‘N.Z. racism offensive’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33538, 20 May 1974, Page 2

‘N.Z. racism offensive’

(From our education reporter) WELLINGTON, Mav 19.

Underlying racism in New Zealand made the country an offensive society in which to live, said a British educationist (Professor B. Jackson) in Wellington.

Professor Jackson has been in New Zealand for the Educational Development Conference. He is educational adviser to the British Labour Party, and director of the National Extension College at Cambridge University. He is also an expert on the education of immigrant children in Britain. The attitude of white New Zealanders to the Maori and Polynesian people was one of the most distressing things he had seen during his visit to this country, he said. “HYPOCRITICAL” “New Zealanders seem very hypocritical. They don’t want the peace and quiet of ‘bungaloid’ growth shattered by the realities of life,” said Professor Jackson. It seemed to be acceptable social behaviour even in high Government department circles to tell racist jokes. “New Zealand hasn’t really looked at its own statistics which show that the Maori people for example earn less, live shorter lives, and have a high death rate among their children.” The potential poverty of the Maori people would become a problem bf absolute poverty unless New Zealand realised that it must cope with the rapid growth of Maori self-consciousness. The closer links which New Zealand was forging in the Pacific would have a “spin-off” which many people in this country might not expect. “WIDENING GAP” “It will heighten the self-

awareness of the Maori people and widen the gap that is already growing rapidly between the white people and the Maoris in New Zealand,” said Professor Jackson. “The old era throughout the world of the assimilation of indigenous races is over, and it is high time that New Zealand woke up to this as it can't turn back the tide now." —