New Zealand's superdiversity questioned

Global Diversity List Top 10 Diversity Consultant, Philip Patston, has questioned the authenticity of the newly-established Superdiversity Centre. Chaired by Mai Chen, one of New Zealand’s foremost specialists in public and administrative law, and public policy, the Centre last week launched two reports: "The Superdiversity Stocktake: Implications for Business, Government and New Zealand" and "The Superdiversity, Democracy and New Zealand’s Electoral and Referenda Laws."

Writing on his blog, Patston said, "At 350 pages with the Executive Summary on page 215, excuse me for not reading the Stocktake. When I finally found the Executive Summary and skimmed its nine point font, it said Government needed to move faster on superdiversity because its responsiveness to ethnic diversity is slower than business."

The Electoral and Referenda Laws report, he said, "is slightly more digestible at 69 pages but I could still only bring myself to skim its equally small typefaced Executive Summary, albeit more logically located on page 4. It, like the Stocktake, defines 'superdiversity' as NZ's ethnic and migrant population. The report makes the point that this population is increasing and warns of under-representation in voting if laws don't include access for non-English speaking citizens."

The recently-recognised consultant and Managing Director of Diversity New Zealand Ltd said these were "hardly startling findings." But he questioned how much money went into paying people to write 420 pages that, he thought, "probably only one poor...bureaucrat is going to have to read? I also wonder what impact such pedantic verbosity is actually going to have on Government, given bureaucracy is known to lag behind every other social institution."

Patston said if the Superdiversity Centre is defining diversity as ethnicity alone, it needs to "do a bit of serious catching up.". He thinks a board of lawyers, accountants and economists — and a leadership council of corporate and diplomatic high-flyers like Mike Pero and Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand — doesn't represent New Zealand's diversity."

"I'm not against privileged people doing their bit for race relations and cultural/ethnic variety," said Patston, "but to do so under a banner of 'superdiversity' seems disingenuous to me."

ENDS

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