NZ First condemned by everyone
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm by David FarrarPeople have been expecting NZ First to start bashing Asian immigrants for months, to try and lift their poll ratings like it did in 1996. Peter Brown’s outburst yesterday was not him just thinking aloud, but part of a planned strategy. It had to fall to him, as Winston being Foreign Minister can’t do it directly. He is now refusing to comment on his own Deputy Leader’s comments.
The EMA Northern have condemned (hat tip: The Hive) NZ First and Brown:
Comments by New Zealand First MP Peter Brown are racial stereotyping of the worst sort, says Alasdair Thompson, chief executive of the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern).
“It was post war migrants like Mr Brown who brought here the bigotry of the British class system and a rabid form of unionism,” Mr Thompson said.
“Mr Brown should stop being hypocritical.
And the Auckland Chamber of Commerce weighs in:
“Asian New Zealanders, and those overseas, should see this for what it is: a pathetic piece of political posturing by a minority party.
”I think he’s absolutely being racist,” Carter said. “He shouldn’t be condemning people because of their race or culture.”
Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove told NZPA Mr Brown’s comments were ironic, given that he was a “native born British chap”.
He hoped Mr Brown did not “take his own advice” and return to the UK.
We wait to hear what the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Leader of New Zealand First has to say on the issue.
On a slightly related note, it reminds me of a further Cactus Kate story from Tuesday night. As we were heading along Blair Street, we ran into Keith Ng. Cactus looks at Keith somewhat warily when I mention he blogs for Public Address. I then mention he won a Press Council complaint against Deborah Coddington over her Asian crime story, and Cactus literally leaps forward and embraces Keith in full bear hug, finally releasing him after thanking him for his work. It was very very funny.
Related posts:
- Today in Parliament
- Hypocrisy Watch
- Harre labels Cosgrove’s comments disgraceful
- Q+A – 4 September 2011
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Why on earth is the Peter Brown outburst news?, Winston first always play the race card, the media should know this and ignore it.
Mind you, is there anywhere in the world where multiculturalism really works?.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Y’all should go and check out the Herald poll on this issue. It makes for sad viewing.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I have relatives that vote for NZFirst because of their anti-asian stance. They were children during WWII and had older siblings at war and some interred in Japanese POW camps. They are still incredibly fearful of asians. I am NOT supporting this racist stance in any way but I can understand it a little. I take it this demographic is what makes up most of NZFirst supporters?
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
will someone tell that sour-faced whinging pommy-immigrant to just ‘fuck off..!..’
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Good interview on Campbell Live last night, John ripped the man to pieces. I’ve youtubed it here for those who missed it: http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=1568
[DPF: Thanks. I heard it was great - just watched it. Good timing too - got the post up just in time for my blog roundup of reaction!]
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
artandmylife said..
“..They are still incredibly fearful of asians. .”
still fearful of germans..?..and italians..?
no..?
then they are fucken racists..
by any other name..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Thank you for the lovely link to your blog Tane, but I’ll decline your offer to visit because I am afraid contagious diseases spread like wild fire.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I welcome the end of NZ Last this election as the horse has already bolted. NZ will have a large Asian population.
Vote:This is a fact.
But I hope in the future, the liberal whites out there don’t get too upset when their children have to buy their houses and land off long term Asian investors by the square metre.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Right! Got your pitchforks? Torches?! Who’s got the rope? Ok, let’s go and nail this pommy bastard to a tree!
What for being racist?
No, idiot! For being a pom! We hate poms, after all.
So, let’s get this straight boss. It’s not ok to diss asians. But it is ok to diss poms?
Of course. Look at the terrible things they did to us when they flooded the country. Unionism, class-hate, incest.
(ok I made up the ‘incest’ bit)
Come on people! Hate the man’s views, but leave his race out of it eh?
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could just ignore Brown, Peters and their horrible little party and just let it sink peacefully into oblivion? All this outrage is really just manna from heaven for NZFirst – they know they have a demographic out there that laps this stuff up and they know that if they make a few nasty comments then the press and the other opposition parties will give them a loud enough megaphone to reach that demographic.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
philu “still fearful of asians” Yes racists 100%. But they had it drummed into them at school that NZ was about to be invaded by the Japanese during WWII. They lived on the coast and as children this was REAL fear of imminent danger. The Germans and Italians were a long way away.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Danyll hear hear.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
No one has asked Brown how he would change things. Nor has he been asked why this is suddenly an issue every 3 years but never mentioned any other time.
Vote:It would be easy to expose this opportunism for what it is but sadly the media, for example Campbell, compete with each other to display the most outrage and play right into Winston’s hands.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could just ignore Brown, Peters and their horrible little party and just let it sink peacefully into oblivion?
Unfortunately Danyl, it is not that simple as the Rt Hon Winnie the Pooh is the Foreign Minister of this country. There is no way he can stay silent on this issue else he is seen to endorse it, and if he is endorsing it – how does it look to Asians when a member of the Foreign Ministers party is having a rant about some perceived yellow peril?
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Phil, to be fair the Germans and the Itallians werent laying mines in Auckland Harbour
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Well said Bevan – Peters can’t run away from this – Brown’s opinion = NZ First Opinion = Winston’s opinion
Clark must cut him loose. I’ve already posted this link elsewhere, but what the heck – this could be a defining issue for the government and its confidence-and-supply partner, especially with the budget just around the corner. The whiff of an early election is in the wind!
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/04/time-for-clark-to-sack-peters.html
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Lee, no one has mentioned Brown’s race. They’ve mentioned that he is British, which isn’t a race and which is entirely relevant to the discussion, since he is talking about immigration and he is an immigrant himself.
Phil: I don’t have a problem with Asians, but I’ve NEVER trusted the Germans….:-)
djp: “Germans and the Itallians werent laying mines in Auckland Harbour” Neither were the Chinese.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Loved the comment by Alastair Thompson “It was post war migrants like Mr Brown who brought here the bigotry of the British class system and a rabid form of unionism,” spot on.
But Bevan nails the real issue. Its not Brownspeak, its Winstonspeak and so you have to ask the question – is it a plus for NZ to have a racist Foreign Minister? Answer, no, but Helen is powerless to act because Winston has her over a barrel (metaphorically of course … I think)
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
bearhunter thank you for that clarification: I just used pommy for brevity. Fact is few people ever visualise a black, Indian, Muslim or Afro-Caribbean when they employ the term ‘pom’. Or in whaleoil’s case ‘whingeing pom’.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
So the question now is, does the bigot vote put Winnie and Co back in AGAIN, or do we see the back of them AT LAST, and good riddance?
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Big Bruv, someone once said something like THIS:
Multiculturalism…………
Immigration………
Democracy……….
Pick the TWO you want……… !
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
bearhunter said..
“..Phil: I don’t have a problem with Asians, but I’ve NEVER trusted the Germans….:-)..”
i know what you mean..!
i married one..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Could there be any truth in this from the Tumeke! blog:
“His party (NZ First) is signing a Free Trade Deal with China that includes in it an enforced immigration clause where China wipes tariffs with us if we agree to take immigrants from them. This is a first for a trade deal, and the reason why China is so keen to sign it with little old us is because we are small enough to be arm wrestled into accepting enforced immigration and China wants that as a blueprint for the rest of the World, when you have over a Billion people, you start exporting them.”
If so, the Free Trade Agreement will be the biggest nation grab since the Brits took over New Zealand!
With National behind it, will we nationalists then have to vote for either Act or the Greens?
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
In a genealogical sense these people (Chinese) are Tangata Whenua. Winston has previously stated that he is a Chinaman and it seems Klark must now send the Foreign Minister to China to re-assure their premier that they may send as many coolies as are necessary to fulfill the prediction.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Luv the posts,but if aunty helen says 250000 visitors from china are coming to work,in the VERY SECRET FTA,stiff bickes , shit would you buy a house ,site ,town view,condition etc etc unknown, i would luv to read the posts one year later. who knows what the witch has promised red communist china, (our country ),who knows, maybe 150000 fruit pickers rotating year in and out , WITH VOTING RIGHTS for liarbor,David F dosnt know and the toady communist liarparty posters dont know.Maybe aunty helen is going to shaft tane and sonic and the other mouth pieces, from the left
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
to all the FTA lovers i see our new friend china the hub of democracy in asia has sent a human rights activist protestor to prison for 3.5 years. I presume he will be cut up for body parts and sold to the USA. china (our new friend),wait for the killings after the olympics. ie Tibet
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Much better to hang out with old friends isn’t it? Like Mother England isn’t responsible for some heinous abuses of process down the years, but never mind….
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Being condemned by “everyone”, ie a bunch of elites and opinion formers, is great politics, providing your opinions are shared by a significant and disenfranchised minority.
As far as it goes, NZ has every right, indeed an obligation, to both preserve a primary role for Maori in our country and not to allow migration to get out of control.
