Several very good articles on this issue in the Herald on Sunday. Bill Ralston writes
With boring predictability, New Zealand First has again played the race card. Presumably because it wouldn't look too good for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be attacking Asian immigration when we are about to sign a free-trade agreement with China, deputy leader Peter Brown must have been delegated the task to try to kick-start the party's flagging poll ratings this election year.
Nothing galvanises New Zealand First's rednecks quite like a rollicking attack on immigrants.
Echoing the infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech by British politician Enoch Powell back in the 60s, Brown wailed that we would soon be swamped by Asians who, he claims, refuse to integrate into New Zealand society. By 2026 they could make up 16 per cent of the population and number more than 400,000.
He concludes
I hope by 2026 various Asian ethnicities are 16 per cent of the New Zealand population. We will be a culturally and materially wealthier nation for it.
We agree fully.
Matt McCarten writes (we quote the best bits)
Winston Peters' blatant appeal to our inner racism has always set him apart from other politicians.
Once, he was the popular choice to lead the National Party and become our first Maori Prime Minister. But his party colleagues dumped him, forcing him to set up NZ First.
Peters' early popularity was largely due to his appeal to people's racism and xenophobia. His career soared after he become our Number 1 Maori-basher. Middle New Zealand loved him for it and, in 1996, he won all the Maori seats, sweeping him into Government as deputy prime minister to his nemesis, Jim Bolger.
Peters' craftiness is coming to an end. His crude opportunism is so stark even his firm believers must find it hard to tolerate. However, his claim last election that he would not be persuaded by the baubles of office can partially be forgiven. After all, both main parties offered him a deal that would make even the most virtuous of us succumb.
In the last couple of elections, the good money was on Peters and party being wiped out. But each time he slipped back in by the skin of his teeth - his nickname isn't Houdini for nothing. So even though he has a state pension on top of his generous salary, has no seat and his party rates in the margin of error, few political pundits write him off, despite his refusal to pay back the taxpayer the $158,000 public money he spent on his party's last election campaign. Cynically, Peters is instead redistributing it to voluntary organisations in some sort of a Robin Hood parody.
It also smelled fishy when Labour supporter Owen Glenn would neither confirm nor deny he had made a substantial donation to NZ First.
Even if we ignore NZ First's financial shenanigans, the latest political cynicism from Peters should have all of us choking. All this term, he has been sucking up to George Bush for a free-trade deal with the US. Bush has no chance of giving Peters what he wants. Therefore, our foreign ministry, which Peters nominally leads, has been negotiating with the Chinese, and our free-trade agreement will be signed off next week.
Peters, as our top foreign representative, can't be seen to be playing politics in that role. But he knows a good election scab when he sees one. While Peters has to be silent, he has had his loyal deputy, Peter Brown, launch an anti-Asian diatribe.
There is no other purpose to an Asian fear-mongering campaign than to build support for the election. The hypocrisy is so blatant that neither of them recognises the irony of Brown, an immigrant, parroting this old, anti-immigration line. It was laughable to see Brown, a list MP, claiming he hasn't bludged off New Zealand taxpayers like other immigrants allegedly have. I would be amused to hear Brown justify his taxpayer-funded salary of $150,000 as a list MP with no constituency or job description. His base salary is 10 times the dole.
It seems desperate times call for desperate measures. But it's time to see this latest outburst for what it is: a cynical tactic that manipulates our prejudice and bigotry to ensure NZ First keeps its place at the public trough. Hopefully no one falls for it.
