By MALUM NALU
Former Lae MP and respected statesman Bart Philemon
has slammed Australian immigration for one of the “most-blatant racism” cases
against Papua New Guineans he has ever seen in his life.
Philemon, who was educated in Australia and
travelled frequently there as a politician and now as a private citizen, said
all black passengers on an Air Niugini flight to Brisbane on Wednesday, Nov 13 were
lined up and a sniffer dog set on them in scenes he had never before witnessed
in his life.
Ironically, this same part of Brisbane airport known
as the “red carpet”, was where former Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare was
forced to remove his shoes some years ago.
Philemon said that the flight from Port Moresby arrived at Brisbane at 4.30pm
and passengers disembarked for the normal passport check.
“I got my baggage and was then going through the
quarantine section which is the last before they let you out,” he said,
“At Brisbane airport there’s a red carpet.
“There was a woman in front of me.
“We were told to queue up there and I stood behind
the woman, who was Indian but she was black.
“I stood there and all the black ones who collected
their bags came and there were about 20 of us, all queuing up on the red
carpet, and they put on the sniffer dog.
“There was only one white man who was in that line.
“I told the quarantine man, ‘this is really bad as
there is no white person here except for a white man who’s married to a Papua
New Guinean so why are you doing this?.
“He said ‘go and check the government’ and I asked ‘which
government’.
“He went and grabbed me a document about
bio-security.
“I raised my voice and said it brought me ‘right
there and then back to colonial times when there were black people here and
white people there’.
“I said ‘I don’t care if I get arrested or deported
back to Papua New Guinea but this is black and white discrimination where all
the whites are going and all the blacks are locked up here in a queue’.
“The question I want to ask is ‘why is Australian
quarantine singling out just Papua New Guineans, black skins’.”
“I don’t know whether they do that on every flight
that goes in or pick on black people, but last Wednesday, it was really
extreme.
“I’ve never felt discrimination in Australia before.
“That was the first time.
“I don’t mind if they did that to me, but when I see
that they blatantly picked up all the black passengers and let all the white
passengers in.
“That’s what really got my blood boiling.
I said this is nothing but ‘pure racism’.
“Worse things happened to Jews, but because they
were Jews, Nazis singled them out.
“That’s 70 years ago.”
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