National and Labour have brushed aside New Zealand People Party’s survey claim of validation of the party’s existence as immigrants based ethnic political party.
A survey commissioned by New Zealand People's Party, the country's first ethnic political party, claims that immigrants are viewed as having a positive influence in New Zealand.
Earlier, Labour candidate Michael Wood has tactfully avoided commenting directly on the supposed claim of validation for NZ People Party’s existence as an immigrant based ethnic political party.
Now National candidate Dr Parmjeet Parmar has also followed suit by refusing to fall in a trap and commenting anything directly on NZ People Party's claim of self-legitimization as the country’s only immigrant based ethnic political party.
“There are a huge number of different ethnicities and cultures in New Zealand and a lot of these are in the Mt Roskill electorate. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know most of these communities in my 20+ years of involvement in the area, and I don’t think you can distill the diverse range of opinions and experiences into numbers in a poll,” says Dr Parmar.
Aucklanders were surveyed across multiple age groups and ethnicities to find out about their attitudes towards immigrants. Although the outcome was largely in favour of immigrations, results indicate that work needs to be done to improve understanding between the diverse cultures that make up the New Zealand society.
Riding on this survey conducted on 762 Auckland residents, New Zealand People's Party wants a bigger representation for the immigrants in the parliament.
Party President Roshan Nauhria, who is currently standing in the Mt Roskill by-election, says, “Too often, politicians use immigrants as scapegoats for issues such as the cost of housing and unemployment rates. We wanted to show that this is not true and that immigrants are viewed favourably by many New Zealanders.”
The key finding of this survey was that 43% of all respondents thought that the migrant communities were not well represented in the parliament.
Another 42% identified that the main reason for this was established parties or voters not recognising migrant needs.
In the survey, respondents could tick multiple responses to the same question.
New Zealand People’s Party believes that the poll reflects support for increased representation of immigrants in the Parliament and validates their existence as an immigrant-based ethnic party.
Despite such visible optimism within the party, the survey results do not clearly state the need for such a political party.
The survey did not include a question about the need for separate immigrants based ethnic political party to enhance immigrant representation in the NZ parliament.
Indian Weekender reached out to the leading political parties to seek their comments on this claim from New Zealand People's Party.
Michael Wood, Labour party candidate for the Mt Roskill by-elections where Roshan Nauhria is also in the fray, was “appreciative” about the general outcome of the survey about New Zealanders being receptive to migrants.
However, he did not comment on New Zealand People Party's claim of this survey being an indication of the need for a separate immigrants-based ethnic party.
"It is encouraging to see confirmation that Auckland is a tolerant, welcoming multi-cultural community.
“Like many other people, I value the contribution made by multi-cultural communities to Mt Roskill and believe that we are all better off when we learn from one another," Mr Wood said.
Mahesh Bindra, List MP for New Zealand First, had an indifferent opinion towards the claim.
"New Zealand First policies are for all New Zealanders. We do not believe that New Zealanders born overseas should be treated any differently.
“We do not make any distinction between New Zealanders on the grounds of their race, religion, colour, gender, language, ethnicity, or socio-economic status," Mr Bindra said.