In 5 years, between censi(?), the asian population went up by just under 50%. That kind of rapid increase is destablising and not what ordinary New Zealanders want.
Of course, if we had 350 000 Muslims and that was rising 50% every 5 years, DPF would have apoplexy, so in principle, no-one objects to ethnic limits on migration.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
The so called hypocrisy of Mr Brown’s circumstance does not affect the merits of his points which were that by 2026 about 760000 people of the NZ population will be of asian ethnicity and (impliedly) that the bulk of the growth in that number from today’s level will be a result of immigration.
It seems appropriate to ask why our asian population is increasing so quickly while other ethnic groups do not. It is naive bordering on wilful ignorance to suppose that ethnic (and sometimes nationality) background does not, in general, differentiate a person from someone else from a different ethnic (or nationality) group.
“Asian” encompasses so many sub-classes – japanese, chinese, korean, that its use exposes the user to adverse comment from the outset. Nevertheless high levels of asian immigration must change the nature of our country from largely caucasian / european to asian.
Presumably the people posting on here have no objection whatsoever to 5 million chinese moving here (england, a country the same size is home to about 50 million people so we could fit a lot more in here). They miss the point that mass immigration like that would make us a chinese country. If five million australian’s moved here then that would make us an australian country. Now, would you rather live in China or Australia? Because apparently everybody in this site thinks it is racist to express a preference. Well perhaps it is but it is human nature to want to live with people who are “like me” which for the bulk of kiwis means caucasian from an english speaking country or, to a lesser extent, from a country with western european historical links. Is it not ok for a country to set its own immigration policies – is a country morally obliged to accept immigrants in the same ethnic and national proportions that those groups bear to the world population.
There was nothing particularly offensive in what Peter Brown wrote / said, and the moblike response of shouting “racist in the room” is a little tragic.
Vote:April 3rd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Yes it begs the question ‘Is it racist or culturally ‘centric’ to be concerned about the racial or cultural consequences of our immigration policies?’
Vote:If it is, then we can never discuss it so we might as well just throw the doors open – a free-market approach if you will.
However, the whole discussion has thus far been characterised by emotiveness and tub-thumping, as well as a tit-for-tat mentality about who did what to who and how (guilty-ish).
The net result is that it has shifted the discussion out-of-bounds, because to have the discussion may offend political correctness. Just because the discussion was opened by a doddery old geyser for the most basic of reasons does not mean the discussion is redundant. So, after we get over all the ‘send the pommy bastard home’ that some have offered up, it does beg questions about how New Zealand might prepare itself for the cultural shifts and racial changes that may lie ahead. Conversely, we can take the other view – New Zealand doesn’t have to do anything because there is nothing wrong with the situation. However, I think that is naive. We (despite NZ First) have to grow up and get over the idea that to discuss race is automatically a racist activity.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
what do yous say farrar Winston wedge or Green,
Vote:the choice is yours,it is like the old age choice as against new life,
April 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
what do yous say farrar Winston wedge or Green,
Vote:the choice is yours
April 5th, 2008 at 12:01 am
What is it with this forced immigration from China that now TVNZ is reporting!
If this is true it is unprecedented in an independent country in peacetime. (I know about our Pakeha settlers, but NZ — nor pre-white Australia nor North America — were countries in any modern political sense, and Maori at least had a Treaty of Waitangi which eventually was honoured.)
Who are these Red nasties to tell us who we take into our country! And undoubtedly there will be communist intelligence members among those sent to New Zealand. We have nothing of interest to them, but it will be a good finishing school for moving into important English-language countries.
There’s no way Labour and National can escape being branded for cowardice on this, even if they try the tactics of smearing questioners with accusations of racism! If you want racism look at what the Red Chinese are doing to the Tibetans and Uighurs.
At least Hitler and Stalin didn’t demand Western countries take their workers, and the Western countries would have had the balls to reject them if they had.
I’m starting to wonder whether Brown’s outburst wasn’t part of some agitprop-type PR to allow a planned, co-ordinated response that would numb and gag New Zealanders to this appalling Red imposition. Or have too many of us really become limp-wristed, politically correct, wimps.
Vote:April 5th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Um, have they ever heard that Koreans and Chinese have less than fond memories of the Second World War themselves? But never mind — all you crazy Euro-Trash look the same to me.
Vote:April 5th, 2008 at 1:15 am
“all you crazy Euro-Trash look the same to me.”
Wow, Cwaig must be the last full blooded Mowi in NZ. Twipping over himself in his eagerness to demonstwate how tolerant of other cultures he is. Unless those cultures are European.
Vote: