Crime big worry for ethnic groups

A photo of slain dairy owner, Bhagubhai Vaghela on stage at a meeting to express the Asian community's safety concerns in Auckland. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Law and order and immigration are top issues among New Zealand's ethnic communities this election, although a new voter dynamic is emerging among the young, writes  Errol Kiong.

An old scab was ripped open to bleed afresh with the killing of Auckland minimart worker Bhagubhai Vaghela in June.

Among the Indian community, the shooting of the grandfather of two little girls brought to mind the fatal stabbing of Shiu Prasad in his Mangere liquor store five years ago, and the death of Navin Govind, beaten to death in his Kelston dairy by three youths wielding softball bats.

Twelve years on, Mr Govind's family is still calling for harsher sentences. His brother Manhar told the Herald at a community meeting on law and order that changes were long overdue.

"If there are no changes from here we can expect our situation to become worse," he said in July.

He said the 16 and 17-year-olds who beat his brother were released from prison four to five years ago. His brother's wife and daughter had to pay for counselling, while one of the killers was entitled to it free.

The high-profile deaths and the sense of being seen as prime targets for burglars have brought law and order foremost to the minds of ethnic voters this election. Among New Zealand's three largest ethnic communities, the Chinese, Indian and Korean, law and order rated ahead of immigration as the country's most pressing issue.

As minorities, the perception of being marked out as easy targets -rightly or wrongly - and of being ignored by the authorities is greatly heightened.

New Zealand Indian Central Association president Ashokbhai Darji said there was a need for more community police patrols, whose their presence would act as a deterrent.

Chinese community elder George Tan was more scathing of the police. He said they did not seem to place a high priority on burglaries, and even when the crime was taking place did not respond immediately, if at all.

His experience is not unique, and he said many had simply given up reporting crime.

But the country's 20,000-strong Korean community continue to report crime - if only for insurance purposes.

Korean Society president Bum Do Park said many Korean businesses and private homes had been repeatedly burgled.

The police regularly showed up three days late, with the police report only serving the purpose of an insurance claim.

In an effort to understand what drives Asian New Zealanders, University of Auckland PhD student Shee-Jeong Park conducted the first nationwide survey on the political participation of Asian New Zealanders.

She discovered that they vote in similar patterns to the rest of the population, with 47 per cent of the 915 surveyed supporting Labour and 40 per cent National. Act was the most popular small party at 6 per cent, followed by United Future at 2.5 per cent.

Further analysis revealed that mainland Chinese and Koreans were the only groups that supported Labour more, while the Taiwanese, Hong Kong Chinese and Malaysian Chinese preferred National.

The economy and law and order ranked as the top two most important issues.

The Korean Society's Mr Park could not say if the community as a whole supported either major party more. He said the community's history in the country stretched back only a decade, and many were only now becoming eligible to vote.

Many were concerned at the raising of English language requirements last year. Korean Society director Kyung Sook Wilson said New Zealand appeared to want only young, rich migrants who could speak perfect English.

There needed to be flexibility in the system, she said, to accommodate the different things immigrants could offer.

Some had wealth and business ideas, while some had good English skills, but not the economic capital.

Mrs Wilson said the country did not seem to be planning for immigration, with many recent policy changes.

Immigration, too, is problematic for the Indian community. Mr Darji said bureaucracy often thwarted attempts by small business to bring in overseas workers, despite having jobs ready.

"Even when someone is already here, you have to go through the whole process again to renew their work visas every few years. And it's not cheap."

In pitching for the ethnic vote this election, many parties have retained the standard campaign lines that have sold well before. But the strategy of putting forward ethnic faces to win ethnic votes, particularly in Auckland seats, has also featured more prominently.

National's Ravi Musuku is unlikely to provide much competition for Helen Clark in her Mt Albert electorate, but at No 48 on the list, he stands the best chance of joining Pansy Wong, Act's Kenneth Wang and Labour's Ashraf Choudhary among Parliament's ethnic MPs. His entry might come at Mr Wang's expense. His party is polling below the crucial 5 per cent threshold.

Labour, meanwhile, is unlikely to add to Parliament's mix. After the departure of businessman Steven Ching from his winnable No 42 place on Labour's list, the next highest-ranked ethnic candidate is Dinesh Tailor, at No 55, followed by the Korean community's big hope, Chris Yoo, at No 57, with at best, an outside chance of entering Parliament.

From Shee-Jeong Park's 2003 survey, nearly two-thirds of respondents believed that an Asian MP would better represent Asian interests than a Pakeha or Maori MP. Sixty per cent also thought there should be more Asian MPs.

One Chinese community elder, who asked not to be named, said it was important for a Chinese person to represent the community in Parliament, even if that candidate, like Pansy Wong, was not in Government.

"Pansy has done a lot of work for the Chinese societies. Her language skills and ability to deal with different ethnic groups is great."

Manying Ip, associate professor at Auckland University's school of Asian studies, said that view was not unusual."Many ethnic communities still don't know how the legislature works. They feel that being in Parliament already represents power.

"It is quite hard for the ethnic candidates to work in a way, because there are certain real expectations placed on them."

Dr Ip said the current strategy of using ethnic "posterboys and postergirls" still worked to a certain extent among the older set.

This election sees a new class of voters emerge, with the maturing of children of immigrants who arrived in the late '80s and early '90s.

At the 2001 census, 15 to 24-year-olds made up 21 per cent of the 240,000-strong Asian population. Numbering just under 51,000, they comprised 14 per cent of the total population in 2001.

Nearly a quarter of the Asian population then was under 14, and some will be eligible to vote this election.

This new voter demographic, overseas-born but New Zealand educated, will have their own kind of political awareness, said Dr Ip.

"I don't think that they would vote simply because that person was a Korean, or Chinese, or Indian. They would look at whether the person was a competent representative."

Eighteen-year-old political science student Tinmama Oo reflected this view when she said ethnicity was not as important as an understanding of the issues.

And while tax cuts barely rated a response among the older set; among the young, the issue was very much on their minds.

Ms Oo, the daughter of Burmese refugees, said Labour's interest-free student loans policy was a big clincher for her vote.

She said National offered some good policies on tax, but she was concerned it might leave the elderly, unemployed and poor behind.

Unitec student Julia Zhu didn't think very highly of National's four-year-trial period for new immigrants.

"It makes people think immigrants are criminals and need to be watched."