Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 341)
THURSDAY 16 JULY 1998
RT HON
FRANK DOBSON,
MR TOM
LUCE and MR
DAVID MATTHEWS.
320 You have looked?
—(Mr Luce) David may know.
—(Mr Matthews) The Empire Settlement Act gave a
basis for financial provision for assisted passages. There is
that element which applied to families as well as unaccompanied
children. 321 Was there any money made available once the children
were in Australia, in institutions in Australia? We had indications
that there was money coming from Britain to subsidise those placements.
—(Mr Matthews) I am not aware of any direct subsidy
from the British Government to children once they got to Australia. 322
Right. That is interesting.
—(Mr Dobson) If the Committee would like that pursued,
if you have any clues that might identify times and dates and
institutions that might help because otherwise it is like looking
for a needle in a haystack. 323 I hope we might be able to supply
that. People referred to ledgers in children' homes which indicated
that there was money coming from the British Government. I wonder
if I could go on to another area now which is there were two things
which came through from all the evidence we received when we were
there which was a desire on the part of these former child migrants
to fill the void in their lives, in their ancestry, to discover
where they came from, who their parents and siblings might be
and so on. I hope in terms of your answer to the previous question
that we will be co-operative in working with other governments
to do that. There is another factor which, having discovered where
they came from, who they are and discovered that they have a mother
still alive in England, a number of these people are retired,
have limited means, do you think either directly from the British
Government or co-operatively with the Australian and New Zealand
Governments there is the possibility that we can provide some
financial assistance for them to come on maybe just one visit
back to the UK?
—(Mr Dobson) Certainly I cannot give that commitment,
I do not know what the scale might be of people who would be interested
in doing it. If that is what the Committee recommends we will
obviously have to consider it very carefully and very seriously
but I cannot sit here and say, yes, that is okay.
Mr Lansley324
Secretary of State, I wonder if I might just revert to the relationship
between the UK Government and the receiving countries' governments.
You said you had a brief discussion with the Australian Federal
Health Minister, I know we had evidence your predecessors had
indeed had conversations of a similar kind but I wondered if in
the light of not so much those discussions but other contacts
between the Department and the governments of receiving countries
or in the light of in more recent years the publicity and the
public concern that has arisen both in this country and in the
receiving countries whether there have been requests to the British
Government from receiving governments for action or support or
indeed proposals for co-ordination and, if arising from those,
there are any additional measures in hand of which the Committee
ought to be aware or in prospect?
—(Mr Dobson) Can I make one point before I ask Tom
Luce to reply. The Parliamentary Under Secretary Paul Boateng
is at this moment in Australia and one of the things he will be
pursuing there as part of the visit he is making is the matter
of child migrants to try to establish effective relations because
if we are going to do even a limited amount to help in terms of
access to records and things then clearly we are going to have
to establish effective relations with at least the Federal Government
and probably the State Governments and the agencies there.
—(Mr Luce) I am not aware myself of any requests
from the receiving governments for arrangements of that kind.
Audrey Wise325
I would like to revert to the issue of help being made available
from the British Government at the time for the subsistence of
these child migrants. Certainly I will supply the things which
I want to bring to your attention. In Australia I was given a
file of documents and copies contemporaneous correspondence. For
instance, there is a letter of 13 July 1951 which is really in
connection with the Presbyterian Farm School called Dhurringile.
It is from the Australian Minister for Immigration explaining
to the church concerned, the Presbyterian Church, the mechanisms
for the remission of money, British Government money, to them
for the child migrants. It explains: "The position is that
this Department does not make arrangements for payment of maintenance
contributions by the United Kingdom Government on behalf of child
migrants. The United Kingdom Government has expressed a desire
to make their own arrangements in this matter. However a procedure
has been followed whereby regular payments are made by the Commonwealth
relations office..." which is the name we all remember, the
British Government Department "... to the appropriate authorities
in the UK representing the approved organisation in Australia
normally on the basis of quarterly returns furnished by the voluntary
organisation at this end caring for the child migrants showing
the names and ages of migrant children under 16 years of age being
fully maintained. The Parent Recruiting Society in London then
completes arrangements to remit the United Kingdom Government
subsidy to the homes concerned in this country." Now I believe
that to be genuine and there is a whole pile of other very interesting
letters which suggest that in fact there was much more active
support by the UK Government but it was not matched by checking
up. So, as I say, I will pass that to you, Secretary of State,
but I would urge that your Department also looks into this matter
with a view to checking exactly what the British Government did,
in so far as you have got time to do it. If you decide that is
too laborious and you can simply make generous arrangements now,
okay, but otherwise if you are not going to make generous arrangements
when the time comes for your response then I would urge that before
you commit yourself against it you look very thoroughly. That
is a very clear statement, the United Kingdom Government subsidy
going out there and then no information coming back. We had evidence
of what happened to people at that particular farm school as well
and it was very nasty.
