Terry Sarten: Hidden agendas behind immigration policies

In or out? Passport control at Auckland Airport.

As the various political parties tout their policies on immigration, it behoves us to recognise that we all share a history that includes coming from somewhere else seeking new possibilities.

Whether on one of the great canoes across the pacific, from the British Isles as colonists or fleeing war and terror in the place of birth, we all have roots in the past.

Imagine you are that person standing at the border looking at the long line of those arriving on our shores hoping to live here.

Standing in that queue is a blind child who is being told that this disability makes them unable to remain with their family in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, in the United States a wealthy man named Peter Thiele has bought his citizenship without even leaving his own country.

We know about his wealth, but not about his health.

Will NZ be caring for him in his old age?

If he loses his millions will we be paying for his healthcare and if he becomes blind at some point, will we deport him because he has developed a disability?

The two situations need to be stood side by side and compared because the whole context reeks of injustice. These contrasting situations show the variable size of the door that grants entry to some and is closed to others.

The welcome mat is now being shaken about with gusto as Labour, the Greens and National tout policies for reducing immigration.

The arguments being used are all anchored in a misplaced belief that the pressure on infrastructure has reached a critical mass that cannot be sustained.

This is deliberately misleading and simply a distraction from the expensive elephant that now needs a million dollars just to have a room to stand in.

If a capital gains tax had been introduced and negative gearing banished as a tax dodge, our wildly over-inflated housing market would never have found the air that now fills the bubble to a point where it could go bang any moment.

Having watched the immigration debate over the years, I suspect there is also another largely unspoken agenda at work here.

Political parties are all unashamedly taking advantage of a tendency for more recent arrivals to call for the drawbridge to be hauled up behind them to prevent anyone else getting in.

This idea that "We are here now, but letting any more people into the country will make New Zealand crowded"remains a hidden force behind the debate.

The other concealed agenda is a fear of the other.

This takes the form of dismay when people from other cultural and religious backgrounds arrive in NZ, bringing their life luggage with them and unpacking it in their new communities.

We have a long history of doing this.

Once we put up legislative barriers to limit those coming from China to work in the goldfields of Otago.

Immigrants from Europe and Britain were welcome. They looked more like the kind of colonists we wanted and in some quarters this historical influence remains as a bias to look for those who look like us.

We do not need to limit immigration - we need to adapt to accommodate the rich diversity of newcomers.

The priority should be working hard to demolish the inequalities that divide us into a nation of have lots and have nots.

Looking after all who live here rather than arguing about who we should let into the country will make us a nation that matures and grows to meet the future.

-Terry Sarten (aka Tel) is a writer, musician, social worker and descendant of early settlers from the other side of the world. Feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz