Call to respect treaty villagers

On Nov 24, 2017, my family members and I travelled to Saibai Island in the Torres Strait of Australia.
We were there to attend a wedding of a family member who was getting married on Nov 25.
We travelled on a dinghy using a 40hp outboard motor on which eight people travelled (five adults and three children).
We travelled using the PNG-Australia Treaty, which allows traditional coastal villages access into the Torres Strait Islands using a pass, which is the accepted method of entry.
We arrived at Saibai at 6pm on Nov 24 to be met by a group of uniformed and heavily-armed Australian Border Patrol personnel (three white males and one white female).
Two members of our travelling party were allowed to go ashore and hand in the traditional visitors’ pass document, stating the number of people on board and purpose of our travel.
Not long after, the second dinghy which was a party to our group, arrived at 6.30pm.
On board were four men, six women, four children and two infants.
The officers after sighting the pass claimed:

• They were not aware of our arrival in Saibai;
• Our arrival was very late and suspicious;
• Daru was not a part of the Treaty villages; and
• We did not follow protocol prior to arrival.

We were ordered not to go onshore and to leave the island.
It was now 8 o’clock at night.
We even had the wedding host drive down and explain to the officials that we were their guests and relatives.
This all fell on deaf ears.
The spokesperson, a white female officer, sounded disorientated, rather racist in tone, unbecoming and totally sarcastic, derogative by the nature of her way of speaking and addressing us.
We asked for consideration on the grounds that we arrived on time but due to their deliberate procrastination, night had fallen.
Without any regard for our wellbeing, safety, the weathers condition and it being night, we were ordered to return to Daru.
We departed Saibai at 8.30pm in disbelief and shocked at how we were treated by these so-called Australian border patrol officers.
We were able to arrive in Mabuduan village at 9.30pm.
Unfortunately, the second dinghy developed engine failure and drifted for four hours between Saibai and the mainland of Western. With mothers, infants and children on board.
They were without water and food as well.
They managed to reach the shoreline of the mainland at around 1am than towed the dinghy all the way to Mabuduan village, arriving at 5am exhausted, tired, hungry, sick and feeling mistreated.
The whole episode was a result of Australian border officers behaving like colonial masters, treating people as suspects of a cartel of some sort, refugees, ignoring the facts of the matter that we are simple people from the treaty village of Parama.
We were there on an invitation.
These officers needed to be educated that we are legitimate inhabitants of the PNG-Torres Strait Treaty and that they need to exercise courtesy and treat every arrival on its own merits, and not on what they perceive us to be.
We are the traditional treaty village people and we have privileges, rights, customs and culture.
Yet, in this case, we were denied, we were treated unjustly, unfairly and inhumanely.
This treaty is unique as it maintains a culture that existed before James Cook landed on the shores of Possession Island to claim the land for the Queen of England.
I demand and call on appropriate government agencies, community and political leaders on both sides of the border to investigate and identify these Australian border officers who took it unto themselves to be an authority that belittle us.
We are a people bound by a treaty today, but historically, are a part and parcel of the culture and customs of our brothers and sisters in the Torres Strait.
It is my hope that this matter receives a lot of attention and respect it deserves.
I am of the view that until and unless we are given the respect we deserve, the Treaty will serve its purpose.
Otherwise, with such behaviour of the Australian border patrol officers, we will continue to be ignorant of the rules and regulations surrounding the management and maintenance of the Treaty in its entirety.

Cameron Sampson
Parama village
South Fly
Western