PM starts Australia tour with flashback to child migrants' plight

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi yesterday started his two-week tour of Australia at the place where 310 Maltese children and many others began theirs - Fremantle - with a visit to the Child Migrant monument which stands at the western tip of the country.

About 20 former child migrants - mostly Maltese but of other nationalities as well - gathered around the simple bronze statute, of a boy clutching his younger sister, in the swirling wind to welcome the Prime Minister and his wife Kate when they arrived at 11.30 a.m.

David Plowman, son to a Maltese mother and English father, who arrived in Fremantle as a child migrant at the age of 11 in 1953 and is now professor of industrial relations and the chairman of the Child Migrants of Malta Group, met the Gonzis when they arrived. And he illustrated the difficulty and trauma faced by children - some as young as six - during that period.

Prof. Plowman said that child migrants, who travelled without their parents, were dislocated from their families and became institutionalised "with all the things that come with that". Many, including himself, stayed in establishments run by Christian brothers. In several documented instances, children were subjected to physical punishment and even, in rarer cases, sexual abuse.

"We acknowledge that child migration was good," Prof. Plowman said as he explained many had gone on to lead a better life, "but one should not underestimate the psychological scarring. Some scars are so deep that people cannot hold down jobs or maintain relationships. This has meant that they have turned to drugs and developed mental problems... This monument acknowledges their plight and is a statement that we will not repeat the mistakes of our history". Alfred Zammit, who arrived in Fremantle at the age of eight in the same year as Prof. Plowman, told The Times how he had spent 19 months in an orphanage before he was reunited with his family who migrated from Qormi.

"We were very poor in Malta and I came alone. There was a lot of hardship when we came here and we were forced to learn English and carry out manual labour. We hardly got any food and the (Christian) brothers would hit us with straps that contained lead, even if we spoke to one another in Maltese. It was hard to learn that way and it's a pity. I did okay afterwards but some were unlucky and went the wrong way."

Dr Gonzi, who described his visit to Australia as an expression of Malta's desire to remain close to Maltese migrants, said it was "symbolic and significant" that Fremantle should be his starting point.

"Some (of the Maltese children) went through unimaginable difficulties, which you would have had to live in order to understand. We have to recognise this and come to terms with the past, and at the same time look to the future," he said. The Prime Minister said that a monument in Malta to mark the plight of child migrants - which the group requested about three years ago - would be erected at Grand Harbour as soon as possible; he hopes by the end of the year.

Malta's High Commissioner to Australia, Francis Tabone, who is accompanying Dr Gonzi, said permission to erect the monument - symbolising a boat - was granted by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority last March on a site at the Valletta Waterfront.

However, Paul Calleja, a Maltese migrant behind the campaign for a monument, showed The Times a letter from the Australian High Commissioner in Malta, Jurek Juszczyk, saying the initiative had been delayed because "the owner of the land" was refusing to allow it to be placed there until he received a favourable reply from Mepa "on an unrelated matter".

Mr Calleja said: "I have only just got to know about this and would like to know what this dispute is. Many of the child migrants are now in their 70s and two died last year, so the sooner it happens, the better."

Dr Gonzi yesterday evening attended a reception hosted by the Bassendean Maltese Association of Western Australia, where about 150 ecstatic but ageing migrants were waiting to pounce on him. To remind them of Malta, they have adorned the walls with photos of Valletta and Mdina as well as old Maltese buses. And to add a hint of Australian culture perhaps, the gents' toilets are right next to the bar.

The Prime Minister was treated to a number of "local" delicacies and was particularly pleased to be introduced to the newest addition of the community, a baby boy aptly called Zepp.

After a few hiccups with the playing of both nations' national anthems, Dr Gonzi told his hosts they were considered as "Maltese that live abroad" rather than migrants. "You were Maltese, you are Maltese, and you always will be Maltese," he said.

Today, the Prime Minister leaves for Adelaide, and moves on to Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney before returning to Malta on August 13.