HUNDREDS of Papuans who want Canberra to recognise them as Australian citizens staged a protest rally outside the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby yesterday.
Australian Papuan Community coordinator Jonathan Baure said the group wanted Australia to recognise that Papuans were not given a choice to remain Australians when Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975.
The protest was in response to a call from the high commission for all Australian citizens to register at its offices so they can be readily found in emergencies.
Several hundred Papuans displaying Australian Papuan flags gathered in the car park outside the commission’s steel gates to stage a peaceful protest.
Mr Baure said as Papuans in PNG, they were still Australian citizens and there had never been a referendum to legally sever ties with Australia.
Papua, covering what is now the southern half of the PNG mainland, became an Australian territory under the Papua Act of 1905 and Papuan-born people acquired Australian citizenship under Australia’s 1948 Citizen Act.
Mr Baure said former New Guinea covering the northern half of the PNG mainland and the islands politically outnumbered Papuans three to one at independence but did not have the right to decide that Papuans should lose their Australian citizenship.
A high commission spokeswoman said two senior officials spoke to protest leaders and explained that a High Court ruling in Australia last year upheld laws that Papuans ceased to be Australian citizens when PNG became independent.
“We are not expecting difficulties,” the spokeswoman said. “Our hope is they remain peaceful and move on.”
She said the protesters were not generally entitled to register as Australian citizens by descent.
“There are some exceptions depending on the age of the person at the time of independence and whether at the time of independence they had a right to permanent residence in Australia or to some other foreign citizenship.”
They were welcome to apply by filling out forms and paying the normal fee, she said.
Mr Baure said his group had collected 73,000 signatures and aimed to get 500,000 to take to the United Nations to urge a referendum on Papuans being granted Australian citizenship.
Thaddeus Ehova, who was born as an Australian citizen in Papua in 1952, said his people had been united into PNG illegally.
