Monthly Archives: Jan 2018

Indian visa numbers plunge

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Indian visa applications to New Zealand have taken a significant dive in the last few years.

Given India’s rapid population growth one might have thought that Indian tourists and visa holders would be accelerating. Apparently not.

The trend however seems to have started under the previous Government as the number of Indians seeking visas in New Zealand dropped in consecutive years from 25,977 in 2015 and 16,380 in 2017 to just 9,429 in 2017.

I personally have no ideas as to what might have fuelled the plunge other than a few broad theories:

  • The expat Indian community noticed a change in sentiment
  • Repeated concerns about the abuse of employees by a few ruined it for the many
  • New Zealand simply is not the safe place we claim it to be

What can be done?

To a large extent I think this problem is in our hands. We need to create the judicial conditions where all can come into the Police Station or where ever and tell the officer on duty what happened. We need to stop being complacent about the perception that New Zealand is clean/green when we have the poor environmental records to show it. The country is not and it is damaging our reputation.

I have no problems with Indian visa holders coming here and working. However New Zealand needs to do a much better job than it currently is ensuring that all visa applicants are:

  • Legitimate
  • Have the appropriate doocumentation
  • A willingness to set aside concerns in the immediate future after arriving in New Zealand and give oneself a reasonable chance. No one said it was a walk in the park.

Greens announce co-leader nominations open

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Green Party co-leader James Shaw yesterday announced that the Green Party is ready to start the process of finding another female co-leader.

So who are the contenders and what would they be likely to bring to the job. A brief examination of each of them is below:

JULIE ANNE GENTER

Young, popular with an outgoing personality, Ms Genter was a thorn in the side of National when it came to transport issues. Generous with her time, and vastly knowledgeable about the portfolio’s that she was spokeswoman for Frequently out manoeuvring the various Ministers of Transport between 2011-2017, Ms Genter was able to hold her own in Parliament, much to the chagrin of National M.P.’s.

Ms Genter has time on her side. She is only 38. Her position at #3 on the Green Party list ensured she would return to Parliament and is an acknowledgement of her strong work ethic

MARAMA DAVIDSON

Compared to the other contenders, Mrs Davidson’s profile is somewhat lower in terms of public visibility. Perhaps her strongest claim is her links to Maoridom, being of Ngapuhi, Ngati Porou and Te Rarawa heritage. I am not aware of her having had any significant achievements in Parliament. Following the Greens re-entry into Parliament after the 2017 General Election, Mrs Davidson was awarded the Auckland, Maori Affairs, Pacific Affairs, Sports and Recreation, Housing, Ethnic Affairs and Disabilities spokesperson roles.

EUGENIE SAGE

Ms Sage comes as a prominent contender to the role of co-leader. As Minister for Environment as a person with an extensive record in conservation related work, she is one of the higher profile Green Members of Parliament. She was spokesperson for Forest and Bird, before being elected to Environment Canterbury for the local government term starting in 2007. Before that term was out, Government Commissioners had taken over from the elected council. Ms Sage stood for the Green Party in the 2011 N.Z. General Election in sixth spot. She was given Conservation, Christchurch, Environment, Land Information and other spokesperson roles

THE OUTSIDE CONTENDER

Ms Logie’s openly lesbian orientation will endear her to the LGBTQ community when the Green Party has its internal vote on who should replace Metiria Turei as co-leader. Ms Logie is the Undersecretary to Minister of Justice Andrew Little. During the 2011 Election she stood in Mana where she came in at 9th out 14 Green M.P.’s eligible to enter Parliament.

At this stage Ms Logie has not indicated whether she would be interested in the leadership.

THE NON-CONTENDERS

Golriz Ghahraman and Chloe Swarbrick have not been in Parliament long enough and are still learning the ropes. Both still have to build their Parliament profiles and gain a base of followers. Ms Swarbrick, despite her popularity with those just out of high school, Ms Ghahraman will be for the time being probably happy to keep out of the limelight and get to know the smorgasbord of portfolio’s that she now has to be the spokeswoman for, which include Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, among others. Let us hope they are trained well by their colleagues because a failure to make the most of the opportunities, whilst conducting themselves in a responsible way would go some distance towards preventing the Greens holding high office again in the near future.

