Manawatu Exhibition: Human Rights
Manawatu Photographs
The overstayer issue came to a head in June 1976, under the new National government, when Minister of Immigration Frank Gill announced that everyone who had overstayed their immigration permits should register with the Department of Labour by the end of the month. After that date, deportation would be recommended against overstayers who had not registered. Protesters wanted to present a resolution to John Lithgow MP for the government to end these tactics.
Three hundred people marched from Albert Street to the home of John Lithgow, Palmerston North MP in October 1976 to call for amnesty for overstayers. In 1973 the Labour government had created a special task force to target Pacific Island overstayers, whose temporary work permits had expired. Police were conducting dawn raids, storming into homes to force whole families to the police station. Paul Callaghan holds up his passport.
Paul Callaghan, Massey University physics lecturer, makes a clear statement at a protest against the SIS Amendment Bill in 1977. Although the National Party won the election the next year (with a reduced majority) Labour’s Joe Walding regained the Palmerston North electorate from John Lithgow. Muldoon remained as prime minister until 1984. Sir Paul Callaghan, one of NZ’s most prominent scientists, was knighted in 2009 and was New Zealander of the Year in 2011
Protesters confronted Prime Minister Rob Muldoon as he arrived to address National Party supporters at Barber Hall in October 1977. The SIS Amendment Bill aimed to tighten the government’s control over ordinary citizens and enabled the SIS to tap phones, bug premises, open mail and more easily recruit informers. Despite mass protests throughout the country, it was passed into law.
Protesters outside Palmerston North MP John Lithgow’s house in 1977, objecting to the government’s proposal to cut the benefit for a solo parent with one child from $61 to $45 a week. The protest stemmed from the report of the Domestic Purposes Review Committee tabled in Parliament the day before by the Minister of Social Welfare, Stan Walker, said that the Domestic Purposes Benefit had been a significant factor in the number of marriage breakdowns and that raising it had increased the number of people wanting it.