Ejecting the squinty-eyed
Winston Peters is at it again. His immigration policy, released yesterday, makes for depressing reading for anyone who believes in an open-minded, open-armed, and compassionate New Zealand. In his speech launching the policy, he said:
In 2005, we struggle to know what a New Zealander really is because over the past fourteen years National and Labour have flooded NZ with immigrants…
The last census revealed that over 300,000 people in New Zealand spoke little or no English. We used to be an English speaking country with English and Maori our official languages…
We have now reached the point where you can wander down Queen Street in Auckland and wonder if you are still in New Zealand – or some other country.
Another disturbing issue has been the release of Statistics New Zealand population projections going forward to the year 2021. If immigration levels are not controlled, the Asian population here will increase 145 percent from an estimated 270,000 in 2001 to 670,000 in 2021… Almost all of this projected Asian population growth is from immigration. In other words we are being colonised without having any say in the numbers of people coming in and where they are from.
So, his problem is not really with immigration per se, but with the arrival of people who don’t look like us. Mainly the Asians. Because, if you walk down Queen Street and see a white face, well that’s okay. It’s not important whether they were born and brought up here or whether they have recently emigrated from other white countries such as Britain, because they’re just like us. No, what he’s concerned about is walking down Queen Street and seeing squinty eyes.
Which is kind of funny, given that the number of people “just like us” (i.e. Europeans, Australians, Pacific Islanders, etc.) immigrating to New Zealand far outweighs the number of Asians. In the year to the end of April 2005, the number of Asians coming here on a “permanent or long-term” basis was 19,046. That compares to the 28,033 coming from Europe, and the 19,522 coming from Oceania. So, the people in the “just like us” category is something like 50,000. The people in the “scary Asian” category is something like 20,000. Yet it’s the Asians who are the problem in Winston’s eyes. Could this be, as David Farrar points out, because Winston’s deputy leader is an immigrant from Britain?
Writes Farrar:
The latest immigration rant from NZ First is highly offensive and bordering on paranoid. Peters proposes an immigration “flying squad” staffed by patriotic New Zealanders. Sounds like vigilantes to me.
Peters plays to xenophobia as he doesn’t oppose immigrants per se, just some immigrants such as Asians. I’ve yet to hear him rail against British immigrants, such as his Deputy Leader.
What’s a little depressing is that the Herald has a poll this morning which illustrates that Winston’s immigration rhetoric is getting some cut-through: about a third of Kiwis believe the current level of immigration is too high, compared to 56% who believe it’s about right or too low. I’ve croaked it before, but I’ll croak it again: perhaps it’s time for both major parties to draw a line in the sand and say: we will not deal with this man after the election because he does nothing but poison New Zealand political discourse.
May 28th, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Please, Frog, if you’re going to speak Winston-lish get it right — SLITTY eyed.
Winston likes squinty eye, as they’re usually attached to paranoid old people who never really got used to the last quarter of the 20th century and would like another go.
May 28th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
The annoying thing for me is that while pro-immigration, I do have severe reservations about how this Government has set immigration policy, how NZIS is run etc. I think one of the reasons Peters is getting bolder is because Labour has made some mistakes which have driven people to Peters. And hence more moderate alternatives to both Labour and Peters are drowned out.
Personally I’d be happy for National and Labour to agree to no deals with Peters, but at the end of the day if the public give him 10% of the vote he gets 10% of the MPs (well a bit more with wasted vote) and even without doing a deal, it means he may get to choose which party forms government, and which laws get passed (unless they have cross-party support).
May 28th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Ahh, well, Craig, I have certainly heard the squinty eyed term for Asians. It’s apparently s humourous racist epithet - you know, because it looks like they’re squinting…
May 28th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
I must remember that, Frog. I’m Asian when I lose my glasses - or am too vain to wear the bloody things. Yay!
On a more serious note, DPF has a point. What frustrates me the most about Peters when he goes on the immigrant bash is that we can forget about having a serious immigration debate for another couple of years. And I’m sure frustration with the NZIS, and the incoherent policy settings behind it, frustrate people on both the left and the right.
Who wants to touch immigration once Peters’ has cocked his leg all over it?
May 29th, 2005 at 10:46 am
In Stuff.co.nz today, under a little headline ” Youth pot politicians, but say plastic fantastic” is a couple of factoids from an online poll of 7000 by youth (should that be “yoof”?) radio station The Edge. The one in context for this discussion is the response by two-thirds of the 7000 pollees that “too many foreigners live in New Zealand”.
I couldnt find the poll on theedge’s web site, so I dont know if these are “slitty eyed” foreigners, or “just like us” foreigners.
Frankly, I find this differentiation by eye style disturbing, you would hope that we’d risen above overt racism by the 21st century. Worse than that, it could be argued that Peters is reflecting the sentiment of our youth.