His comments on Indian students riles the Indian community
Wellington, March 3, 2020
Standfirst from Editor: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones told Newshub during an interview with host Simon Shepherd on February 29, 2020 that students from India have ‘ruined many educational institutions in New Zealand.” The following is a response from Dr Pushpa Wood, Director, Westpac Massey Fin-Ed Centre at the Massey Wellington Campus. She has previously worked in the School, Tertiary, NGO and business sectors.
How do we know it is election year again?
Well, to start with one or more politicians start to ‘pick’ on ethnic group or two!
In the past, it was the Chinese community and this time it looks like Indian community is going to bear the brunt of it.
So here is an Open Letter to you, Dear Mr Shane Jones:
I am not advocating that a country doesn’t have a right to decide the volume of the immigrants and neither am I saying that we don’t need to have ongoing discussion about the shape and size of our nation. However, what I am saying is that this should be an ongoing dialogue and based on facts, real consideration for the people and above all with underlying philosophy of inclusion and manaakitanga. It should not be a every ‘three years’ around election-time discussion based on scaremongering and victimising and singling out a particular ethnic group regardless of which ethnic group.
Some serious concerns
So what concerns me about your recent comments
Lack of facts: for your information, Indian students are not from New Delhi alone and neither are a majority of Indian students from New Delhi. They are from all over India as he very well knows that India is a big country.
Proper documentation: If they are “getting into” the country in large numbers, well they are not arriving here as refugees or swimming to the shores of Aotearoa without documents.
They are coming through proper channels.
Rogue education advisors: I would love to know what he means by ‘ruined the education institutions?’ So, if there are some rogue providers who are supposedly bringing these so called poor quality students and ruining the standards of our education institutions – whose fault is this? Who is allowing these institutions to open and exists here in the first place? Who is issuing the visas to these students? It is not a good policy to blame people when your own policies and procedures are not working.
Do some homework: Has Shane Jones actually done some homework and looked at the history of Indian arrivals in Aotearoa? Does he actually know the contribution the ethnic communities and especially Indian community has made to our adopted motherland?
If he stays in the hotels while travelling and eats in the restaurants (not particularly Indian restaurants), he is likely to be served by an ethnic workforce if not Indian.
And lastly, God forbid, if in his old age, his Whanau decides to put him into a retirement village, he is very likely to be looked after by and Indian or other ethnic person.
So Mr Jones, I agree that we have challenges ahead when it comes to social inclusiveness, immigration and poverty among other things but let’s do it together.
This is our home too and we also want what is best for our Whenua and our Whanau.
And by the way you are part of our Whanau too.
What Shane Jones said (an extract):
“What sort of country do you want? We were originally settled through the Treaty of Waitangi. The indigenous people coming with their Pacific roots, the Maori people, then the Anglos came, and in my case the Croatians came.
“If you want another million, two million, three million people, we should debate it and there should be a mandate, rather than opening up the options, unfettered, and everyone comes here from New Delhi. I don’t like that idea at all. I think the number of students that have come from India have ruined many of those institutions.”
What Jacinda Ardern said:
“On many occasions I have witnessed Minister Jones be both loose with his language and also be wrong, and on this occasion he was both.”
What Jones said again
Jones was unrepentant, saying that he was only expressing the views of some in the local Indian community. He that said most people would not describe his comments as racist.
“The younger generation in New Zealand, especially those who belong to Ngāti Woke, have inherited the value of free speech,” he said.
