Carter Chris: General Debates 
Carter Chris: General Debates 
[Volume:615;Page:11305] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 Fairness in government—and indeed good governance—is about respecting cultural difference and not favouring one culture over another. Real leadership in our country should draw people together not tear them apart. It is about giving people a fair go. Contrast the actions of the Prime Minister with those of the Leader of the Opposition. Helen Clark has demonstrated throughout her whole political life a commitment to engaging in a positive way with the increasing diversity that is the reality of our country. Two weeks ago I attended the Chinese Lantern Festival in Albert Park with the Prime Minister. Last week we attended a sports event organised by Muslim youth. Next week we will attend an event organised by the Ghanaian community in Auckland. 
The Leader of the Opposition seeks to divide our communities. He is not embracing the diversity that is a reality of our country and indeed of the whole world now. He seeks to take us back to a sort of golden age—which means of course white and middle class. In reality that was never the case in our country. Right from the earliest times of European settlement we have contained racial and socio-economic diversity: Dalmatians Chinese Indians joining Scots Irish and English and others in the early settlement period. We had a great division of wealth. The Irish from whom I trace my descent were the working class in those days and were actively socially discriminated against. Indeed from the earliest times we put a poll tax on Chinese migrants and imposed on them legally enforced racism. Since the time of the treaty we have been a diverse and multicultural society and that is indeed no bad thing. Accepting difference and embracing diversity is positive. It creates social stability and promotes a fairer community for everyone—not just for European New Zealanders not just for Maori New Zealanders not just for Chinese New Zealanders but for everybody. 
What are the options if we do not do that? Let us cast our minds around the world and see what happens when people get involved in race-based policies. Everyone here grew up with the struggle against apartheid. We know what the effects of that system were on South Africa. It blighted that country’s development for many generations and it pays the cost today as it drags itself out of that system. In Northern Ireland where some of my ancestors came from there is today a community divided against itself. The simplistic analysis would be that it is about religion yet religion does not divide us here in this country. The situation in Northern Ireland is compounded by history and by a sense of grievance. We too will enter that world if we embark on this dangerous path of race-based policies. If we give a minority in our country a growing sense of oppression a growing sense of not being listened to a growing sense that their needs in health and education are not being met and a sense that their own cultural identity is being suppressed and is not being developed or accommodated then we will go down the path of Northern Ireland Sri Lanka Spain with its Basque issues or Turkey with its struggle against the Kurds. Those are the living realities. Those are political situations that the world faces today because of diversity and difference not being accommodated. 
Because of the speech at Orewa we face a real chance that that is the path we could embark on. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that he should beware. Since 1840 this country has attempted—at times less successfully than at others—to embrace diversity. Successive Governments whether they be Labour or National-led have embraced Maoridom and sought to accommodate that separateness—to meld us together as one people. We are not all the same and we can probably never be all the same. We can never be all the same but we can be equal. If we start saying now in 2004 that we are the same and people have a sense that we are not trouble is ahead. 
Again I remind the House of Northern Ireland Sri Lanka Spain Turkey and many other examples in the world today. That is the danger the Leader of the Opposition has opened up. I say to him that he should beware of the lessons of history. This country began as a partnership between peoples in 1840. Sometimes that has been an unhappy partnership but we have kept it peaceful. We have all the recipes for violence. Let us not go down that path.