“Ugly Kiwi” image riding high as

NZ slams door on Islanders

From a Special Correspondent in Wellington

The days of relatively easy entry to New Zealand are over for most Pacific Islanders. For Tongans, Fi jians and Samoans wishing to travel to New Zealand on holiday, the doors are as good as closed.

An informed source has stated that this is the backlash of the over stayers’ issue which have given the New Zealand Immigration authori ties so many headaches and so much public criticism over the past few years.

But instead of calmly analysing the shortcomings of a badly thought out and inefficient immigration policy she voluntarily introduced a few years ago, New Zealand now gladly slams the doors, as she used to do only a decade or so ago, in the faces of the Islanders. Tokelauans, Cook Islanders and Niueans are in a more fortunate position in this regard, thanks to the accident of history rather than to any humanitarian consideration on the part of the New Zealand Govern ment.

As for the others, their usefulness in the days when New Zealand fac tories cried out for cheap unskilled labour is a thing of the past. The new arrangement for temporary migrant workers is so cumbersome and long winded that very few employers in New Zealand wish to take advan tage of it. And the so-called unemployment situation in God’s Own Zone takes care of the rest.

In Suva, Apia and Nuku’alofa, scores of applications for holiday visas are being ruthlessly rejected.

The standard reply given by the of ficious immigration officials is “Sor ry, we have had a lot of problems with your overstayers”. The other reason is not mentioned but is clearly implied: “You are going to be another overstayer. We just can not trust you Islanders”.

Civil servants are given more le nient treatment, and Europeans more decidedly so. But woe to the civil servant who may have a parent, brother, sister, wife or husband who has overstayed his or her permit in the Kiwi land. He or she just has to

pay the price of that Original Sin.

Unless and until that overstayer relative leaves the shores of God’s Own, there is no way in the world that that civil servant can be con sidered good enough to be granted an entry visa.

It will come as no surprise at all if an overstayer neighbour would also be considered a valid obstacle, though already a couple of thousand overstayers are considered good enough reason for regarding the re maining hundreds of thousands of Fijians, Samoans and Tongans as potential overstayers. As someone remarked the other day; “The Kiwis have now discovered a foolproof formula of mathematical induction

which they use as the basis for their new immigration policy for Pacific Islanders.”

The New Zealand immigration authorities do not seem to have come across cases of Australian, American and British overstayers only of Pacific Islanders. And Pacific Islanders are so destitute that a financial guarantee of any sort is regarded by the Kiwis as a mere farce. It is a different proposition however, when a Kiwi travels to the Islands to stay with and taste the hospitality of a Samoan friend.

During the past few months, scores and scores of applications submitted from Fijians, Tongans and Samoans for holiday visas of three to four months were given an emphatic negative answer. Many of the applications were from re

spectable people, though perhaps

not so respectable in the eyes of the New Zealand immigration officials, who could afford to pay for their holidays and were prepared to un dertake any guarantee required of them.

But alas, the New Zealand im migration officials were interested only in telling them about the numerous problems caused by the Island overstayers, not to mention, of course, the extreme embarrass ment caused to the new Zealand Government by the overstayers.

New Zealand's PM Robert Muldoon ...

"a badly thought out policy”

One of the lucky ones: A Tongan student in Auckland studies for the H igher School Certificate with the help of Volunteer Service Abroad worker, Ann Winstone.

New Zealand conveniently forgets that the overstayers’ problem was brought about initially by an ineffi cient and messy system which she created in time of dire need of unskilled labour, and which she also, to say the least, administered very badly.

One wonders whether it is now a case of the New Zealand immigra tion policy being so ridiculously dis criminatory, or of its officials being unable, for one reason or another, to exercise any discretionary powers, or simply a straight-out case of the officials concerned exercising more power than they really have.

Judging from the reported com ments of a number of Island govern ment officials, one tends to the belief that it is a combination of the first and third factors, with the latter being the more important.

Applications for holiday visas to Australia invariably take months, in some cases up to a year, to be pro

cessed, and unless the several guarantees required are given, the chances of the applications being favourably considered are rather slim. Applications for visas to New Zealand are getting just as bad.

The angry remark of someone, whose application for a three-month holiday visa to New Zealand was

refused in spite of guarantees, con tains a lot of truth; “It would prob ably be much easier to get a visa to Russia than to New Zealand. It seems that New Zealand is trying to evolve an anti-Pacific Islanders im migration policy along the lines of the White Australia Policy.”