KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark has ordered greater Government activity on religious and cultural diversity issues to avoid New Zealand developing the sort of extremism seen in immigrant communities in Britain.
"What is very obvious in some places offshore is that you are getting extremism in second and third
generations and that is very worrying to societies concerned," she told the Herald before leaving for a Christmas holiday overseas.
"Now we haven't generated that and we don't want to generate that.
"It is a huge concern in Britain and there is a lot of thought at Government level as to what could be done to decrease that feeling of alienation."
She had personally asked that the Ministry of Social Development become involved because of its overall responsibility for "social cohesion".
Helen Clark was responding to questions about why the Human Rights Commission is developing a draft national statement on religious diversity.
The commission will invite Helen Clark to present it to an international forum on interfaith issues at Waitangi in May.
National deputy leader Bill English has called for wider public discussion over the strategy if she is going to present it as a national statement.
Helen Clark said there would be more consultation on the document after the Human Rights Commission had finished its consultation.
"We have stood back and said the Human Rights Commission should run these issues, should do the consultation. I am waiting for someone to come back with a formal statement that says, 'Hey, this is what we have done, this is what we have consulted on, would you be prepared to fly with it?' And we are not quite at that stage at the moment."
The Prime Minister said various Government departments were active on religious diversity issues: Foreign Affairs because of its interaction with other countries on counter-terrorism; the Human Rights Commission; the Office of Ethnic Affairs; and now the Ministry of Social Development.
"I remember saying at a Cabinet committee meeting in the early months of last year, 'Come on, this is going to need the resources of more than the Office of Ethnic Affairs, which is relatively small.
"This should be the bread and butter of the Ministry of Social Development if we are taking a broader view of that than just the department which administers the benefits, and Child, Youth and Family.'
"If we are genuinely interested in social development, then these issues fall on there and the Ministry of Social Development has embraced that with great willingness.
"So it is quite a significant Government effort that is going in."
Asked why New Zealand needed a statement on religious diversity, the Prime Minister said: "There is a capacity for tensions generated offshore ... to be reflected back into one's own country if one isn't proactive about promoting inclusion and acceptance across faiths.
"So, for example, one wouldn't want what is seen by a lot of people in the Islamic world in the Middle East to be an issue of Islam versus Western Christianity to be reflected back in our own community, because we are trying to attract the talent of the world here, irrespective of faith.
"And once here, we want people to be able to settle in a way that is respectful of them and their beliefs and to have a reasonable belief that they will be accepted and included," Helen Clark said.
"The issue is how to start out on the right foot recognising that many in the minority faith communities are relatively recent migrants. It is particularly important that they and their children and their grandchildren feel very positive about New Zealand."
