New Conservative Candidate wants due recognition for all communities

Bernadette Soares also wants better status for women, better immigration

Supplied Content
Auckland, October 14, 2020

New Conservative Party candidate in this weekend’s general elections (October 17, 2020) Bernadette Soares wants all communities given due recognition.

Soares, who is 7th on the New Conservative List, is part of a team consisting of a great mix of ethnicities and occupations.

Our Candidates all want to see all communities who are represented.

Upholding and protecting women

Soares said that New Zealand values and understands better for their valuable contribution that they made to the country.

“Most of us are hardworking and law-abiding citizens. I am aware of many immigrants facing difficult employment situations and workplace bullying challenges are rampant amongst migrant populations. “I have to this end finished my counselling diploma as I have been a workplace bullying advocate for the last three years.”

Says Soares: “There are two causes particularly close to my heart. Upholding and protecting the status of women especially migrant women as I believe they face unique challenges in the home and the workplace, and workplace bullying which effects one in four employees in New Zealand.

I am hardworking, tenacious and spirited in all my endeavours and I will be taking those qualities with me into Parliament.”

Soares knows the challenges of migrating to a new country.

About Bernadette Soares

Having immigrated to New Zealand 30 years ago from India, the West Harbour-based businesswoman says that she knows the “challenges of leaving the country that you were brought up in and moving to a new country.”

Soares is contesting the Upper Harbour seat for New Conservatives.

Married with three grown-up children, she has been running a manufacturing and distribution business for the last 18 years.

“I also identify with the Indian business community: I have finished my Masters of Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship in New Zealand. I have three wonderful children who are all grown up and so I am a wife, mother, an entrepreneur and now a candidate for the New Conservative Party,” she said.

Soares said that family, enterprise and hard work are some of the core values of being an Indian.

“We at New Conservative believe that strong healthy families make strong healthy communities. These communities contribute greatly to the wellbeing and economic health of a nation. Enterprise and hard work are core values that as Indians we hold dear and we believe

that this enterprise and hard work must be encouraged and rewarded,” she said.

Adverse effects of Covid-19

The 2020 general election is one of sorts, already delayed by four weeks due to Covid-19.

The pandemic is wreaking havoc throughout the world, New Zealand included.

Soares agrees that Covid is a huge challenge to all the communities including the Indian community.

“I am aware that many of our Indian families too have been badly affected with job losses and many in businesses have been suffering the loss of business sales dues to the lockdowns. Our Indian students continue to face challenges to get work visas and many are also not getting any government support while they have been unable to find part time work,” she said.

Streamlining Immigration

Soares is also aware of issues that crop up for those going back to India to get married.

The process of getting their spouse back to New Zealand seems to be fraught with hurdles and delays. A more streamline process needs to be worked out with Immigration New Zealand.

“I believe that to start with an application of Intent to marry an overseas spouse need to be placed at the start of the process and then if this is set up on-line it can be constantly updated and this will be part of the final application when the marriage has taken place. This could be a good way to take away the suspicion that the marriage is ‘fake’,” Soares said.

She also believes that there is a need to do more for our young families in New Zealand ‘as the pressure of a western culture and the strain of making it in a foreign land can add pressure

to the marriage.’

“We need to find ways together to protect our families as they are at the heart of a better future for our children,” Soares said.

New Conservative Party Leader Leighton Baker said, “We are a Conservative Party and enjoy support from many different races, religions and backgrounds that believe in Strong families, democracy, justice and reward for hard work.”