I APPLAUD Dame Susan Devoy's call to this country to "stop demonising migrants".
It's absolutely about time someone told this country, and some of the nastier elements in our political arena, that this popular cause of migrant-hating might seem like a political bread-ticket, but it's one that backfires on you in very short order.
NZ First has been bashing migrants since it got going. Don't deny it, it's been a meal-ticket for a long time, and while NZ First had a disenfranchised group of elderly backing them, it probably worked. That group is dying out, and NZ First really need some better things to rally for.
The Labour Party tried to score points with their claims the Chinese were responsible for Auckland's rising house prices because Chinese surnames were featuring in the buy-ups.
This is disgusting nonsense. Dame Susan's family are migrants from Ireland. I'm a first-generation New Zealander and my surname is Cornish. Am I going to be challenged because my grandfather and grandmother were migrants, bringing my father and my uncle to New Zealand on a converted troopship with hundreds of others? Of course not. I come from good stock, it seems. My ancestors are apparently the "right kind" of migrant. They were the pioneers, brave people, adventurers, with righteous motivation to "make it" and succeed. They also had the right kind of surnames, are white, and speak the same language.
