Choudhary Ashraf: Address in Reply 
Choudhary Ashraf: Address in Reply 
[Volume:628;Page:280] 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
: 
 First I pay tribute to the late Rod Donald and I acknowledge his contribution to this Parliament and to New Zealand. Madam Speaker I congratulate you on your reappointment as Speaker and I also congratulate the Deputy Speaker and the Assistant Speakers on their appointments. Of course I am delighted that the Prime Minister Helen Clark has been returned as Prime Minister for the third time. That is a great achievement for a woman Prime Minister. I congratulate all the new members of Parliament. I know that they have very high hopes—Kiwi dreams. I welcome their presence here today and I look forward to their contribution to this Parliament and to New Zealand. I give a special welcome to Nathan Guy who was my former student at Massey University. I welcome him. That goes to show that Massey University and its lecturers did a good job of training him well which has brought him into Parliament. 
As I said in my maiden speech 3 years ago normally I do not like to attack the Opposition personally. That is my ethos while working here. But the recent election brought up a couple of things that have really hurt my people: my constituents the ethnic communities of New Zealand. Two concepts were very commonly spoken of during the election campaign. They were “mainstream” and “probation for new migrants”. I personally felt very uncomfortable with that kind of talk which brought a lot of unnecessary division to our society. 
A few years ago—in 1997 or 1998—I took a fact-finding mission to the UK and Canada. I was the chair of the New Zealand Federation of Ethnic Councils at the time. I took a delegation from the ethnic communities of New Zealand to find out how other ethnic communities live in those two major countries. The UK and Canada are similar to us in many ways; they have a lot of migrant communities that have been established for a long time. When I went to the UK I met a lot of ethnic community leaders and people and I talked to them about a number of issues. One of the questions I posed was how they felt about being firstly a British citizen. Invariably the answer was that they were very proud of being African Indian Pakistani or whatever else their ethnicity was. Their UK citizenship always came second. I think that it is very important particularly for Opposition members to note from those fact-finding missions to other countries that I received that generic answer from all the ethnic people living in the UK whom I met with. A number of them had actually been born in the UK. They were not just migrants; they were born there. 
From there we went over to Toronto and we posed similar questions to people over there. I was amazed to hear their answers. Almost every immigrant and every person of ethnic background who was born in Canada said that he or she was very proud to be Canadian and then secondly to be African Indian Chinese or whatever else he or she was. Everybody said the same sort of thing. 
I came back shaking my head. I did not know why the two countries were so different. When I came back and presented my report to the then Minister of Internal Affairs—who was I think from the New Zealand First Party—I posed the question of what kind of country we want New Zealand to be. What kind of future do we want in New Zealand? I think for me personally—and of course for my team that went there—the answer was clearly that the right model was the Canadian one where everybody felt proud of being Canadian and it did not matter where they came from. A place like Toronto in Canada has probably more than 100 different nationalities—people from all over the world who have made Toronto their home. As we know from recent United Nations reports Canada is considered to be one of the top countries to live in. 
It was very sad during the election campaign to hear over and over again people trying to target mainstream New Zealanders even during the leaders’ debate. I had never heard the definition of “mainstream New Zealanders” as being those people who are promoting the mainstream in New Zealand. I have been in this country for 30-odd years. My children were born here. We have I think contributed to the extent that we can to this country and I have always thought while I was a teacher at university that I was part of the mainstream. Unfortunately this election made me and a lot of the ethnic community feel that we were not mainstream. Somebody was telling us that we were not mainstream. It was tragic really tragic that people felt that way. We know a person cannot be mainstream if part of the body part of the machine stops working. We cannot have peace and harmony in this country if part of the community is a group that does not feel it is part of the country—does not feel it is part of the mainstream. That is very sad. 
Then we heard that new migrants would be put on probation for 4 years before they could apply for residency in this country. That is very sad again. Who would like to come to this country if he or she feels he or she will be put on probation? Unfortunately— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You must be happy now you are in a Government with Winston. 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY 
: Kia ora to the member—that is what cost National the election; it was the making of the defeat of the National Party at the election. I tell members that all the people I represent when they heard of those things happening—and they were people whom I knew personally wanted to vote for the Opposition—came around and said to me: “Ashraf with all these things happening around us with the so-called mainstreaming and probation we are not going to vote for that party.” What I saw was very sad. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Last night Tau Henare the member who is interjecting was invited to a party but he did not turn up. There was a party going on next door which was part of the celebrations of the people of this country. It was the celebration we had for the end of Ramadan and I was delighted that the Leader of the Opposition Dr Don Brash was able to come to it because I am making sure that the diversity of the people of this country is celebrated and that everybody feels part of this country. Two weeks ago we celebrated Diwali next door and we were proud that those people felt real pride that they were part of New Zealand. 
Before I conclude I would like to say that the election has unfortunately brought out some division in society. I think there is a lot for all of us to do including Tau Henare in order to do good for this country.