Whanganui Chronicle
  • Whanganui Chronicle home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Taranaki
  • National Park
  • Whakapapa
  • Ohakune
  • Raetihi
  • Taihape
  • Marton
  • Feilding
  • Palmerston North

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • New Plymouth
  • Whanganui
  • Palmertson North
  • Levin

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Multi-race future inevitable and we'll all be better for it

By Bob Jones
Whanganui Chronicle·
9 Dec, 2013 06:21 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Sir Bob Jones Photo/File

Sir Bob Jones Photo/File

A contentious issue in the Australian election was illegal migration, the party leaders competing for the harshest tactics to deal with it.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's first foreign trip was to Indonesia, the staging post for most Australian-bound boat people but, far from obtaining co-operation, he virtually apologised to the Indonesian President for bothering him.

Meanwhile, the Australian Greens leader, Christine Milne, reinforced her wetness credentials by protesting at the Immigration Minister calling them illegal migrants. "People seeking asylum are not illegal, they are human beings," she said, as if anyone is questioning that.

In fact, they are illegal - most being economic migrants who are normally barred, while access is accorded political refugees by international convention. Political refugee status was meant for people facing death or imprisonment for their views, which is not the case with Sri Lankans, Syrians or Afghanis - hellish though their lives may be.

But who can blame them for seeking something better? Sri Lankans flowed in here during the civil war - to our benefit. I know many, Tamil and Sinhalese, all but one (an employee of mine) medical and other professionals.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Of our migrants, they're among the cream; studious, hard-working and imbued in decency. But with the civil war over, still they come, fleeing the oppressive mismanagement of their homeland.

Afghani and Syrian migrants need no explanation. The exodus of more than two million Syrians is at crisis proportions for its neighbours. This specially tough on Jordan, a poor country already awash with Iraqis; likewise Lebanon and Turkey struggling to cope with the influx.

They're now forced further afield, spreading across Europe.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Bulgaria has taken the most on a population basis but now intends spending millions it can ill-afford on a lengthy fence.

It won't work just as it doesn't with the Mexican border fence and, today, the US hosts millions of illegal Hispanics, this a contentious issue in last year's presidential race.

It's also huge in Europe, the destination for black and North African jobseekers fleeing their mismanaged nations. Tunisia - its people better educated than its neighbours - has huge unemployment and their desperate job-seekers easily slip across to southern Europe seeking salvation in countries themselves suffering disastrous unemployment problems.

Sweden has now offered to take all Syrians who turn up, to the outrage of their burgeoning anti-immigrant party.

Unpopular migration into Britain has resulted in UKIP's spectacular rise although its concerns are more with eastern Europeans and, particularly, gypsies flooding in legally under the European Union pact and exploiting the welfare system.

Similar anti-migrant political parties are polling strongly throughout western Europe - some, particularly in Hungary and Greece, of a decidedly fascist bent.

The Brits welcome foreign nurses, otherwise they virtually won't have any; plus Polish building workers, noted for getting the job done.

The revelation that entrepreneurs are training building tradesmen to acquire Polish accents says it all.

Apparently people would call, say, Phoenix Plumbers and put the phone down if a Polish voice didn't answer. As said, they wanted the job done, not messed about with.

Everyone or their ancestors were migrants at some stage, but we all claim the right to determine who we allow into our countries.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The problem is what to do when they arrive illegally in large numbers.

Australia established concentration camps but they didn't deter and played on people's consciences, more so as they contain numerous children.

A current dreadful strategy is to dump them in Papua New Guinea which has accepted sizeable sums for taking them.

Australia's also given Sri Lanka two patrol boats which will stem the flow from that country, evidenced by the Australian Refugee Council slamming the move.

But the main problem lies with Indonesia, the launching pad for the illegals, now understandably in a huff over the revelations of Australia's cyber-spying on their leaders' telephones and computers - thus they've withdrawn from co-operation, not that they intended any as it was.

But what of our country? To date, our geographic isolation has provided immunity from the boat people, but that won't last as the world abounds in cheap, old ships and, inevitably, one laden with illegal migrants will turn up here - more so as that same isolation gives us an Elysian Fields imagery in the eyes of people enduring hardship in distant lands.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It will be easy to send ashore, in simple barges, hundreds of migrants along, say, 90-Mile Beach.

As with Australia, the navy will be helpless dealing with this. Hobson's choice will invariably see us accept them, resulting in ever more arriving.

There's no answer to this problem, other than not viewing it as a problem and instead accepting a multi-race future; a miniature melting pot as lies at the heart of America's greatness.

The grandchildren of today's 20-year-olds will all be part Asian, Arab and God knows what else, and be better for this infusion.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Whanganui Chronicle

Wellness hub plan revealed for former school site

17 Jun 05:10 PM
Whanganui Chronicle

Much to explore in Puanga exhibition

17 Jun 05:00 PM
Whanganui Chronicle

Ngāti Rangi’s whānau housing push

17 Jun 03:02 AM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Whanganui Chronicle

Wellness hub plan revealed for former school site

Wellness hub plan revealed for former school site

17 Jun 05:10 PM

'I believe we can create something quite exciting, creative and innovative.'

Much to explore in Puanga exhibition

Much to explore in Puanga exhibition

17 Jun 05:00 PM
Ngāti Rangi’s whānau housing push

Ngāti Rangi’s whānau housing push

17 Jun 03:02 AM
Major North Island farming business appoints new boss

Major North Island farming business appoints new boss

16 Jun 09:12 PM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Whanganui Chronicle e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Whanganui Chronicle
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP