|
Open letter to the newspapers from The Maltese
Association of Wellington Incorporated : As migrants
to this part of the world we truly feel forgotten or as
the saying goes "Out of Sight Out of Mind".
Why do we say this? We are not geographically that far
from Australia so of course for financial reasons and
others which we do not know of, us migrants to New Zealand
come under the Australian High Commission in Canberra when
it comes to our representation diplomatically.
Admittingly we have one Honory Consul who is meant to see
to our needs with the Maltese and New Zealand authorities.
Of course if these needs were truly addressed by now
nearing the beginning of the 2002 we would have a
Bilateral and /or Reciprocal Agreement between the two
countries.
Then out of the blues comes A New Millennium Convention
for Maltese Community Leaders Living Abroad organised by
The Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and The Migrants
Commission. The Maltese Association of New Zealand took
heart and thought maybe the time has come for our wrongs
or short comings to be righted and hopefully with some
hard work from the authorities we will gain equal footing
with other migrants elsewhere for example Australia.
But to our surprise none of the leaders here were invited
for the convention. Instead certain individuals got this
invitation for whatever reason the organisers knew best.
This has left the hard working organisations here rather
upset but we now rightfully expect things to improve
following the convention, thus at least we will be proven
wrong.
We expect The Honourable President Dr. Guido Demarco to do
his utmost for us The New Zealand Maltese to be able to
return to our home country one day and enjoy a pension
with Portability Scheme in Place.
Of course, The Honourable Prime Minister Dr. Eddie Fenech
Adami, The Honourable Leader of the Opposition Dr. Alfred
Sant, The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Joe
Borg, The Director of The Migrants Commission MGR. Philip
Calleja are all invited to claim this and take it under
their responsibility for us, we surely do not mind as long
as their invited guests to the convention then can boast
of their successes during the convention which seems to
only thus far be creating division of one nature or
another.
We have to take what comes our way, but we do hope that
some positive results will be got from this Convention For
Community Leaders Living Abroad.
|
