Waitakere Ethnic Board: Awards for Positive Contributions to Race Relations.

Tena Koutou Katoa, Good Evening,

I would like to start by thanking the Waitakere Ethnic Board for the invitation to this award evening to recognise positive contributions to Race Relations; and to acknowledge the Waitakere Ethnic Board's executives, members and supporters for your hardwork in organising celebrations for Diwali, Eid and for taking part in events like the Annual Religious Diversity Forum, Waitakere Settlement Support and Asian Crime Prevention.

And our other distinguished guests, Waitakere CEO Vijaya Vaidyanath, Race Relation Commissioner Joris de Bres. Also, thank you in advance to our performers.

This award evening tonight recognises contributors who have worked to build positive race relations. All these efforts contribute to better understanding among our communities and hence lead to social harmony.

In Nelson on the 27th of February this year, the book of the story of the first Chinese naturalised migrant to New Zealand Appo Hocton, also known as Wong Ah Poh Hoc Ting was launched. The launching of this book - along with an exhibition of this pioneer's life - is significant because it corrected the record of early Asian migrant history. This was news to me in early 2009 when his great granddaughter Diana Clark wrote to me to correct the long held belief that the first Chinese migrants were miners who came from Australia at the invitation of the Otago Chamber of commerce in the 1860's.  At the launch I lamented that when I delivered my maiden speech in the capacity as the first MP of Asian ethnicity in 1997, we released 130 balloons to signify that it took 130 years for Kiwi Asian to make it to the parliament. We were 20 balloons short and it should have been 150 years.

I was also bemused that despite the fact that the first forefather was a Wong, I was the only Wong at the Nelson Provincial Museum with black hair and brown eyes surrounded by a sea of blond, brunette or silver hair and eyes of various colours. Mr. Wong had two wives of European ethnicity and took over the role of father to his first wife's deceased husband's children. There are now around 1600 descendants spread across the world.

Diana Clark was not told of her Chinese heritage even though her first born son has "Chinese eyes". Rather, she learned of the fact in her forties and since then made a determined effort to research her background and put history right. This book describes how Mr. Wong integrated well into the community and became a farmer and property developer. Yet at the same time, there was a heated meeting to discuss measures to keep the Chinese miners from moving into Nelson. This book like many others I read revealed traceable facts, however the personal feelings and thoughts were not recorded so we don't know how Mr. Wong felt about the anti-Chinese sentiment that was developing at the time.

Another situation where I received interesting comment about New Zealand's race relations history was in the year 2000 when I received my first official invitation to speak at the New Zealand Indian Central Association in the Mahatma Ghandi Centre. I remember doing my research and found out that during the 1920's the Wellington City Council made the bottle collectors of Indian ethnicity wear yellow bands around their sleeves. Afterwards one of the senior members approached me and marveled that I had done the research and was prepared to talk about it. Personally I was surprised that not many more were commenting on it.

Those were the days that many New Zealanders might believe that our race relation was in harmony because individuals and ethnic minority communities were silent. I have long spoken of my desires for ethnic minorities to be seen and heard, it is this conviction that propelled me to enter politics and now that Ethnic New Zealanders are being seen and heard more often, the question has to be asked, what is the state of race relations?

Recently two reports had been released with references to New Zealanders' perceptions of Asians. One from the Asia:NZ Foundation and the other from the Race Relations Commissioner. The Asia:NZ  survey reported positive perceptions about the significance of Asian culture and the contributions Asians made to New Zealand, while the Race Relations reported perceptions of Asians being the most discriminated against and about an increased number of discrimination complaints being received. While these two reports on the surface seem to convey different perceptions, the Race Relations report showed that that New Zealanders of all ethnicities who they surveyed appeared to be empathic to Asians being unfairly discriminated against. Increased complaints of racial discrimination are signs of our country's growing intolerance for discriminatory behaviour.  Silence is no longer the norm for the victims. We have statutes and entities to prevent and follow through cases of racial discriminatory behaviour and New Zealand's Human Rights Act 1993 makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of colour, race, ethnic or national origins.

It is important that individuals do have trust in our statutes and system to uphold complaints. When one learns of individuals who are victims of racial discrimination, we must not let the individuals feel powerless or write it off as the general state of affairs - we must act and encourage the reporting of these acts.

For example, an Asian woman wrote to me about being verbally abused by a European woman at a supermarket and that the managers at the supermarket would not take action. I encouraged her to contact the Race Relations office and stayed in touch with her. The Office eventually organised a meeting where the European woman apologised, she was having a personal crisis situation on that day. These sorts of solutions to problems allow the complainant to move on and the person acting in a discriminatory manner to apologise and acknowledge her mistake.

Whether there is a satisfactory answer or not, the fact that the victims know that someone is standing by them can have a positive impact.

On a regional level, I hope that the Waitakere Ethnic Board and other ethnic NGOs throughout Auckland have participated in the Select Committee process with regard to the Ethnic Advisory panel.

The establishment of the Ethnic Advisory Panel provides the opportunity to harness and develop the rich cultural and economic potential of ethnic Aucklanders in impacting on the future direction of our major city.

 I have long campaigned for maximising Ethnic business people's expertise and international networks for economic growth and the Office of Ethnic Affairs has already held two business forums so far.The first was for Muslim business people in association with the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand and the second for business people of ASEAN decent.Through these forums I hope Ethnic New Zealand business people will work in partnership with the wider business community to foster export trade and economic growth.

The Office of Ethnic Affairs is also working with employers to develop diversity policies and provide training in intercultural skills to enhance employment and advancement opportunities of Ethnic New Zealanders.

Other services provided by the Office of Ethnic Affairs include facilitating access to government services through Language Line.  This is a telephone based interpretation service for Government departments, health agencies and councils and has 40 languages available. Language Line has opened up Government agencies for people for whom English is a second language.

An area of Government that some ethnic New Zealanders find difficult to access is the justice system. That is why in 2009 the Office of Ethnic Affairs held Civic Participation workshops throughout New Zealand on law and order.

One aspect covered by the workshops was the select committee process and of making submissions on Parliamentary bills. These workshops sought to address concerns within Ethnic communities about law and order matters, raise awareness of new provisions in the law, and increase Ethnic communities' knowledge of their civic rights to participate within New Zealand society.

Apart from an annual reporting back to communities of their activities, the Office is now issuing monthly electronic newsletters, Ethnic whispers to keep communities up to date of events and initiatives. Having communities informed and actively participating within New Zealand society is what Race Relations Day is about.

Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about issues within our country's races relations and that face Ethnic New Zealanders.

I congratulate your award winners and I wish you all a happy Race Relations Day!