—(Mr Dobson) I can give an immediate undertaking
that I will ask officials not just in the Department of Health
but within the Government generally and presumably the Foreign
Office now to see whether these records have been kept and, if
so, to check and see what the overall position was.
Dr Brand326
I really want to take up the issue of records. Clearly, there
are a great number of records. We have heard there are records
at the Old Bailey, central government, local government in this
country, the institutions in this country, the institutions abroad,
federal governments and state governments. It is actually a nightmare
for people to try to find where there may be details of their
particular circumstances. Mr Luce told us on 20th May that it
would be difficult to collect these records. I do not think that
is what we have in mind. What we have in mind is a central database
which actually could tell people where their records are kept
and they would have a more reasonable way of getting into the
data stream. Would it be possible to set something like that up?
Secondly, we have had a lot of evidence of people being deliberately
misled especially by the sending agencies and receiving agencies,
people being told that there were no records or that the records
had been burned or the records had been misled or that parents
had died when clearly their parents were still alive perhaps in
an attempt to cover up some of the very inadequate support and
supervision that these children got. Would there not be powers
available to you to ensure that the access is adequate for people
to records held by the voluntary agencies?
—(Mr Dobson) It seems to me that if we wanted to
set up a central database it would not work unless everybody complied
because it would not be central otherwise, it would be a bit central
but certain agencies and maybe certain Australian states or Canadian
provinces would not comply, I do not know. If it is going to work
as a central database it needs to cover everyone. My advice is
that we would need to take some powers that we do not possess
at present in order to force an agency who is unwilling to contribute
to the database to contribute. 327 We heard earlier that clearly
some of these agencies were formally acting on behalf of the British
Government which I would have thought would give the British Government
an absolute right to the records that show what was being done
on behalf of the British Government.
—(Mr Luce) It would be very difficult for the British
Government to take powers relating to records held overseas, of
course and we have had discussions with the sending agencies here
and have some more planned. From the discussions that I have had,
I would have thought that the issues are practical now rather
than any withholding of consent. I certainly think that in pursuing
those discussions we would want to make every progress that we
can without waiting for legislation, which would be rather inclined
to delay things. I think I would be reasonably confident that
if a practical feasible scheme were designed there would be a
high level of co-operation in it. I would not want to defend necessarily
the sending agencies, particularly when these issues first started
to arise in a serious way towards the end of the 1980s, but there
are undoubtedly practical problems that some of them have where
small agencies have now disappeared and nobody really knows where
their records are and so forth. So one has to accept there are
some practical limitations, but I would personally doubt whether
taking legislative powers would be necessary.
Chairman328
I think the problem that we picked up in Australia is that in
a number of instances agencies have been reluctant to release
records because of a fear of legal action being taken by the former
migrants against the agencies concerned over the treatment they
had within the system. Can I move on to another issue linked in
a sense to Robert Walter's question about funding passages back
to the UK. One of the areas that we received strong representations
on both before we went to Australia and New Zealand and while
we were there was the view that if former migrants, particularly
those who are in fairly difficult circumstances in Australia and
New Zealand and elsewhere, who are British citizens were to return
to the UK to have some form of rehabilitation with their families
the UK Government ought in some way to maintain them or assist
with their maintenance while they are actually within the UK.
I appreciate, Secretary of State, this is not directly within
your remit, it would be your colleague's in the other section
of Richmond House, but I do not know whether you or your officials
have had any discussions with the Department of Social Security
about what their thinking would be in certain circumstances where
a former migrant is back here without personal finances to maintain
him or herself. Would the Government be in a position to offer
any assistance to somebody in those circumstances?
