to ask your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the permission of the House, to present a Petition from the British Migrants in Australia.
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The humble petition of the undersigned members of the British Migrants' Association of Australia showeth:
- (1) That we are British-born subjects and natives of the United Kingdom.
- (2) That we were induced to leave our homes in the United Kingdom and migrate to Australia by the statements and propaganda of the Australian Governments and their authorised agents, offering us the prospect in Australia of better conditions and opportunities for ourselves and our families.
- (3) Such statements and propaganda were, as we have found to our sorrow and dismay, extravagant, misleading, and in many cases indubitably false. Our members have been, in consequence, reduced to misery, semi-starvation and despair. Suicides are frequent. Some have lost their reason. Young women have sold their virtue, and many of our young men are herded together in camps of unemployed on conditions hardly better than the conditions of convicts in British prisons.
- (4) The Migration Agreement has been dishonoured in practice; whilst in theory it is pleaded as an excuse for the indifference and failure of the Australian Government. We have appealed in vain to the Honourable His Majesty's Prime Minister of Australia, and to His Majesty's Acting High Commissioner in Australia.
Your petitioners therefore humbly Pray that your Honourable House will institute an immediate inquiry into the matters alleged in this, our petition, and that your Honourable House will relieve our present needs and cause us to be compensated for the loss caused to us by the statements and propaganda referred to in paragraph (2) hereof, and to be repatriated without delay.And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.Signed by the appropriate petitioners.