Carter Chris: General Debate 
Carter Chris: General Debate 
[Volume:633;Page:4634] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 In the last 4 years I have been privileged to hold the job of Minister for Ethnic Affairs. It has given me the chance to engage with probably more diverse groups in this country than most other members have engaged with. I know that you Mr Assistant Speaker in your very diverse electorate of Manukau East which is probably one of the most diverse communities in New Zealand have had a chance to meet quite a few people. Of course my colleague Lynne Pillay is a very active person in west Auckland engaging with communities out there. People like us have had a chance to get to know people in diverse communities and to know some of the fears aspirations and ambitions of those people and particularly of new migrants to our country. 
Last week when the leader of the National Party Don Brash spoke at a conference on immigration and investment in New Zealand he alarmed those communities. He compounded the fears that were already out there—fears that have manifested themselves in relation to the desecration of Islamic centres in Auckland. Just yesterday I went out to the Hutt Valley to visit a mosque there that had been graffitied with racist graffiti. Also yesterday a synagogue in Christchurch was attacked. So within our peaceful country—a place that has served as a refuge for many people who have come to New Zealand—racism is alive and well. Luckily of course this racism is not at the same level that it is at in some other places but it is out there. That sensitivity that anguish in the community was touched on inflamed and aggravated last week when Dr Brash suggested people should not come to New Zealand if they did not share core New Zealand values. 
Of course we all want immigrants to share core values and I say they do. Dr Brash when asked whom he was talking about could not or would not name any of the groups he might have been referring to. Of course he could have touched on the Exclusive Brethren—something my colleague Mr Hodgson talked about earlier—which is a group that does not share core New Zealand values. The Exclusive Brethren do not believe in voting and do not believe in equal rights for women but are well prepared to give millions of dollars to the National Party. 
But I want to get back to our communities and our increasingly diverse multi-ethnic and multicultural society. The situation in Lebanon the ongoing anarchy in Iraq the war in Afghanistan and indeed the racial riots in Australia last year and the massacre of Muslim boys and men in the former Yugoslavia 10 years ago all create a framework whereby ethnic communities in New Zealand are sensitive. For Dr Brash to speak about some New Zealanders not sharing aspects of New Zealand culture is to say the very least insensitive. To go further than that I say it actually creates discord and disunity in our community. 
Dr Brash actually implies that diversity is thoroughly bad. Yesterday we had an excellent maiden speech from my friend and colleague Charles Chauvel. He talked about migration being absolutely essential for New Zealand. He said this country was built on migration from the first canoes that left Charles’ ancestral islands of Tahiti and Rai’atea and other islands to the ancestors of all of us who have arrived in this country. Migration has enriched both the culture and the economy of this country. 
 Sending out a message on core values from somebody who aspires to be an alternative Prime Minister is extraordinarily stupid. It is also extraordinarily destructive in the framework of the contemporary international scene. Just last Christmas we saw racial riots in Australia at Cronulla Beach. We saw a large Lebanese community there that felt as though it was not part of Australia. In that context Dr Brash raises the question of some New Zealanders not sharing core values and he therefore says they should not come to this country. 
Again we ask the Leader of the Opposition to name whom he is talking about. If he is talking about the Exclusive Brethren I agree with him but if he is trying to play on racial and cultural prejudices then I utterly reject that. Populist politicians in Europe and elsewhere have played that card leading to the destruction of their societies. Racial riots have occurred in Paris and other French cities and much of the responsibility for that situation can be blamed on the rhetoric of people like Mr Le Pen inflaming the situation in France. The situation is similar in the Netherlands and elsewhere. 
We do not want to have racism in this country.