THE PRESS SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1985. Migration under Labour

Press, 13 July 1985, Page 18

THE PRESS SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1985. Migration under Labour

Mr Burke’s speech to the conference of the New Zealand Demographic Society was his first public address as Minister of Immigration, and tackled some difficult subjects. The first was more in his role as Minister of Employment, when he touched on the ethnic origins of some of the unemployed. Questions about ethnic origin are often resented yet unemployment falls most heavily on some Maori and Pacific Island groups and if anything is to be done specifically to ease their plight, the extent of the problem needs to be known. The Labour Department’s knowledge comes through the Census, which is taken every five years. Mr Burke hopes that it will be possible, when the Labour Department introduces computer systems, to record ethnic data in a way which preserves the privacy of the individual. A quarterly household labour force survey, which will be introduced in October, is intended to provide ethnic information. Great care will have to be taken to ensure that nothing in the survey or in the way in which any information is stored on the computer, gives any impression of racial discrimination. Yet Mr Burke is surely right in arguing that groups of certain ethnic origins may have specific needs. On the other hand, the removal of ethnic questions from arrival and departure passenger cards is a sound move, and overdue. Mr Burke’s assurance that a White Paper would be published on immigration was welcome. He did not say what the timing of the White Paper would be in relation to the new immigration bill which the Government plans to introduce. Broadly, the Labour Party in opposition agreed with the then Government that there was a need to overhaul the country’s immigration legislation. However, the bill introduced by the National Party Government offended a number of groups. Teachers felt that they would be put in the position of considering whether pupils were in the country legally or not, Pacific Islanders were concerned about identification papers, and civil liberties groups saw dangers in the widespread powers of search and arrest given in the bill. Parliament was dissolved before the bill became law; the submissions made to the select committee about the bill are still available and will doubtless be taken into consideration when the

new bill is drafted. However, Mr Burke expects that the White Paper will provoke much discussion in New Zealand. If it does, it would make more sense to allow that discussion to take place before new legislation is introduced to the House. New Zealand’s immigration policies have long been linked to the country’s needs for labour and skills. They are not totally linked to labour needs because of the intakes of refugees and family reunification schemes. The country also allows 1100 Western Samoans into the country each year, and about 1000 come from the Netherlands each year under a longestablished migration scheme. Those who were allowed to come to New Zealand to fill the country’s need for skills numbered only 2000 in the year to March of 1985. Mr Burke hopes that the source of migrants will be more diverse than it has been in the past, and he said that the Government is moving to a nondiscriminatory migration policy. This is more respectable internationally and might produce a more diverse culture in New Zealand. Australians, by contrast, relish the many Italian, Greek, and more recently Vietnamese restaurants and entertainments in their country. However, Mr Burke says that he expects New Zealanders will be trained in the skills the country requires, not to rely on migrants to supply them all. New Zealand allows 650 Indo-Chinese refugees into New Zealand each year. Up to 100 will be refugees from Laos to help build up the small Laotian community in the country. Five hundred of the places are for registered refugees who are nominated by relatives already in the country. Recently the criteria for selection have been widened from immediate family to include aunts, uncles and cousins. A few refugees are admitted from elsewhere. Fifty Soviet Jewish people who have returned from Israel and are living in Greece have been approved and 25 Assyrian Christians from Greece have also been approved by Mr Burke this year. Mr Burke is clearly not embarking on any radical changes to the country’s immigration policies, but there are a few differences which need discussing and are all the better for the airing that he has given them.