Double the quota

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, March 31st, 2016 - 27 comments
Categories: labour, leadership - Tags: ,

Good to see Labour on board with this

Labour announces policy to double New Zealand’s refugee quota

The Labour Party would double New Zealand’s refugee quota to 1500. Currently the number of refugees allowed into the country is 750.

A petition from 20,000 New Zealanders will be presented at Parliament on Thursday, calling for the Government to do the same. Labour would double the quota over three years. …

27 comments on “Double the quota ”

  1. maui 1

    Labour does seem to be providing a real counterpoint to National now, I’m liking it. Free post high school education, putting the UBI on the table, and now compassionate towards refugees. They’re being bolder and heading left, what’s not to like! Coming from a green voter.

    • Leftie 1.1

      And to add, Labour does not support the TPPA.

      This is all part of Andrew Little’s plan that he had set out when he was elected leader.

      • James 1.1.1

        Really. Have they said they will leave it. Or are they just making noises and not making any stand on doing anything different?

        • Leftie 1.1.1.1

          @James. They can’t, it’s not that easy and straight forward like you seem to think it is. No other opposition party have said they will leave it either.

          You are directing your anger at the wrong party, it should be directed at John key and his National government. Do you realize that the background documents have not been released, don’t you? and they won’t be until 4 years AFTER its ratified. Which brings me to the next point, why is John Key ramming through legislation to accommodate the TPPA when it appears more than likely that it won’t be passed by at least 1 or more of the big 6, which NZ doesn’t belong to? Key changing our legislation will mean that foreign corporations will still be able to exploit NZ and its resources.

          Have you signed Labour’s Say No to the TPPA?

          <a href="http://www.labour.org.nz/tppa_petition

  2. Steve Wrathall 2

    Great. And end up like Europe, with terrorism now a commonplace occurance, and the political elite telling women to cover up.

    • saveNZ 2.1

      What about how National are desperate for a ‘free trade’ for ‘sheep bribes’ deal with Saudi Arabia? Any comments on that with regard to terrorism and telling women to cover up?

      Or the 67,000 migrants coming in and displacing Kiwis from jobs and houses so that John Key can keep the ponzi scheme going?

      Yep, the biggest problems with neoliberalism is that compassion and decency is now considered a weakness.

      It is outrageous we have 67,000 migrants and only 750 refugees being accepted. Especially because migrants can come in with very poor skills and english under free trade agreements to have cheap labour (and who knows what sort of slavery or go between fees they might be subjected to) and JK is fine with that but refugees and helping someone who needs it, NO way!

      Maybe have another look at the poor toddler drowned trying to flee Syria – this war and others with western bombs. Most refugees just want a safe place to go to with their families.

      • Heather Grimwood 2.1.1

        To save NZ: Agree. My take on globalisation is not fiscal but humanitarian, (and please contributers don’t cite gross inhumanities presently going on, as on a lesser scale gross inhumanities happen here too). I think it mature for those who can to help those in need. Incidentally, intense patriotism, observable in our recent flag circus could do much to counter the above global view !

      • Steve Wrathall 2.1.2

        The poor toddler, Aylan Kurdi, was in a safe country, Turkey. He drowned because his father wanted free dental treatment in Canada, and because the soft-headed European asylum policies encourage migrants to take dangerous voyages.

    • greywarshark 2.2

      @Steve Wrath-all
      And will Europe end up being like the USA with hate filled attacks from all sorts there, a commonplace occurrence. Remember the good old white southern boys burning down a church with black people in it. Not as dramatic as towering inferno, but full of spite, deathly determination, and enhanced by ‘law’ enforcement officers so it was years before anyone was brought to justice.

      This is one example of the sort of thing that people in the USA have had to put up with for decades. No foreign terrorists were responsible or harmed in these actions!

      June 16, 1964 Longdale, Miss.
      Mount Zion A.M.E. Church
      The Ku Klux Klan beat parishioners as they were leaving a church meeting. The Klan’s intended target was a civil rights activist, Michael Schwerner, who was not there. The wood-framed church, a historic safe haven for slaves, was burned down.
      On June 21, Mr. Schwerner and two other civil rights workers drove to visit the burned church. Afterward, they were pulled over, arrested and jailed. After their release, they were beaten and killed. The mysterious disappearance and murder of the three men were detailed in the film “Mississippi Burning.”

      http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/18/us/19blackchurch.html?_r=

      http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/thugs-and-terrorists-have-plagued-black-churches-for-generations/396212/

      Don’t give us your hand-picked narrow-lens view of the world Steve W.
      These are just some of the things that the USA has seen carried out by its own citizens. And remember that they are not above assassinating their own leaders, by intricate plots so hard to find the actual perps behind the scenes.

      Europe won’t be any worse off with the difficulties it faces than the USA, I would say better.
      edited

    • Hanswurst 2.3

      Terrorism is not commonplace here in Europe.

      • Steve Wrathall 2.3.1

        It is becoming so, as your countries welcome more and more of the religion of peace.

    • McFlock 2.4

      yes, because there was absolutely no European terrorism in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. 🙄

      • Steve Wrathall 2.4.1

        Why stop at the 80s? An admission than non-Muslim terrorism basically disappeared with the disappearance of their superpower backer

        • McFlock 2.4.1.1

          European terrorism basically disappeared in the 1990s?

          Right. So no neo-nazi bombs in Britain, the IRA/PIRA/RealIRA, GIA and ETA weren’t going strong on mainland Europe, the Red Army Faction wasn’t bombing German prisons, Chechens weren’t having issues with Russia, there were no bombings in Riga in 1998, and of course nothing at all interesting happened in the Balkans.

          I can’t decide what you’ve flopped on the table: your prejudice or your abject fucking stupidity. Fuck off, dickwad.

    • miravox 2.5

      Yup because another 750 refugees through official pathways puts NZ security concerns right up there with Europe, which has hundreds of thousands of undocumented refugees moving through.

      Anyway, your premise is wrong. Despite this mass movement, terrorism is not a commonplace occurrence in Europe.

      • Steve Wrathall 2.5.1

        The Boston bombers came in through “official pathways” ditto the SB jihadis, the 9/11 hijackers…

        • miravox 2.5.1.1

          The people you mention were also not refugees arriving through official refugee pathways, so I’m not sure what point you’re making about refugees.

          Another 750 are no more likely to be terrorist than those accepted in the current quota if they come through the official processes.

          I’m guessing you think the official quota should be reduced by 750.

  3. Ad 3

    This makes me proud.

  4. Colonial Viper 4

    Can someone explain to me who or what it is which stops the NZ Government from allowing more refugees into the country than it’s stated “quota”?

    • Grindlebottom 4.1

      Immigration New Zealand – New Zealand Refugee Quota Programme
      http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/refugee-protection/newzealandrefugeequotaprogramme.htm

      Seems the government can decide to take extra when it wants to. Numbers of Quota Refugees I think have been aligned with what the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre has been able to cope with.

      Personally I’m happy with only the extra 750 places being provided. I’m not overly keen on muslim communities getting much bigger in NZ. Seems like a recipe for trouble.

      • Colonial Viper 4.1.1

        Seems the government can decide to take extra when it wants to.

        That’s what I had been told.

        Plus there is no requirement for the Government to take in as many as set by the quota.

        In other words, “doubling the quota” is a joke: doubling the actual number of refugees accepted is what Labour etc. should be pushing for.

  5. Colonial Viper 5

    Also, in the last 10 years (or so) how many times has NZ hit its “quota” of refugee numbers?

  6. greywarshark 6

    Refugees are Human Beings.
    National Party and RWs are Human Havings!

    To be, or not to be, that is the question:
    Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
    The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,

    Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them:

    to die, to sleep No more;
    and by a sleep, to say we end
    The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
    That Flesh is heir to?

    Thanks Wikipedia
    edited

  7. Jenny Kirk 7

    Your reactions (other than Steve W) to this topic are a refreshing change from a number of people on a political Facebook page which opposes the Nat Govt.

    They – or quite a few of their posters – want to NZ to look after its own people first. Which of course we’d all like the Govt to do but that doesn’t stop us wanting to help people who’ve lost everything in war-torn countries. Whoever said this Govt has destroyed decency and compassion : looks to me like you might be right !

    • Jollo 7.1

      Yup, I don’t think they have any comprehension that poverty and hardship are actually relative terms to an extent.

      We don’t know how lucky we are to have benefits and social housing, when there are people on the other side of the world living in refugee camps in absolute squalor where disease is rampant and their children suffer before their eyes.

      That’s not to diminish that we can do better here, but this crony nationalism about taking care of ourselves first based on an accident of birth, diminishes us all as human beings.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1.1

        “We should look after our own people first” is invariably a statement made by someone who’s never lifted a finger to help anyone.

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