Tracey Barnett has put together this video and will be talking about the Immigration Amendment Bill (aka Mass Detentions Bill) tonight at the Devonport Library from 7.30pm.
I’m really pleased other people are talking about what this bill means. I have previously posted about my concerns and we do need to talk more about it. The bill has been reported back to parliament and you can read the Select Committee report, including Labour’s minority view here.
We should just hang up up a big sign at all NZ ports “All illegal immigrants welcome”
I think the word to focus on is “illegal”. Are we better than allowing illegal immigrants, with no papers and of unknown character and background to come into New Zealand? No, we are not and we shouldn’t be. I think you will find a quick poll would reveal the feelings of the average voter on this matter.
John Howard won an election by deceitfully misrepresenting a ‘boatpeople tragedy’. We may never have had immigrants / refugees arrive this way, but Key and Co are probably wishing that some might happen upon us come election 2014. This legislation is just part of Nationals dirty tricks basket and designed to scare for ulterior motive.
Pat and Dave : see you are buying into the dog whistle. Illegal immigrants arrive now and are sent home. Asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants. They have the right under international laws to seek asylum and must prove they meet the criteria for refugees. If they don’t they are also sent home. Difference is we don’t lock people up behind barbed wire.
Darien read what I said again, nowhere does it say asylum seekers. You brought that up as your very own ‘dog whistle’. I, and I assume, the majority of New Zealanders do not have a problem with geniune asylum seekers. You seem to be putting all of them in one basket. I haven’t.
Rofl @ Dave – clearly you know not the first thing about the refugee convention or the process that these migrants follow.
The point is, until they have arrived (usually without legitimate travel documents), lodged an application for refugee status (if any) and had that application for refugee status determined, you are in no position to slap on the “illegal migrants” label.
However, these mass-detention centres treat these people like criminals when in fact they may be fleeing from persecution on the basis of their ethnicity/religion/gender/sexuality/membership of a social group, etc.
Unlike Darien I don’t see that you’re buying into any dog whistle. I see you as the bloke in the gumboots with two fingers in his mouth and his tongue curled over, because hey, it doesn’t matter what the actual effects of this Government’s policies are, right? John Key good. Labour bad.
Late in 1938, to escape persecution in Nazi Germany, 950 Jews were forced to pay exorbitant prices to board SS St Louis, a luxury liner of the Hapag line, to sail to Cuba. Once in Havana harbour the passengers were not allowed to disembark and the ship was forced to sail back to Europe. After weeks of every government turning a blind eye, the captain of the St Louis drove the ship aground on a sandbank in Southampton harbour Eventually Holland, France, Belgium and Britain each took a quarter of the people, less than half of whom survived the holocaust. These frightened and exploited people were what we would call today, boat people. Now we have a Prime Minister making a virtue out of tightening the law to discourage people suffering the plight of those on board the St Louis from landing in our country, even in the unlikely event they would get here. John Key says that it is not an attack on refugees but a warning to the unprincipled owners of ships, owners like the Hapag Line, yet it is playing to a xenophobic fear some New Zealanders have of hordes of strangers invading our land. Of all people, our Jewish Prime Minister ought to understand that persecuted people have no option but to escape to save their families from harm, and that, like the tyrannized German Jews of 1938, they grasp at any straw to do so. There is no virtue in creating laws to attack already terrified people begging for understanding, especially since no such people have ever completed the long hard sea journey to New Zealand. Could any Cuban have claimed to feel perfectly satisfied with the treatment their government handed out to the 950 people aboard the SS St Louis? John Key should know that we too would take no pride in the oppression of desperate people we turned away from our empty land because we played the game of political point scoring with our laws. Mr. Key seems to make a habit of forgetting his past, to the detriment of others currently in his previous predicament, I do wish he wouldn’t.
Prime just showed an excellent documentary on Australian views of asylum seekers/refugees called “Go back to where you came from”. Five Aussies with strong negative views and one with a postive view travelled the route backwards of asylum seekers. It was heartbreaking to watch and four of the five Aussies changed their views dramatically. I am totally against locking asylum seekers up and would be ashamed of NZ government if they pass legislation allowing this.
@Charlie : thanks for your comment. There is a lot of ignorance around asylum seekers and that’s what the government is relying on. Terms like “illegal migrants” and “queue jumpers” don’t help. You are right. It will be a shameful day if the NZ government passes this legislation.
Why is Labour constantly seeking to use immigration to drive down the wages of their natural support base? A deep yearning for the cross benches?
Not that there is any need for this legislation since the snakeheads have cheaper and easier ways of getting people into New Zealand. For example they can just enrol them in one of the bogus PTEs or Private Training Establishments (People Trafficking Establishments more like).
Do we know how many asylum seekers are genuine (i.e forced to flee due for political persecution versus economic refugees?
Also what is Darien Fentons view on borders as in:
““Both in New Zealand and globally, the best of the leftwing tradition has always rejected small-minded nationalism, xenophobia and racism. In fact, leftists of an internationalist tradition have always favoured globalization and getting rid of national borders and barriers to migration. Progressive advocates of globalization of course do not defend a handful of rich imperialist countries, including New Zealand, dominating the world’s economy, but instead advocate an integrated and radically egalitarian world economy where production is based on social need and not on private profit. ”
Attitudes, beliefs and paradigms have a big effect on judgement.
NZr’s have seen dramatic changes over the last 30 years and while rogernomics is loudly condemned the silent unlocking of the borders by arrogant elitists and globalising the property market has had a dramatic effect on the working classes.
There is a deafening silence on the findings of Savings Working Group but they put the blame for high house prices fairly and squarely on successive governments citing tax breaks for property investors and high immigration. They note that our low paid workforce is burdened with continuing demands for infrastructure (yes, we pay for all those cones and goings on) and that immigration hasn’t improved income, infact it appears to have worked “directly against the adjustments we needed to make”