Speech: Shaw - Federation of Multicultural Councils AGM
Speech to the Federation of Multicultural Councils
AGM
James Shaw – Saturday 1st July 2017
Kia
ora
kotou
Nihao
Namaste
Annyong
Kamusta
Talofalava
Bula
Salam
alaikum
And Warm Pacific Greetings – on this cold
Dunedin morning – to you all.
***
It’s a privilege
to be representing the Green Party at your AGM.
We in the
Greens are deeply concerned that the debate about
immigration policy in New Zealand has, over the course of
time, come to be dominated by populist politicians preaching
a xenophobic message in order to gain political
advantage.
This ugly strain of political discourse is
quieter at times of low net migration into New Zealand, but
rises at times of when net migration is high – as it is
now, and so, at this election, sadly, the xenophobic drum is
beating louder.
Last year I made an attempt to try and
shift the terms of the debate away from the rhetoric and
more towards a more evidence-based approach.
We
commissioned some research which indicated that immigration
settings would be best if tied to population
growth.
Unfortunately, by talking about data and numbers,
rather than about values, I made things worse.
Because
the background terms of the debate are now so dominated by
anti-immigrant rhetoric, when I dived into numbers and data,
a lot of people interpreted that as pandering to the
rhetoric, rather than trying to elevate the debate and pull
it in a different direction.
We were mortified by that,
because, in fact, the Greens have the ambition of being the
most migrant-friendly party in Parliament. And I am sorry
for any effect it may have had on your
communities.
Migrants are not to blame for the social and
economic ills of this country.
Migrants are not to blame
for the housing crisis.
Migrants are not to blame for our
children who go to school hungry.
Migrants are not to
blame for the long hospital waitlists.
Migrants are not
to blame for our degraded rivers.
It is the
government’s failure to plan for the right level of
infrastructure and services that has caused
this.
***
So today I am not going to talk about
numbers, but about values.
And, in all honesty, I don’t
think New Zealand will be able to talk about numbers and
settings until we’ve had the conversation about values and
principles.
Until we can agree on those, we’ll just
lurch around responding to changing circumstances or the
latest headline.
And what are the values that the Green
Party stands for? We stand for an open, inclusive and
tolerant Aotearoa New Zealand that welcomes people who want
to make a contribution.
We stand for an Aotearoa that
stands up to racism and scapegoating and
xenophobia.
That’s what’s missing from the debate
about immigration. The rhetoric and scapegoating around
election year means that people miss the fact that
‘immigrants’ aren’t a sea of strange
faces.
They’re people, families, individuals. With
hopes and dreams and aspirations. With fears and anxieties
and worries. Humans who need love and need to love.
New
New Zealanders who love their new homes and want to do so
much to give and to give truth to that love.
But New
Zealand needs to be better at showing that love back. We
haven’t always lived up to that Kiwi mythos of giving
people a fair go and being welcoming to strangers.
We
have a tendency to treat immigrants as economic units who
are either a benefit or a threat to our narrow economic
interests.
We tend not to think of immigrants as people
in their own right, as people who come to this country for
the promise of a better life – as all our ancestors once
did.
***
Look at how we treat our migrant workers –
often putting them through harsh conditions and low pay just
for the privilege of coming here.
It’s shameful that
although only 5% of the total workforce are migrant workers
– about a third of prosecutions involving employment
condition violations involve a migrant worker.
And MBIE
doesn’t have enough resources to deal with the problem. We
know from their 2016 annual report that they’re falling
well short of doing the interventions they need (up to 1049
short) and that one in five investigations are taking longer
than six months.
That’s unacceptable. We will invest
more resources into the Labour Inspectorate so that we can
have more proactive investigations and less migrant worker
exploitation.
***
And look at how we treat non-Pakeha
New Zealanders in this country. According to a report by the
human rights commissioner – one-in-ten Pasifika and
one-in-five Asians have faced discrimination in the last 12
months.
Having a non-Pakeha name means you’re 50% less
likely to get a call-back for a job interview. Being a
migrant means you’re more likely to be over-qualified and
over-experienced in the job you do.
And we need to
address these issues. The Greens want to trial
ethnicity-blind and gender-blind CVs to address
discrimination.
***
Look also at how we treat our
multicultural associations and migrant centres. Last month
the Canterbury Migrant Centre was forced to close due to
lack of funding.
The value that your groups bring to New
Zealand – not only in easing the settlement process for
new migrants but for the diversity and social connections
you bring to your areas has been underappreciated for far
too long.
The Greens at the heart of government will
initiate a funding review so that the valuable work you do
is rewarded and recognized through a consistent baseline of
funding – so you can get on with the job rather than
having to constantly chase the next dollar.
***
Look
at how we rip off foreign students with the promise of a
so-called high-quality New Zealand education and a pathway
to residency.
But then thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of these students end up in terribly dodgy
private training establishments, doing courses that get them
a certificate barely worth the paper it’s printed on and
of no value to being able to find a job.
And in the
meantime they end up being exploited, working for below
minimum wages, and unable to get decent accommodation at a
price they can afford. I mean, what way is that to treat
anybody, let alone a guest in our house? That’s just a
rip-off.
***
I’m proud to lead a party that stands
for the politics of love and inclusion, not hate and
fear.
I’m also proud to be standing with the most
diverse list of candidates we’ve ever put forward for an
election. They include:
• Two Pasifika
candidates – Leilani Tamu, a former diplomat and Fulbright
Scholar, and Teanau Tuiono, an climate change advocate for
the Pacific Islands
• Two Chinese New Zealanders
– David Lee, a City Councillor, and Julie Zhu, a
freelancer in the theatre and film industries
•
Raj Singh, an Indian lawyer and successful business
owner
• Rebekah Jaung, a Korean doctor,
currently also doing her PhD
• Ricardo Menéndez
March, from Mexico, a migrant rights campaigner.
•
And of course, many of you will have already read about
Golriz Ghahraman, who came to New Zealand as a nine-year old
refugee from Iran, and who is now an Oxford-educated human
rights lawyer who puts war criminals on trial at the
International Court of Justice in the Hague.
These, our
candidates for Parliament in this year’s election,
represent our commitment to the journey of looking more like
modern New Zealand and being able to advocate for all New
Zealanders.
And we are the furthest along this journey
that we have ever been – thanks to the efforts of my
colleague Denise Roche, who has been reaching out to ethnic
and migrant communities, with sixty-five meetings all over
New Zealand, over the last three years.
But we do still
have a long way to go.
We will continue to make sure that
our party not only looks like modern New Zealand – but
also reflects the needs of all New Zealanders.
We
haven’t always gotten it right – and we won’t always
in the future, either.
But I promise that we will listen
to you and learn from our mistakes.
Openness,
inclusiveness and tolerance must win out over racism and
scapegoating and xenophobia.
Love and inclusion must win
out over hate and fear.
We are only great, when we are
great together.