Beating the Immigration Drum
October 23 12:00 AM
AUTHOR:
Sunday Star Times columnist Andrea Vance is spot on with her searing criticism of Labour leader David Shearer's remark about immigrants. not because she happens to be a migrant who might be feeling sensitive, but because Shearer's comments are downright silly. And the reaction of his colleague Darien Fenton borders on the outright stupid.
New Zealand has always been a nation of migrants - it is only a matter of time as to when we arrived here. My wife is a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of our first permanent European settler in 1809. My own family came here from Ireland three generations ago. We are all migrants - even Maori.
The thing about migrants from whenever and wherever they came has been their common wish to pursue a better lifestyle here, and to make a go of it. Their diversity adds to the unique flavour of our country. And it has long been my dream that New Zealand - through migration - can become the world's first truly multi-cultural, multi ethnic nation where our kids and grandkids are as at home in the Pacific world, as they are in the European, Asian, African or American environments. It is still a dream worth fighting for.
All David Shearer's comments do - however he tries to explain them - is fuel the fires of prejudice, and send the signal abroad that New Zealand is closed to new ideas and opportunities. While they may not be quite Enoch Powell's "Rivers of blood", they carry the same overtone nonetheless. And they are just as distasteful.
We need more migrants, not less. We need the best and brightest, and the diversity and perspective they bring in. Our population is barely at replacement level, if they are excluded. As it always has done, migration holds the key to our future. Only a short-sighted politician would think otherwise.