—(Mr Dobson) Your Committee may decide that the
child migrants should be singled out and treated differently from
anyone else, but in order to entitle them to UK Social Security
benefits while they were here they probably would have to be singled
out and treated differently from everyone else because they would
be subject to the habitual residence test like any other British
citizen who has lived abroad for a long time and then comes to
this country. I understand that roughly speaking the same rules
would apply to them seeking legal aid for any legal action they
might try to pursue here. 329 I think we might touch on that later
on. Perhaps I can give you an illustration of somebody that several
of us met in Australia who is actually now in the UK to put in
context the concerns that we have about the circumstances of people
who have been through this scheme. I have got this man's consent
to raise his case and mention his name. He is Mr Michael Doonan
whom we met in Melbourne. He was born in 1948, so I am sure Mrs
Keen and I would not think he is an elderly man but a young man
from our point of view and in your case probably a very young
man. This man was sent at the age of five from the Father Hudson's
homes in Birmingham without the knowledge or consent of his mother
and his father. He was placed in Australia with the Christian
Brothers and spent time in some of the establishments run by that
organisation that have generated the most serious complaints about
abuse and sexual exploitation. This man, who had assumed he was
an orphan, sought help from the Child Migrants' Trust and his
mother was located living in London in September 1997. She had
always understood that her son had been placed for adoption in
the UK with a responsible caring family and, as you might imagine,
she was astonished to find out he had ended up in Australia in
these institutions. The Child Migrants' Trust made contact with
his mother who at that time was in reasonable health, although
towards the end of last year she experienced a mild stroke and
following letters and telephone calls between Michael and his
mother and his many full brothers and sisters, which he also found
he had got, plans were made for him to return home earlier this
year to have a reconciliation with his mother. This chap actually
is in employment but could not meet the cost of air travel and
the expense of maintaining himself here. He already had had considerable
expenses in telephone calls with family in the UK. In order for
him to travel home his only option was to apply for assistance
from the Christian Brothers, the organisation that he regarded
as having treated him in an appalling way during his time on various
of the farms where he was placed and he felt quite compromised
having to take this step, but he had little choice and eventually
he got the full cost of his air fare. He was planning to come
later in the year to see his mother. While we were there his mother
had a further serious stroke and we were asked, and I was asked
in particular, what should he do, because the concern was not
that he had not got the money to get over here, he had got that
money from the Christian Brothers, but who would maintain him
when he was here. I took the view, maybe irresponsibly, from a
humanitarian point of view that surely this man's mother was clearly
in a pretty bad way and with her age and circumstances I felt,
and I know my colleagues shared the view, that this man had an
obligation to return home as soon as possible and we would sort
out his maintenance while he was over here. Were we at fault in
suggesting that? I do not think we were and I do not think you
would think we were, but you will understand that this is the
kind of dilemma that many migrants are in in similar circumstances
because their parents, if they are still alive, are of an age
where they are not well. What can we do about somebody in his
circumstances, Secretary of State, because I am sure as a decent
human being you would agree that this man should be with his mother
and in fact we have found out that she has suffered a further
stroke and has got a poor prognosis for immediate recovery. She
cannot speak, but she knows he is here and since he has been in
England he has spent most of his time at his mother's bedside.
She is delighted to have him here, but the circumstances could
have been very different if he had actually been given this information
years earlier that he was not an orphan, he had a mum and brothers
and sisters over here. To me this is scandalous and it is a human
situation in the here and now, it is not 1948. I just wonder what
your thoughts are on how we can go about assisting this man in
these circumstances. You may want to take it away and look at
it. It seems important to illustrate in human terms what this
scheme has meant to people in the here and now.
—(Mr Dobson) I can certainly undertake to take this
away and raise it with the Secretary of State for Social Security
and see whether there is any machinery that allows her or someone
else to help. Certainly in terms of ordinary straightforward benefits
as I understand it the test of habitual residence would have to
apply, but it may be that there are certain discretions, but the
last thing I am an expert on is Social Security and so I really
do not know.
Audrey Wise330
When you have any discussions that you may have on this, Secretary
of State, could I ask you to make it clear to the relevant Department
or Minister or colleague that these people were very anxious to
be habitual residents of the UK, they were enforced migrants and
therefore this should give them the opportunity to be regarded
differently. They were treated very differently. They were not
volunteers. Your use of the word "press ganged" was
very appropriate and in many cases their parents did not consent.
The level of deception we found was enormous. It would be a bit
ironic if they are told: "You are not entitled to benefit
because you are not an habitual resident", when that is their
very complaint against the British Government.