Petition to Minister for Environment (Eugenie Sage)

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At the start of this year a Chinese decision to bar the importation of New Zealand waste took effect. New Zealanders have one of the highest rates of waste creation in the world and a relatively mediocre recycling record to boot.

As a result of that, I started looking at ways of reducing the waste winding up in New Zealand land fills. I was interested in a number of issues, not least:

  1. Any unnecessary council obstruction to waste reduction measures
  2. The functionality in the second decade of this century a modest 2002 waste management strategy and the 2008 legislation called the Waste Minimisation Act, 2008
  3. What economic gains could be had from reducing waste
  4. What environmental gains could be had from reducing waste

I was not sure how I might get public attention to bear on this issue. Simply writing a blog article and linking to a petition run by somebody else might or might not work. “Might” or “Might not” was not good enough for me. I wanted certainty, but I also wanted to know that what I did would capture the interest of others.

So I came up with a petition that is based at Action Station, a social activist platform launched by Marianne Elliott. Action Station is about bringing people take action together in support of a better Aotearoa New Zealand.

As for that petition, look no further than here. Please SIGN this petition. Please SHARE it to your social media. Please TELL people you meet about it.

Trump: One year on

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Donald John Trump has been President of the United States for one year now. As he progresses through the first full week of his second year in office, it is time to look at the previous year and how it affected the world, including New Zealand.

The effect Mr Trump has had on New Zealanders has been largely negative. Whilst many including myself supported his withdrawing the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement – and wishing New Zealand had followed suit, there has been little else to celebrate. Mr Trump’s foreign policy and contempt for environmental science puts at risk much of the good New Zealand and other nations have worked towards.

I do not know what Year 2 of Mr Trump’s first term in office will bring, so I am looking at the recent past (i.e 2017) to see if there are clues. The key points for me in the past year have been:

INTERNATIONAL

  1. The tensions on the Korean Peninsula, despite recent talks about North Korea attending the Pyeonchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, remain very high and credible concerns exist about how the regime will react to any further tightening of sanctions. Not only that, but the historical risk of Chinese intervention should any conflict break out is also plausible.
  2. Withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership. This is perhaps the only thing on the world stage, I am happy to credit Mr Trump with. The T.P.P.A. is a toxic deal for all 12 nations and I had hopes that when Mr Trump withdrew the U.S. others would have second thoughts as well.
  3. The intervention in the Syrian War in April 2017 drew alarm. Mr Trump ordered the firing of 59 cruise missiles into Syria to attack a Russian base. Aside from the fact that there seemed to be little actual purpose – it has not altered the outcome of the war; many were left wondering, what if the Russians had fired back?
  4. The decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is effectively a middle finger salute by Mr Trump to the entire Arab world and Palestine. In one stroke, more effectively than all of the steadily encroaching illegal Israeli settlements could have achieved, Mr Trump has dumped the Israel Palestine peace process on its head.
  5. Mr Trump’s threat to walk away from the Iranian nuclear agreement threatens to undo an essential deal that potentially saved a lot of lives – the deal saved the Middle East from a pre-emptive Israeli military strike that could have flung the whole region into a major conflict that would have overshadowed the proxy wars in Iraq and Syria

