Letters: NZ is a multi-racial society

We are told that the requirement that Immigration New Zealand has implemented, that couples claiming partner status live together for at least one year to prove the validity of the relationship, discriminates against Indians and arranged marriages.

I don't see how. All it requires is for the couple to live together for a least a year before the New Zealand resident spouse returns to NZ and applies for a visa for the partner.

We have not been told that there are more than 11,000 of these partner applications at INZ.

If returning to India and living there for a year after marriage is too inconvenient, there are plenty of single Indian women already living in NZ, why not marry one of them? NZ is a multi-racial society, and inter-racial marriages are common here. (Abridged)

Alan Dickson
Tauranga

Treaty of Waitangi

Rosemary Cullen (Letters, November 7) applauds Andrew Hollis for standing by his opinion that the Treaty of Waitangi is a joke and past its use-by date.

However Cullen and Hollis have a problem in that the Treaty, as a partnership between the Crown and Māori, has now been in place since the Treaty of Waitangi Act was passed in 1975.

This is law which only Parliament can change.

So individuals who say that we should no longer take the Treaty seriously when they know that we have no individual choice in the matter are, in my view, just being ridiculous. (Abridged)

Peter Dey
Welcome Bay
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