"I note another article this morning about many of our Asian citizens or visitors being particularly prone to abuse and racial discrimination. As I said in my Maiden Speech, the New Zealand Chinese community has been one of the major contributors since the 1800's to the building of this nation but because they were not signatories to the Treaty we hardly hear about it.
I believe we need a concerted campaign to education our population on their contributions to our country and their absolute right to be here. Secondly, we need to start playing the ball not the man. New Zealand First has always had a policy of an Immigration Plan, but it is not acceptable to blame the individual who met the criteria laid down by the government to come and settle in this nation for being here. They have met the criteria, they have the right to be here and be treated with respect.
New Zealand First's position is that as a nation we must have a long term plan around this issue. How many people are enough for New Zealand? What can our country sustain if we wish to keep a certain percentage of our rural environments pristine? I mean, is it really good for Auckland to bring in another 1 million people in the next 30 years? Why not incentivise settlement around the nation? I asked Jonathan Coleman that question last year and he replied that immigrants were more productive when clumped together. I personally find that answer shocking - production unit talk as opposted to people responsive solutions."
Is it any wonder she's my favourite MP?
1 day ago
Well said, Tracey.
ReplyDeleteContrary to Maurice Williamson's claims, the Crafar deal wasn't about Chinese buying the farms. It was about SIXTEEN farms going into overseas ownership in one hit.
If the owners of Shanghai Pengxin want to migrate to NZ, I think we'd be a whole lot more accepting of their desire to purchase the farms. Especially if the export dollars from those farms flow back to NZ, rather than offshore. (That applies to our German, Swiss, American, British, etc, cuzzies.)
Otherwise, in decades to come, our children will look back at us and call us the Selfish Generatiion for selling off their birthright.
It sounds oddly similar to something a Green politician would say about the need for a 'Population Policy' or something to similar effect (not that i dont agree with the sentiment of keeping our rural environments pristine and uncontaminated by liberal 'hippy' urban-dwellers ;) :P)
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