Difference Makes a Difference
A recent poll on TV3’s current affairs show The Vote found 76 per cent of respondents believed New Zealand is a racist society. If that represents the beliefs of most New Zealanders the situation is both disturbing and unacceptable.
But I’m not convinced the poll shows Kiwis have an inbuilt sense of superiority or intolerance towards people newly-arrived in this country. I believe it shows how some New Zealanders still don’t understand what we’re doing as a society.
In Auckland, for example, people from all walks of life have had to come to grips with huge change in the past 10 to 15 years. The city is now home to 186 different ethnicities.
Most of us understand and accept that New Zealand does not have the growth rate to become an economy of scale. We know we need to build workforces and a wider society that will enable us to engage more fully with major international economies.
In order to do that, we are looking to attract skilled and talented people from overseas. We acknowledge that not everyone will look and behave in the same way as everyone else and we welcome the diversity that will bring to our daily lives.
As a country, we need to understand that it’s going to be difference that makes a difference. Our ability to welcome a wide variety of peoples, cultures, languages, faiths and beliefs will continue to define us as a nation and make, or break, our chances of creating a prosperous future.
At the Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) Trust, we help employers celebrate such diversity by promoting the recruitment and development of people on the basis of merit. The EEO Trust generates awareness of the business benefits and rewards of an inclusive workplace.
Every day we see great stuff happening when employers take on people regardless of their ethnicity, gender, age or physical ability.
For the past 15 years the EEO Trust Work & Life Awards have been highlighting some of the best examples. These organisations tell powerful and practical stories. At heart, they’re about difference.
At the EEO Trust we share an absolute belief that having difference at the table will enable us all to create better understanding, develop new points of view and come up with innovative solutions.
It will enable us to build on each individual’s strength to build a much more creative and sophisticated society.
As I see it, the TV3 poll highlights that some people haven’t yet come to grips with Auckland’s evolving cosmopolitan identity. Some Aucklanders haven’t yet grasped the idea that our people of 186 ethnicities can all live together. They don’t get that by understanding the differences between us all we will become more tolerant both as individuals and as a society. They don’t see the power that lies within diversity.
So beneath the polls and conversations on racism lies an important issue. We need a much better understanding of what this problem might be.
Together we have chosen a pathway to become a multi-cultural society. We made a conscious decision to increase the size of our population through immigration. There was always going to be a blending of values and society: and that means change.
Perhaps some people are still resistant to change. Perhaps some people didn’t fully understand that in saying yes to the idea of Auckland becoming an international city of scale, we needed to set in place an immigration policy that would lift our population significantly through inviting in, and accepting, new New Zealanders who would boost our workforce and share their skills.
Those policies were always going to create change. We now need to ensure our behaviours match the opportunities that this new environment is creating for us all.
A recent poll on TV3’s current affairs show The Vote found 76 per cent of respondents believed New Zealand is a racist society. If that represents the beliefs of most New Zealanders the situation is both disturbing and unacceptable.
But I’m not convinced the poll shows Kiwis have an inbuilt sense...
A recent poll on TV3’s current affairs show The Vote found 76 per cent of respondents believed New Zealand is a racist society. If that represents the beliefs of most New Zealanders the situation is both disturbing and unacceptable.
But I’m not convinced the poll shows Kiwis have an inbuilt sense of superiority or intolerance towards people newly-arrived in this country. I believe it shows how some New Zealanders still don’t understand what we’re doing as a society.
In Auckland, for example, people from all walks of life have had to come to grips with huge change in the past 10 to 15 years. The city is now home to 186 different ethnicities.
Most of us understand and accept that New Zealand does not have the growth rate to become an economy of scale. We know we need to build workforces and a wider society that will enable us to engage more fully with major international economies.
In order to do that, we are looking to attract skilled and talented people from overseas. We acknowledge that not everyone will look and behave in the same way as everyone else and we welcome the diversity that will bring to our daily lives.
As a country, we need to understand that it’s going to be difference that makes a difference. Our ability to welcome a wide variety of peoples, cultures, languages, faiths and beliefs will continue to define us as a nation and make, or break, our chances of creating a prosperous future.
At the Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) Trust, we help employers celebrate such diversity by promoting the recruitment and development of people on the basis of merit. The EEO Trust generates awareness of the business benefits and rewards of an inclusive workplace.
Every day we see great stuff happening when employers take on people regardless of their ethnicity, gender, age or physical ability.
For the past 15 years the EEO Trust Work & Life Awards have been highlighting some of the best examples. These organisations tell powerful and practical stories. At heart, they’re about difference.
At the EEO Trust we share an absolute belief that having difference at the table will enable us all to create better understanding, develop new points of view and come up with innovative solutions.
It will enable us to build on each individual’s strength to build a much more creative and sophisticated society.
As I see it, the TV3 poll highlights that some people haven’t yet come to grips with Auckland’s evolving cosmopolitan identity. Some Aucklanders haven’t yet grasped the idea that our people of 186 ethnicities can all live together. They don’t get that by understanding the differences between us all we will become more tolerant both as individuals and as a society. They don’t see the power that lies within diversity.
So beneath the polls and conversations on racism lies an important issue. We need a much better understanding of what this problem might be.
Together we have chosen a pathway to become a multi-cultural society. We made a conscious decision to increase the size of our population through immigration. There was always going to be a blending of values and society: and that means change.
Perhaps some people are still resistant to change. Perhaps some people didn’t fully understand that in saying yes to the idea of Auckland becoming an international city of scale, we needed to set in place an immigration policy that would lift our population significantly through inviting in, and accepting, new New Zealanders who would boost our workforce and share their skills.
Those policies were always going to create change. We now need to ensure our behaviours match the opportunities that this new environment is creating for us all.
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