Immigration Policy - A Double Whammy of Nastiness

I have a sense of deja vu. In 1975 Robert Muldoon and his National Party campaigned on, among other things, immigration and in particular, overstayers. It didn't mattter that at the time, the biggest overstayers were people from Britain - Mr Muldoon was playing on prejudice against Pacific Islanders. They didn't look like Palagi New Zealanders so they could be identified easily - or could they? About a year after the 1975 General Election the Government got the Police to have a blitz on overstayers. The Government denied this but orders were given from somewhere high up. So the Police picked on brown people. Some who were arrested or questioned were Maori. My sister had a friend who was questioned becuase although she was born in New Zealand she was of Samoan descent.

Here we are in 2005 and Don Brash wants to get tough on refugees in particular and immigrants in general. Same sort of story. My workplace has had a welcome influx of British immigrants this year, but no they can't be "identified" like "refugees". This time National is targetting prejudice against Iraqis and Somalis, some of whom have been in New Zealand long enough to have had children here. Children of Iraqi or Somali descent and fourth generation New Zealand Chinese look like immigrants because they obviously don't fit into Dr Brash's image of "mainstream New Zealanders". Sure Dr Brash paid tribute to the contributions of immigrants but who will be able to tell who the "good" immigrants are? National's policy release would make anyone think that lots of immigrants are either bludgers or criminals - a pretty nasty and cynical move to capitalise on or even create prejudice against groups of people who look different.

But there could be more to this nastiness than meets the eye. Sure the Nats want to get New Zealand First votes but I believe that it could be for two reasons. The first is fairly obvious - National wants a fairly free hand to run the country and does not want to be constrained very much by having to rely on New Zealand First for support. After all Don Brash wants to sell all State enterprises except Transpower whereas Winston Peters doesn't want to sell anything.

The second and related reason is that Don Brash wants to push his New Right agenda. To do this he would be better to partner with ACT than with New Zealand First. Those on the free-market right who may be put off by National's remarks about immigrants may find ACT an attractive option. There may be enough such people (socially "liberal") to lift ACT above five percent and therefore give it six seats in Parliament - a great help to the privatisation, use-pays agenda of Dr Brash.

If that happens we will be back to the nastiness and misery of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia - redundancy, people being forced to work longer hours, a further weakening of unions and increased poverty, to name a few.