Marc My Words.

From Marc Alexander MP. 29th August 2003

United Future NZ-Christchurch Supplement

We've given 'birth' to yet another stupidity!

While our own citizens queue up for life-saving and 'quality of life' medical procedures, the elderly are put on hold for treatments and those with breast cancer wait in line for radiation therapy, taxpayers are footing the bill for nationals of other countries to come here and have their babies. This situation is absurd and a breach of our social responsibilities.

I am incredulous that with the strain on our public health system we are able to extend expensive benefits to those who deliberately take advantage of us to the tune of a $1000 dollars a day, and then we reward them with the right of citizenship!!

The American anti-nuclear activists Stephen Kent and Melanie Meer who came here specifically to profit from the citizenship bonus should have those rights revoked. Why should some people be given the privilege of NZ citizenship without the normal screening processes that all immigrants have to go through, and have us pay for it?

Mr. Kent said that they wanted their children to have the chance to adopt New Zealand's 'nuclear-free heritage'. All very nice, but shouldn't it be the rest of us who decide whom we want to live here, and to whom we confer the rights of citizenship?

There are a number of issues here; what resources we put into the health system should rightfully go to those who paid for these through their taxes. They should not be frittered away on foreigners who choose to have elective medical procedures here. If overseas nationals do seek medical treatments then they should pay. These people are not party to our ethical obligations (for humanitarian reasons) such as in the case of the little girl from one of our Pacific neighbours who came here recently to be treated for severe burns. Finally, there is no reason why we should extend the right to members of other countries with whom we do not have reciprocal arrangements.

We must not allow our generosity to get the better of us. We are being, and will continue to be, taken advantage of. This is one issue where we must 'cut the cord'.

ENDS

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