Islanders do the ‘hard slog’

Press, 10 May 1982, Page 2

Islanders do the ‘hard slog’

PA Wellington Pacific Islanders do work that other New Zealanders shun and avoid, a fact that should be acknowledged and respected, said Labour’s spokesman on Pacific Island! Affairs, Mr R. W. Prebble, on Saturday. New Zealand’s industrialisation could not have oc- . cured as successfully as it had without the work Pacific Islanders did, Mr Prebble said. ■ . ■ “The hard, grinding slog of

jobs that are absolutely vital for this country’s wealth and propserity are being done, not solely by the people from the Pacific, but in many areas, predominantly,” he told a Labour Party Pacific Islands meeting in Wellington.

He criticised the treatment meted out to Islanders by the Government, contrasting it with that given to Vietnamese refugess who received free travel, free accommodation and,- “massive” assistance in jobs and education.

“I am not opposing' that, but what I am asking is why the double standards?” Mr Prebble stated the Eabour Party policy on immigration. He said there could be no great liberalisation in immigration, give that 70,000 people were out of work in New Zealand,

“What the Labour Party objects to about the present policy is that it is inhumane,” Mr Prebble said. He suggested that older people should be allowed to come to New Zealand. In that way families could be united and the elders would be a stabilisng influence on the young.