DOMESTIC

  1. The war waged by the White House on science. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a lady who believes in the theory of creation as opposed to the theory of evolution; climate change is a hoax; and science in general should not be trusted. Whilst largely a domestic issue, it sends the wrong signals to academics worldwide about how this Administration will tackle science.
  2. The Mueller probe into whether or not Mr Trump or his associates, including his sons and daughter Ivanka had any election period dealings with Russians involving bribery or the disclosure of confidential information is slowly making progress – some call it a witch hunt, while others are watching what they consider to be the wheels of justice in motion. Whilst impeachment seems like an impossibility at this stage, I expect the Mueller probe to claim a few of Mr Trump’s staff.
  3. The financial aims of the Trump Administration are very different from those the Obama Administration. One sought to improve the regulatory control of the banking sector after one of the biggest financial crises in nearly 100 years. The other (current one) is helping to exacerbate financial operating conditions that now look similar to those just prior to the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis. The catch is unfortunately banks have little room to manoeuvre in, in that neither raising or lowering interest rates is going to help that much.
  4. For a western nation that has an immensely rich immigrant tapestry there is a lot to be alarmed about regarding the signals Mr Trump is sending to the vulnerable peoples of nations less lucky than the United States. It is more than a little rich to be telling Yemeni’s to stay at home whilst arming the nation that is bombing them into the ground;

New Zealand’s best course is probably to stay on the current one: be honest and tell Mr Trump’s officials what our expectations are. I am not expecting a visit from him because it seems that only Democrats visit New Zealand. The ideological differences between New Zealand and the Trump Administration may discourage a visit. If he comes, he should be accorded the due dignity of a head of state, whilst perhaps it being suggested he attend an A.N.Z.A.C. Day dawn service with the Prime Minister, to realise New Zealand’s effort in war have not come cheap.

People smuggler boats heading for New Zealand?

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Asylum seeker boats arriving in Australia have prompted the Australian authorities to blame New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for their appearance.

It is important (once again) to distinguish between an asylum seeker and an economic migrant. Asylum seekers are unlikely to have documentation for reasons mentioned later in this article. An economic migrant might have left via illegal means, but is this is where the vetting system that New Zealand has, exists. It can help separate those in genuine need from those who left simply because they wanted a better lifestyle.

There are however a few reasons why getting to New Zealand might not be all that those daring – and foolish – enough to make the journey, believe.

The first reason is our weather. The Tasman Sea is comparatively small compared to the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, but anyone who has sailed or flown across it or anyone who is familiar with New Zealand weather patterns will know what an unbelievably stormy tempest it can turn into. Whether it is a tropical depression coming from the Coral Sea, a southerly storm coming off the Southern Ocean or a big northwesterly rain system coming from Australia, all of these can make what might seem like placid waters, not so placid after all. It needs to be a proper ocean going craft to make it across the Tasman Sea in the conditions mentioned.

The second reason is New Zealand customs. Maybe smugglers think New Zealand is a soft touch and that they will be let off easily. New Zealand customs are not corrupt and nor are the police. That is often the biggest surprise a lot of non-New Zealanders coming from overseas countries get when they come into contact with New Zealand authorities.

Ms Ardern says that the people smugglers are parasites. She is right. What now needs to happen though is that New Zealand introduce minimum penalties for people smuggling – say $250,000 fine per smuggler/25 years in jail/confiscation of any boats seized.

People generally do not pay people smugglers the money that they do, just so that they can get better economic conditions. These people are most likely to be from countries where law and order has broken down, where the Government is not working and might not be in full control of the country of origin. They might be from countries suffering internal strife such as ethnic persecution or civil war. They might have made a stand against a regime that was backwards, which then decided to kill them and their families, leaving them no alternative but to flee.

And what a lot of people do not understand is that authoritarian regimes do not like people leaving because they are scared that they will take knowledge of the regime with them. So, getting appropriate visas and following normal convention is not going to be possible because that will tell the regime that these people want to leave and they might then get arrested or even murdered. The people who have come to New Zealand often came from countries with non-existent consular services in other countries, so this idea that they should have just waited in line is ridiculous when the authorities will not allow the line to exist.

So, rather than blaming a New Zealand Prime Minister with a social conscience for the arrival of boats in Australia, how about Australia look at the causes of them leaving for their lands in the first place. The ambulance is no use at the bottom of the cliff.