—(Mr Dobson) I understand that and, as I say, I
will undertake to raise the matter with the Secretary of State
for Social Security.
—Chairman: You mentioned the issue of legal aid earlier
on. Audrey wants to pursue that issue further.
Audrey Wise331
There are real problems here. This is one of the practical issues
and I would not suggest that all the practical issues are capable
of solution by the British Government because they are not, but
some of them I think would well repay discussion between the British
Government and host governments. For example, the fact that in
western Australia there is an absolute statute of limitation of
six years means that there is no possibility of legal redress
for very many of these children. You said that the host governments
clearly bore a heavy responsibility and this is obviously true.
Perhaps you would care to look at the legal position there to
see if there could be some representations about matters like
that. In addition, there is the problem of being able to afford
legal aid both in anything to do with their own treatment and
also in anything to do with their current situation. Some face
unfortunate situations in relation to their rights as individuals,
their rights in relation to their own family, it might be inheritance,
all kind of things and up to now nobody accepts responsibility
for that. Do you think that you could consider looking at this
issue? I am very anxious not to tempt you into closing the door
on any of these things as you would gather. I am adopting a different
style from my usual as you would gather. In drawing your attention
to this it is not intended to say that it is only a British Government
responsibility, but many of them are still British citizens and
there is apparently no way that they will qualify under normal
rules. Could this be one of the things you undertake to examine
for us?
—(Mr Dobson) I can raise this question of help on
the legal things with the Lord Chancellor and I will do that as
well, but I would expect that there is not likely to be any response,
save in this urgent case, until after we have got your report
and have had time to look at it and considered the implications
one way or another.
Ann Keen332
Secretary of State, the evidence suggests that it seemed to be
advantageous to the children that they should have a new fresh
start out in Australia and Canada and to enable them to have this
new and fresh start they were issued with birth certificates which
omitted full details of their parents and they were only issued
with a shortened version of their birth certificate. Would you
be able to consider supplying full birth certificates to the people
free of charge?
—(Mr Dobson) I do not think I am responsible for
the Registrar General either, I think that is the Treasury. There
is a thought!
Chairman333
You have got a good relationship there!
—(Mr Dobson) Not necessarily. Again I am sure we
can raise it with them. I do not know how high the fees are. I
gather they vary depending on how you approach them and what you
are seeking, but it certainly is the case that people should be
able to get their full birth certificate and I would hope it would
not be so expensive that they were debarred from doing it just
by the expense.
Ann Keen334
Many of the child migrants are now looking for an apology from
the British Government for their involvement in this whole scandal.
Could we see that coming forward? Would you see that as at least
part of an appropriate gesture when we have completed our report?
—(Mr Dobson) I obviously would not rule it out.
I think probably the British Government owes an apology to legions
of children who were taken away one way and another, sometimes
by courts and other people from the care of their own parents
and then mistreated more than their own parents were mistreating
them, if their parents were mistreating them which may not have
been the case in some of these cases. I do not want to rule anything
out and we will respond in a sympathetic way, I am sure, to what
the Committee recommends.
Mr Lansley335
Secretary of State, I wonder if I might invite you just to comment
on two aspects of how you might look at any recommendations made
by this Committee. Firstly, clearly it is not our task to take
too long to try and write a history of all those things that had
occurred, but it is clear that in the context of our report there
would be many references to occasions when there have been errors
and omissions and fault in the past and when opportunities for
remedies had been available but not been taken. I just wondered,
firstly, if you could undertake, although those omissions may
not have occurred under the present Government, to take corporate
responsibility for the errors and omissions and failings that
may have occurred in the past and undertake that the present government
at least will recognise those and respond to them corporately
in the present for what had occurred in the past? Secondly, that
you would also be thoroughly aware—and the example the Chairman
adduced is an important one and there are many others—that
time is still very much of the essence. It is one of those instances
where so little having been done over so many years does not give
one the impression that nothing has been, therefore nothing needs
to be done, but that nothing has been done and therefore it is
all the more urgent that something is done. Would you be willing
to undertake to act either on the UK Government's behalf or, where
necessary, in concert with others in as speedy a fashion as possible?
—(Mr Dobson) Firstly, the British Government accepts
all the liabilities and assets of its predecessors. Clearly, if
there are responsibilities we accept those responsibilities. It
seems to me that the main thing that the British Government can
do here is give practical help in terms of records and that sort
of thing to people who are looking for records and if we can facilitate
people getting what they want here in this country then I would
be very happy to look at that sympathetically. I think we move
into a different territory once we start talking about how people
were treated by Commonwealth governments and apparently reputable
agencies within those Commonwealth countries.
Audrey Wise336
We were told before we went to Australia: "Oh, you will meet
the malcontent, you will meet the unlucky ones and you will not
meet anybody who made a success." I would like you to know
and to bear in mind that we met very large numbers of people and
we did meet those who had made a success of their lives, including
one person who made a huge success and rose to a very high position
in the Australian broadcasting system but who nevertheless told
us that in his view the whole thing was fundamentally flawed.
We also met great numbers of people who had suffered what can
only be called atrocities. I found myself saying to a colleague
that this was not normal ill-treatment, this was not normal paedophilia.
I do not think paedophilia is normal, but I did not have a vocabulary.
It is like war crimes without the war. These were British children.
Perhaps when you consider our report and issues like apologies
or whatever you will see that some people badly need an acknowledgment.
There are things you cannot apologise for even if you think it
was your fault, but perhaps an acknowledgment of what they suffered
because for many many years they have been disbelieved and they
have had an enormous struggle. It is very difficult if you are
being habitually raped or forced to have sexual contact with animals
that we heard about from people who had suffered it and you are
also being told this is the will of God. It has taken people a
great long time to gather any self-respect. Being disbelieved
or thrust to one side, marginalised has been part of it. My own
view is that an acknowledgment of what they suffered would be
part of a healing process. I do urge you, Secretary of State,
to discount any suggestion that what happened was because of the
standards at the time on how you dealt with your children and
how it was different then because you and I know that actually
the people to whom this happened in general, those who came up
against poverty in particular, were not much different from what
they are now. The attitudes of authorities might have been different
to such issues as illegitimacy, but the attitudes of the mothers
and fathers were not and we have had a lot of statements about
how that was then and it was different then and I am glad to have
a sufficiently mature Secretary of State to be able to discount
that particular line of argument.
—(Mr Dobson) I find it quite extraordinary, to try
and pin the point in time, that when I was at Wembley watching
England win the World Cup some children were still being in effect
kidnapped from Britain and sent to Australia. It beggars belief
even if it was done with the best will in the world and even if
when they got there they were properly and well treated and got
all the opportunities of better jobs and wide open spaces and
healthier living and all this sort of thing which was sold to
people, not necessarily children, with the Assisted Places Scheme
and things like that. Even if it was the case that once the children
had arrived in the recipient country everything had gone right,
it still seems to me that what was done was wrong. I perfectly
understand that.
Ann Keen337
Following on from what Audrey said which I would back totally,
all of the medical evidence tells us today that people need massive
help through any traumatic experience and the longer the crime
is left and not brought to justice the worse that traumatic experience
becomes. When Audrey Wise said it is like war crimes without the
war I think she pinpointed it. Can we look forward to a time when
the people who committed the crimes will be sought and brought
to justice?
—(Mr Dobson) In those terms the dubious policy that
we find difficult to understand clearly was not a crime. I do
not like to use the word "paedophilia" because it is
a phrase which was invented by them, it is child molesting and
child abuse, and that is a crime, and as I understand it the crime
occurred in the recipient countries and really they are matters
which have to be pursued with the judicial systems and prosecuting
authorities in those countries. I do not really see much of a
role for the British Government there, other than perhaps urging
them to do it.
—Mr Gunnell: I, regrettably, was not able to visit Australia
but I have obviously heard rather more of what Audrey has just
said very eloquently now. It does seem to me, from what I have
heard, that there are a number of organisations which actually
would be only too pleased to keep the lid on this whole topic
because if you expose what happened and if you give publicity
to the sort of information which this Committee has received and
which Audrey in particular has spoken of, then it is clear there
are some people who under normal circumstances in this country
would be prosecuted and you would have a situation where Utting
was writ large in terms of the treatment which many child migrants
received. I think therefore the Department ought to bear in mind
that there are organisations who, for their own reasons, will
be very anxious to withhold information and for that reason I
can see it may be necessary to have some powers of compulsion
to obtain information from those organisations which they would
be reluctant to pass over otherwise.
