KEY POINTS:
Before New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown delivered his latest "rivers of blood" warning, he should have come to Auckland to check how scary living in a society which included 16 per cent "ethnic Asians" would be.
This was his dire prediction for New Zealand in 2026 if the flood gates weren't closed. He seemed unaware that at the 2006 census, Auckland had long crossed that line - 18.93 per cent of its residents identified themselves as "Asian".
What he's wetting himself over I have no idea. As a long-time down-country migrant myself, Auckland's a much livelier and cosmopolitan city than it ever was when the only migrants in town were pasty-faced Euros like himself.
Spluttering through his crocodile tears, Mr Brown said he was "particularly concerned that the Asian population threatened to eventually outnumber Maori", and warned of the "real danger we will be inundated with people who have no intention of integrating into our own society. They will form their own mini-societies to the detriment of integration and that will lead to division, friction and resentment".
His prejudices could have come from the hilarious pages of the 1946 Dominion Population Committee, set up to find a suitable source of postwar migrants.
With competition strong for British stock from other colonies, the committee reluctantly conceded Aryan cousins from northern Europe were acceptable. However, a line was to be drawn against "certain southern European types [who] have tended to remain segregated into groups and have not become completely absorbed. The emergence of racial islands in such a small country ... must inevitably lead to serious maladjustments".
They couldn't have ben proved more wrong. They were referring to the pioneers of New Zealand's world-beating wine industry. Now we have to listen to a 21st century Jeremiah, parroting the same racial type-casting.
A rebuttal of Mr Brown's claims surfaced on Monday in the report, "Diverse Auckland: The Face of New Zealand in the 21st Century."
Auckland University geographer Wardlow Friesen shows that far from locking themselves in mini-ghettoes, settlers from the bigger migrant groups, like Koreans and Chinese, are spreading out across the isthmus, much as the rest of us have done.
As to not integrating, a few days ago, a young Vietnamese accountant flew up from Wellington to buy some speakers I had for sale. I didn't have the rock music he preferred, but he happily checked out the bass with a bit of Shostakovich.
He and his brother, both Victoria University graduates, plan to start an international business, based in Wellington and Saigon. He spoke great English and his confidence was boundless. Before he flew back, I dropped him at an Asian foodmarket. Wellington is apparently short of such places.
Is New Zealand a worse place for embracing new citizens with this sort of get up and go?
As far as saving "the original inhabitants" from being swamped, Mr Brown has left his rescue mission a bit late. At 11 per cent of the Auckland population, the 137,133 who claimed Maori descent in 2006 are outnumbered by 177,936 Pacific Peoples (14.38 per cent), 234,222 Asians (18.93 per cent) and 698,622 Europeans (56.46 per cent). It seems irrational to now lay "the blame" for Maori minority status on the latest wave of migrants.
Checking the census data, it was encouraging to see that breathing down the Maori neck for fourth place is the new census category of "New Zealander", the chosen ethnicity of 99,258 or 8 per cent of Aucklanders.
This category was introduced in 2006, over the objections of researchers like Dr Friesen, to cater for malcontents like myself who objected to identifying as European. In the 2001 census, 78,000 people had labelled themselves Kiwi or New Zealander, even though this was not allowed. Most were Pakeha but at least 3000 Maori and Pacific Islanders did likewise. We were all tossed into the European pot regardless.
In 2006 and right on our side, 429,429 (11.12 per cent) of us identified as New Zealanders. Let's hope this trend against racial labelling continues.
I know the social scientists enjoy matching television watching and family size with the colour of your skins and your country of origin, but when all the science points to race being a man-made construct, why do we persevere making ammunition for the bigots and the befuddled.
