KEY POINTS:
New Zealand First MP Dail Jones has denied his party has a plan to play the race card in election year.
New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown has been labelled a racist after suggesting there are too many Asian immigrants in New Zealand.
Green MP Keith Locke went a step further, accusing Mr Brown and NZ First of "white supremacist" policy that European culture was superior to that of other nations.
Mr Locke said it was sad NZ First was again using Parliament "as a platform for bigotry in a desperate attempt to push their vote this year over the 5 percent threshold".
"NZ First is once again stirring the racist pot and migrant bashing purely for electoral advantage."
NZ First has been languishing in the polls. In a Herald-Digipoll at the end of March it scored just 1.1 percent support.
Ethnic Affairs Minister Chris Carter yesterday recalled having a similar debate on Asian immigration with NZ First ahead of the last election.
NZ First leader Winston Peters today refused to respond to Mr Locke's comments.
He said tens of thousands of Asians probably made a good contribution to New Zealand society but there was a larger picture at stake.
A founding principle of NZ First was immigration, "that it should be economically and socially targeted in the interests of this nation".
NZ First has milked the race card to good effect in the past, boosting its poll ratings on an anti-immigration platform.
Mr Brown's comments also come as the Government prepares to sign a free trade agreement with China which NZ First may vote against.
Mr Peters has said previously that NZ First does not favour free trade deals with low wage economies.
But Mr Jones told NZPA there was "no plot" to play the race card ahead of this year's election.
"As far as I'm aware, and I ought to know, there is no plan for New Zealand First to use the race/immigration card at this election," he said.
It was something Mr Brown came up with as new population statistics emerged.
"Personally, I think that particular style is totally out of date now and we have to move on and recognise our extreme cultural diversity of 2008 as opposed to New Zealand say in 1990 or around about the time New Zealand First was started."
Around the time Mr Brown was making his comments yesterday, Mr Jones was giving a speech in Parliament applauding the contribution Asian immigrants were making in New Zealand.
Mr Jones, who was born in Pakistan, told Parliament yesterday he had noticed as the party's education spokesman was ``how well Asian immigrants seem to do when it comes to education'.
"Many of them come to New Zealand without even being able to speak English, yet often within five years they are at university and are often doing medical degrees."
He had also noticed that immigrants from Asia were not represented in any numbers in the prison system.
Mr Brown told reporters today he was not saying Asian immigrants had not made a good contribution.
"What I'm saying is that 390,000 of them within a timeframe of 20 years when we've got 400,000 in a timeframe of 100-plus years, there's a higher risk that people won't integrate into our society."
Asked for evidence of where people had failed to integrate, he refused to give specific examples but said there were some "community groups in Auckland".
On Wednesday he said New Zealand's "open door" immigration policies were leading to the "real danger" that New Zealand would be inundated with people who had no intention of integrating into society and that Asian "mini-societies" were being built here.
Mr Brown today said he was not happy to be labelled a white supremacist but would not respond to that sort of comment.
He also believed he had tapped into a feeling among others in New Zealand.
"There is certainly some concern out there and the feedback I've had by way of emails and telephone calls have been vastly in support of what I've said," he told reporters.
Many Asian themselves were concerned about other Asians who were not integrating, he said.
Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen said what he would say to "my fellow North Londoner Peter Brown" was "pots and kettles."
- NZPA