—Dr Brand: If I can reiterate that, and there are clearly
two issues here. One is a number of children have had something
happen to them as a matter of Government policy and they need
help to trace their roots and see whether they can re-integrate
their lives, and a lot of them still blank it out until they have
got to our sort of age when their children and grandchildren start
asking: "Where did you come from?", and I am sure there
is a lot we can do to help them. There is a second group which
were not only victims of that policy of displacement but were
actually criminally abused. I think we should not base all our
discussions on that much smaller group, I am very glad to say,
of children who were criminally abused, and I do not think one
should have a policy on those people other than to allow them
to pursue the right to prosecute the people who did those beastly
things to them. I am very worried about Statutes of Limitation
and that Governments abroad are very reluctant to allow this to
be opened up. I think that the various religious organisations—and
I think the Catholic Church has a great deal to answer for here—are
deliberately keeping a lid on this issue by making any help that
they give to former child migrants conditional on them not suing,
by withholding information unless people sign a disclaimer that
they will not sue, by settling out of court when it actually gets
anywhere near a court, and I think that is quite disgraceful.
I am afraid it has the smell of a deliberate cover-up which is
wider than just one institution, I think it is a sort of Establishment
cover-up which I find extraordinarily unpleasant.
Mr Walter338
Secretary of State, I do not want to pre-judge what we say in
our report but, if I could reiterate what Dr Brand has said, there
does seem to be a conspiracy on the part of particularly it would
appear the Catholic organisations, not only in Australia but also
here. We heard evidence from people who could remember which children's
home they were in. I remember one very vividly because it was
a children's home which was just down the road from where I grew
up—Nazareth House in Swansea—and this woman said:
"I could remember being there but when I went back all the
nuns said, 'You must be mistaken dear, you were never here,' and
she said, 'Of course, I was here,' and they said: 'Well, there
are no records"' and somebody else who had been at a similar
one in Plymouth and had gone to the offices of the diocese and
they said: "There are no records, you must be mistaken, you
were never here." I believe that we have a responsibility
in this country, if those records exist or if somebody is sitting
on those records, to actually find them and make them available
to these people. I am not asking for a comment on that, I just
state it.
—(Mr Dobson) It is one of the things I will comment
on. It seems to me that if the records are there, then they ought
to be made available to any of the individuals who were affected
by them who would like to see them. I think that the least—and
I can make this commitment now—the Government could do would
be to help people in those circumstances by making approaches
to the agencies concerned if the agencies concerned are being
obstructive. I think Tom Luce's view is that they probably would
be co-operative and I certainly do not know enough to dispute
that view, but to force them to do it would require a change in
the law as I understand it, but I may be wrong.
Chairman339
Can I just make one final point? I appreciate that this has been
a very unusual session and we have pulled out more evidence from
the Committee than from the witnesses.
—(Mr Dobson) Yes, at one point I was thinking of
asking a couple of questions! 340 What has struck me in the time
that I have been aware of this issue is that there are contemporary
parallels and that worries me very much, possibly to a lesser
extent in this country, but certainly in Europe. I went in the
early 1990s to Romania and I recall vividly being in a Romanian
"orphanage" with dozens and dozens of small children,
and asking how many of these children were actually orphans and
being told that it was about one of them and the rest of them
had parents and families, but they were too poor to care for them,
so they were in an institution. Of course at that stage there
was great pressure to have adoptions in Britain of these Romanian
orphans. I think there are lessons to be learned there because
I can see a very clear contemporary parallel in looking back at
what has happened with the migrant scheme. Do you have any further
points, Secretary of State, or Mr Luce or Mr Matthews, to raise
with us at all or any issues you want to mention which have not
been raised so far before we conclude?
—(Mr Dobson) No, the only point I have really is
that I welcome what you have been doing and I look forward to
receiving the report and I will try to make sure, insofar as I
can commit other people, that you get a prompt and sympathetic
response to the report. 341 Well, we welcome that assurance. I
am sure you appreciate that there is a very limited timescale
for many people in respect of this issue. We intend to try and
produce a report within a fortnight. We have given assurances
to people in Australia and New Zealand that we will try and produce
a report by the end of the month and we hope we will be able to
do that, and obviously it would be very helpful if you are able
to respond in as concrete terms as possible to the report as soon
as humanly possible. Can I express my appreciation to all of you
for coming along on what I know is a difficult issue, and we appreciate
your positive response to the points we have raised with you.
Thank you very much.
—(Mr Dobson) Thank you.
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