2.8% of New Zealand population outbound in 2 years as division widens

OPINION: I visited Facebook recently and noticed some fake accounts (you know the ones with AI pictures depicting Māori in an unfavourable light, along with NZ flags featured prominently, as if love for a country is about a piece of cloth), and there’s a distinct anti-Indian sentiment being cultivated on the platform1

This particular account was linking to Auckland’s extremely high unemployment, claiming that it’s because of Indians.

“Look at what this government is gonna do allowing Indians and families to come here we don’t even have the jobs for our own children to work here They have already taken most of the jobs in NZ”

Now I know Luxon negotiated the India FTA trade deal that does facilitate more visas, but that hasn’t originated yet, but these folks are informing Kiwis that it’s Indians who are all at fault and apparently “taken most of the jobs in NZ”.

Later, the account suggests that Kiwis have to vote in NZ First.

I mean this is really sad stuff, and this type of cultivating racism is deeply damaging, and it can get very toxic and permeate through the national DNA (Think of the UK for example where Elon Musk participated in a a rally last year claiming the “left is the party of murder” and diverting economic dissatisfaction from the fact it was the xenophobia driven Brexit decision that saw the UK economy drop like a dead weight. Yes, UK GDP is now permanently 6-8% smaller as a result of Brexit – that’s a mammoth self take down)

Anyway, I think of all the amazing ethnic migrants in this country as well as those born here, raised here, or are already multi-generational.

The ones holding up in our health system, and working as nurses, in hospitals, who will face abuse while already under really tough conditions.

I think of someone walking in the local Westfield or shopping mall and their family and children getting dirty looks because of nothing else but the colour of their skin.

I think of the racism they will experience from Kiwis of all colours, and how similar this strategy it is to fear mongering about the Treaty of Waitangi or Māori, when that’s never been the at all. It never was.

Immigration strategies are designed.

Employment is not a function of a race but a broader modern economic reality that was created and forged over decades. It didn’t appear overnight and in our case, it’s one of the worst because of intentional policies under National/ACT/NZ First – and would be much worse if 144,000 Kiwi citizens hadn’t fled in the last 2 years (that’s 2.8% of our population FWIW – that type of hit is multi-generational and extremely damaging. For comparison it was about 28,000 when ACT said they could fix the brain drain in 2023, from memory)

Please – and I know I am pleading to deaf ears, because I’ve seen how successful these tactics are – but please don’t just believe the hate, don’t just give in to the unbridled racism and dehumanisation of all Indians or Māori or European or Chinese or whatever ethnic or minority is the target of the time.

We can be different people and have different cultures. We might even consider educating and helping each other, and we can screen people we don’t want irrespective of culture or colour – that’s normal.

But please don’t just give in to pure hate. That nurse in Middlemore or Nelson or Whangarei or Christchurch or Dunedin hospital is innocent and just wants to do a good job and have his/her family safe.

That child in New Plymouth is just having a break with their parents. That Uber driver is just trying to make ends meet. That ignorant tourist is just ignorant – not nefarious.

And for God’s sake when there’s cases of Indian or whatever crime just remember, there’s cases of European people crime every day, Māori folk crime , Chinese people crim, Irish folk crime every day, South African immigrant crime every day, American personhood crime too. Using one example to dehumanise an all is unhelpful and above all, misleading.

Analyse, screen, consider, parse, and even change immigration settings if we want to but don’t hate on those here – and don’t think everyone is the same even if there are examples and cases of this or that.

We will be better for it if we care more, and look just a little deeper past the dehumanisation tactics and rhythms of fear.

“Do unto others” might still be a good slogan when all is said and done.