Race relations in NZ
p. 42 · Read in the full issue
IT has been nearly 22 years since New Zealand established a Race Relations Office charged with in
vestigating complaints of discrimi
nation on the grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin.
It has had a somewhat chequered history over those two decades and in recent years has been bitterly criticised for having no bite. Time and again, the Race Relations Conciliator had to turn down complaints referred to the office, saying he had no power under his Act of Parliament to investigate them.
The removal of a clause on racial disharmony in 1989 substantially weaned the conciliator’s powers. As a result, public comments that were not just culturally insensitive but downright inflammatory went unreproved.
The number of complaints rose steadily they doubled in just two years to 1992 and interestingly enough, pakeha replaced Maori as the biggest single number of complainants. (It has to be noted though, that som t pakeha complaints were about material offensive to other racial groups.) But as the number of complaints rose, so did the level of frustration with the narrowness of the Act. The Race Relations Office found its hands tied in dealing with the very issue it was set up to monitor and its credibility suffered with a public unable to understand why it was not more active and
more outspoken.
The situation should change from this month when a new Human Rights Act, which includes the old race relations legislation and considerably expands the conciliator’s powers, comes into force. The new Act restores the racial disharmony section repealed in 1989 after an outcry over an outrageous call by a Maori to “kill a white”. The office investigated the complaint but exonerated the perpetrator of the words on the grounds that he had been speaking at a private gathering.
Ironically, the newspaper that reported the comments was found guilty though no action was taken against it.
In the ensuing confusion, the government, unable to decide what to do about it, repealed the entire section. The new Act rules it illegal to use words that are “threatening, abusive or insulting and likely to excite hostility or bring into contempt any group of persons on the grounds of colour, race or ethnic or national origin”.
At the same time, the media is given a defence previously denied in that it can publish such comments if they are reported accurately. The Act also makes new provisions for investigating racial harassment, indirect discrimination and victimisation of anyone making a complaint.
Further, the Race Relations Office will be empowered to investigate racial discrimination in schools, universities and vocational training bodies an area previously the sole prerogative of the Human Rights Commission.
Coupled with increase in staff, the new Act should give the
office more clout and the ability to operate effectively in the way the
original legislation intended.
It might not have been that way.
When John Clarke took over as the Race Relations Conciliator just over a year ago, there was every prospect that the office would become a subsidiary of the Human Rights Commission.
That would have lumped race rela tions issues with all other types of discrimination on grounds of gender, religion and age. There has been a dramatic rise in the number of sexual harassment complaints in recent years.
It has become a high profile issue and there was a great risk that racial questions would have been subsumed in that area of public concern.
That would not have reflected well on the multi-racial, multi-cultural country
that New Zealand is and would probably not have reflected the level of interest in racial issues. Clarke notes that when he advertised for 10 new staff, he received 1000 inquiries and about 700 applications.
“That demonstrates there is a lot of interest in the Race Relations Office,” he says. “That is good, because it has such an important role to play.” That role is growing as New Zealand becomes more diverse racially and as that fact is
more widely accepted.
For a long time, there was a common perception that the office existed mainly to represent the interest of Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Only in recent years has it become recognised that it also serves Pacific island people, Asians and others who equally call New Zealand home.
Clarke says Asian immigrants are noted for their economic contribution to the country but their cultural contribution in terms of their distinctive foods, arts, languages and ideas is just as important. The secret of harmonious race relations, he says, is accepting and appreciating our “different-ness”.
“We must not keep lumping our people together and saying we are one. The myth of ‘one people, one nation’ has been dispelled. We are not one people. We are Maori, pakeha, Samoan, Chinese, Thai and Cambodian, and we don’t want to be anything else.
“We are one nation under one flag and with one set of laws for everybody, but a lot of people have trouble adjusting to the notion of different-ness the right or minorities to be different.”
The problems, Clarke says, arise through people of different cultures coming together in a relatively short span of time which more often than not highlights their differences in a negative way rather than generating positive understanding and appreciation of each other.
Having attended a United Nations conference on racial issues last year, Clarke says New Zealanders live in wonderful harmony compared with people in many other countries. His job is to keep it that way. □