Child migrants better treated in NZ, says Bennett

Paula Bennett. Photo / Brett Phibbs

As the Australian Government formally apologised yesterday to victims of Britain's past child migrant programme, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said the children's situation in New Zealand was very different.

She acknowledged that life was difficult for many of the 549 British child migrants who arrived in New Zealand between 1948 and 1954.

But she added: "Unlike Australia, the majority of children who came here under the British migrant scheme were deliberately placed into foster care rather than into state institutions.

"A number of safeguards were introduced to care for the new arrivals."

In 1998, the previous National Government started a programme to find all child migrants to make them aware of the assistance that was available. This included setting up a support/travel fund to help them to reunite with family in Britain.

"The New Zealand Government also addressed a citizenship issue that occurred for child migrants by allowing them to apply for New Zealand citizenship at no cost," the minister said.

A spokeswoman for Ms Bennett said the Ministry of Social Development had managed to track down 400 of the 549 migrants. Of the 400, 36 had moved to Britain, 28 to Australia and 56 had died.

Ms Bennett's statement comes after the Australian Government said sorry to thousands of individuals who suffered neglect and abuse after being shipped to that country from Britain.

It is thought that between 7000 and 10,000 children were sent to Australia from 1947 to 1967. Many were brought up in institutions, by farmers or treated as child slaves.

The children were taken from poor families and told they were orphans, while their parents believed that they were heading to a better life.

The British Government said on Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would also apologise for the child migrant schemes that sent about 150,000 youngsters, aged from 3 to 14, to the colonies.

In an interview on Radio New Zealand one of New Zealand's child migrants, Malcolm Axcell, said the formal apology from the British Government would come too late for some.

It would never heal the pain endured by those who were deported, he said.

"Some of them had a shocking time from the time they arrived until they got to that 18-year-old age where they could move on [to] their own lives."

Mr Axcell, now 72, arrived in Auckland on the SS Rimutaka in1949.

An organisation of former child migrants, the British Child Migrant Society in New Zealand, is no longer in operation.