One man's poll: New life as a second-class citizen

By SIMON COLLINS

It was the year 2000. The number of ethnic Asians in New Zealand had just exceeded the number of Pacific Islanders.

At James Cook High School in Manurewa, a group of Indian students asked the school for financial support to take part in that year's Auckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, which had become the world's biggest Polynesian event.

"The Maori cultural groups were funded," said one of those Indian students, Vikash Naidu.

"We asked the school to support us. It didn't."

Last month - two years later - that decision still burned in Naidu's memory when he was interviewed near the Auckland University of Technology, where he is studying business and computing.

He is not alone. Many of the 78 Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders among the 600 New Zealanders interviewed for this series feel they are still not being treated on a par with other Kiwis.

Most of them are glad to be here. As reported on Monday, much higher proportions of Asians and Africans (76 per cent) and Pacific Islanders (56 per cent) rated the state of the country as "good" or better than did Europeans (49 per cent) or Maori (33 per cent).

That was not just because of our relatively unspoilt environment and our democratic freedoms, although these remain our most powerful beacons to people fleeing Fiji, China and other overcrowded autocracies.

A surprising number of immigrants also rated New Zealanders as more welcoming and less racist than people in other places they have lived in, such as Australia and even Canada.

But there are serious tensions, especially in Auckland, which is home to two-thirds of the country's immigrants. In this respect two quite different countries emerge from this survey: Auckland and the rest.

The Maori and Pacific Islands Festival is a microcosm of the conflicting pressures as the new Asian migrants look for a place in a predominantly European society still struggling to come to terms with its growing Polynesian element.

The teacher in charge of the Indian cultural group at James Cook High School, Rosalind Daniel, said at least 30 Indian groups from various schools took part in this year's festival at the Manukau Sports Bowl in March.

James Cook paid its students' fees, but the Indian performers were consigned to the Niuean/Cook Islands stage on the Thursday, the day before the main event.

"We are not given our own stage, so while it's still under construction getting ready for the festival on Friday, we are allowed to use it - while the carpenters and all the other people are still tinkering with it," she said.

"To be honest with you, we are not integrated into the festival. We have to push ourselves to get any registration or any time to perform."

Daniel, who came to New Zealand from India 25 years ago, said the Asian groups met two weeks ago and discussed the possibility of a separate Asian cultural festival. But it would be a divisive plan and they don't want to do it.

"I can understand that the name is the Polynesian Festival," she said.

"So maybe we should have a multicultural festival rather than just a Polynesian Festival, because Asian students are coming into this country and we are not recognising their presence at all.

"I wish they would recognise that we are part of New Zealand too."

Highly qualified adult immigrants find the same kind of resistance among Kiwi employers.

A Singaporean who travelled the world nine times as international marketing manager in his home country could not find anyone interested in his contacts and skills here and has ended up buying a Lotto outlet in a suburban mall.

"I have a doctor friend, a cancer specialist who graduated from a British university. He is not recognised as a doctor here," he said.

"The country is short of cancer specialists. Immigrants go and apply for a job. Sometimes employers look at the names and they don't even get a reply. Or they say, 'Do you have Kiwi experience?"'

A 45-year-old Iraqi engineer with years of experience overseas said he had gone back to university to do a local master's degree after trying for three years to get a job.

Georgia Molia, a Solomon Islands hairdresser who came here via Australia two years ago, said Australia made sure its immigrants found jobs.

"Last night, I saw a doctor - an immigrant - working in a supermarket. Why don't you make use of people like that?" she asked.

Elizabeth Tuanai, 31, a senior secretary in Samoa, has been unable to get a job since she arrived in Auckland six months ago.

Her friend Anita Auai, 32, a clerical worker at the Starship hospital for 10 years, has been looking for a new job for a year. "I think there is discrimination by employers. They discriminate by what race you are."

Another Pacific Islander who is studying at the Auckland College of Education feels it is also harder for immigrants to get public funding for projects.

"If an association of Pakeha apply for money, they get it," she said.

"If an association of Pacific Islanders apply for it, they don't.

"I am so angry with the way the Government treats us."

Many migrants resent - in terms which most Pakeha would shrink from expressing - the scholarships, preferential entry quotas and Treaty of Waitangi settlements which they see Maori people getting.

"The Maoris don't work," said 20-year-old communications student Cici Zhang, a recent arrival from China.

"They don't have ... very good qualifications but they get money from the Government. I think it's unfair. They just sit there and the Government will give them money.

"The Maoris often do some very bad things," she said. "I don't like it. Maybe sometimes I hate them. Sometimes they are very rude."

Even Pacific Islanders such as Cara Santos, another AUT student, are trying to understand Maori treaty claims with virtually no knowledge of New Zealand history.

"The people who tried to sign the treaty really have no claim on it because they chose to sign. It's not the Government's fault, it's their fault," she said.

Many have no wish to learn more.

"The Maori thing is not going to apply for me, I'm a Muslim," said Adil Balizi, a Moroccan working for Air New Zealand at Auckland Airport.

A Chinese real estate agent in Howick said: "I'm not voting. I can't be bothered. I don't know how many years we'll be here."

Yet despite all this, there is room for hope. For one thing, the immigrants appreciate even the kind of democracy that we are experiencing this month.

"We feel if we live here the Government will listen to us," said Howick College student Gevin Yang, from China.

The Singaporean executive who ended up in a Lotto shop said: "You've got a democracy which is a real democracy."

He later emailed asking the Herald not to use his name with his comments about Singapore because "I have family living on that island and they may be persecuted because of my open comments".

Georgia Molia said: "There is racism here in New Zealand, but it's not as bad as in Australia. I can walk down the street in Australia and people can throw words at me just because I'm black."

A Fiji Indian student echoed her: "I have lived in Australia as well. There is more equal opportunity here. The economy isn't that great but it is improving. There is more opportunity here in work and lifestyle."

Alvin Woon and Mary-Ann Hong, both young Malaysians who have grown up on the North Shore, said: "The economy is pretty good compared with a few years ago and we haven't got many complaints about anything else."

Tamea Vaisima, an Otara mother who came from Tonga in 1974, said things had improved. "New Zealand has got better since 1974. They got used to the Island people being here and other nationalities.

"It's got better for all of us."

In last year's census, 29 per cent of Aucklanders claimed Pacific Island, Asian or other ethnicity apart from European and Maori.

For comparison, only 11.6 per cent were Maori. (Some claimed more than one ethnicity, so the figures have some overlap.)

Ethnic groups other than Europeans and Maori made up only 8.1 per cent of the people in the rest of the North Island, and only 5.2 per cent in the South Island. Maori easily outnumbered them everywhere except Auckland.

This geographical split has created a potential for misunderstanding. Many migrants believe, as a Samoan/Chinese student in Manukau put it, that "there are just as many Samoans as there are Maori". Or Chinese, or Indians.

In Auckland, that is almost true - last year's census showed it had 154,680 Pacific Islanders and 127,629 Maori. There were also 165,264 Asians and other non-Europeans with 754,749 Europeans, giving Auckland increasingly the flavour of a true international city - and a completely different feel from, say, Hastings or Wanganui.

Many Pacific Island families have been in NZ for a generation, yet 67 per cent of their people are still concentrated in Auckland.

By comparison, the city has 64 per cent of New Zealand's Asians.

So it is primarily Auckland which is going to have to find a more secure place for the newcomers in its schools, workplaces and communities if the new groups are to contribute their full potential.

The rest of NZ can do its bit with those who find their way there. But for the most part, immigration is a challenge for Auckland.

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