Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand for National to speak against the Dawn Raids and to support the Government's apology. I think it is a shame it wasn't able to be extended into a full Crown apology because even though the Hon Aupito William Sio the Minister who has resumed his seat mentioned the Muldoon National Government he forgot to mention that the Dawn Raids were commenced under the Norman Kirk Labour Government in 1973. I think if we're going to get right down into it it was actually a racist and economic response to the fact that New Zealand at that stage had unemployment going through the roof and we were part of an oil shock. I can well remember the situation in New Zealand at that time. Pacific Islanders had been invited into and encouraged into New Zealand post World War II because of the economic boom and the fact that we needed people to work. Then 1973 came along we had the oil shock businesses were closing people were losing their jobs and Pacific people were overwhelmingly caught up in unemployment housing situations and all of those things. Someone needed to be scapegoated and it was pretty clear—the unions were behind it as well. It was about pushing out the Pacific Island community and sending them back to where they had come from. It was short term it was cruel and it was vile. When people have said to me But why Judith do you care so much about this?" it's because not only am I very aware of the hardship that it brought to people but because 86 percent of those arrested in the Dawn Raids were Pacific people and yet they were just a third of all the overstayers. If you consider the fact that people like my husband and his family came to New Zealand in the early 1960s they had not a passport—they didn't have passports. They had a certificate a form that was handed to them and they had that stamped—that was it. So when people say that someone was stopped for their passport they didn't have them because you've got to remember as well that in 1962—I mean that's the independence of Samoa. Before that it was a New Zealand colony. It was mandated but essentially run by New Zealand. So they weren't treated the same as other people coming here because they didn't have the protections of other people coming here as immigrants and having been brought in here they were told "Here's the jobs. You go for it. You work in the factories you keep these things going and you do all this. Oh and if it all turns to custard we'll send you back home." So it was a shame on both Labour and National for that to have happened and you've got to own that in the Labour Party and stop just blaming National. You've got to own it. That is why it is a shame that the Opposition was not offered any opportunity to formally apologise until now and I'd do that because just sitting in the stalls is not being part of the occasion. That's why it should have been extended. I say to people you know when I took my husband who was then a boyfriend home in 1979 to visit my father why was he so racist against my husband? Because he knew the feeling that many people had towards Pacific families. That was the situation: they saw Pacific families as a problem. So in 1982 when New Zealand citizenship was granted by the Privy Council in the Lesa case which the Minister has referred to it was granted to all Western Samoans who were born between 1924 and 1948 and the Act the New Zealand Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act in 1982—which was brought in through this Parliament under the Muldoon Government—rescinded and annulled any citizenship claims by Samoans living in Samoa but not those here in New Zealand. Yes the Samoan Government of the day accepted that. Why? Because if they had not they feared that so many people would leave to go to New Zealand and that's why there is a specific quota for Samoans to be able to come and live in New Zealand and to work here. That is why there is a special deal for Samoans which a lot of other New Zealanders have no idea about. It's because something was taken away from them that was legally theirs—that is why. So let's just look at what was going on at the time. We know it was a time of economic hardship. We know that people were happy to take people in when it suited them and to not support them when they needed it but we also need to be very aware that this country can be in danger of doing this again where it's other migrants that we bring into work and that we then ignore once it becomes an issue. We have to be really careful we don't repeat these mistakes of the past whether it's around the split migrant families whether it's about anyone else coming here and I can't think of any Pacific person I know who would not say that they just want people to be treated decently. So we can't ignore these people or the families themselves. Also let me say too that we should be apologising to the immigration officers and the police officers who were forced to undertake this work and the reason is—there was much made about it in the media about family members of MPs who might be involved—they didn't have a choice. Police officers don't get a choice on these things. They had to do it and for some it would have lived with them for years. I just think we need to be aware that these are the sorts of things that really hurt people and they're the sorts of things that stay for ever. So when the Minister refers to racism it's racist now on these things—we know that. I think of my own family as well. I think of the racist cartoons that they endure—of course they do. If you ask questions and if you're not on the same side of politics you get condemned because they can and we have to be much stronger as a country against this. We must look at our migrants today and in the past and say "Hang on we asked them to come. What are we doing?" and the answer has to be that we must not repeat the errors of the past. So I am very happy to stand on behalf of the National Party and say that I understand not all New Zealanders are going to understand all of the things that I'm talking about because they didn't live in it and they don't understand it or because they weren't part of it but let me just say it is a wrong thing not to apologise. It's the wrong thing not to accept that wrongs were done and we must own those."