What price citizenship?

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, August 3rd, 2009 - 36 comments
Categories: im/migration - Tags: ,

What price citizenship?“, asks Heather Roy.

$10 million“, says Jonathan Coleman.

36 comments on “What price citizenship? ”

  1. Boris Klarkov 1

    Finally, we’re starting to attract the calibre of immigrant that New Zealand deserves.

    Now we need to match this by encouraging all of those HIV-positive, illiterate and unskilled third-world immigrants that the Labour regime gave preferential immigration status to, to leave.

  2. Lew 2

    Moreu captured this well on 30 July. Start at http://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/cartoons/1251890/Mike-Moreu and go from there.

    Dear Stuff web producers: can we have direct links to individual cartoon pages, please? The way you have it now is useless.

    L

  3. So Bored 3

    I am a ‘ten bob tourist”. I have family who are currently in military service for NZ. My good lady spends a lot of time in education with immigrant children from all over the world. Going home I go through immigrant laden suburbs with Pacific Islanders, Asians and Africans etc. Heres betting that in 10 years time the children of these immigrant people will willingly enlist in the armed services as volunteers and serve “their” country.

    I can only hope that those who buy their way into NZ also are prepared to contribute and work to belong beyond the reach of raw cash.

  4. Good idea to let people into the country who can support themselves.

    Doesnt matter what their political views are, what their religion is, what their race is, what their sexual preference is, doesnt matter if if they are a white guy from Texas or a Black woman from Iran, if they can support themselves and will add to the economy let them in.

    But Im guessing the vile racist hateful bigots like Locke, Minto and Workman and groups like Socialist New Zealand and peace action New Zealand would want to know what their politics are first.

    • So Bored 4.1

      Vile racist hateful bigots like Locke, Minto and Workman.?……Please substantiate, give evidence.

  5. Ron 5

    So Bored – you are so right. I had a good friend who was President of the local caledonian Society. He is also heavily involved in a number of immigrant support groups. When people complain about immigrant communities banding together and seemingly not “intergrating” he responds by pointing out the Caledonian Halls all over the country. He asks why one thinks they’re there. “Because when Scots first came here they banded together to support each other and preserve something of their culture in a new land. Now they’re part of our culture and the Caledoiinian Societies are mostly there to teach New Zealand kids something about their cultural heritage.”

    In 20 years time our offices and armed forces and shops and schools and sports teams will be staffed by adult New Zealanders with Kiwi accents and names like Hussein and Lam and Bopha and Kim and Budiman just as they are now staffed by New Zealanders with Kiwi accents named O’Donnell and MacPherson and Skellerup and Smith and Albrecht and Muliaina and Wong and Semesi.

  6. Ron 6

    Brett- I am really interested to know what “support themselves” means. I’m thinking that you mean they need to be independantly wealthy as anyone else would have to find a job. Given that a number of qualified immigrants who were contributinmg quite well to our economy and “supporting themselves” recently have found they no longer have a job nor citizenship and can no longer “support themselves” I’m intrigued by your criteria.

  7. Lets start with Minto.

    When two woman from Israel were refused service in a cafe in Invercargill because they were from Israel, I emailed Minto and asked him would he be organizing a protest in front of the cafe in support of these two woman.

    He emailed me and said “I couldn’t care less if two Israelis cant get a cup of coffee”

    I never thought he was for apartied. What a hypocrite among other things.

    I will get back to you on Locke and Workman later.

    • Bright Red 7.1

      Shock: Minto doesn’t think something minor is worth is his time – Guy’s a racist, says Brett

      Minto’s background is in the anti-apartheid movement. Be careful before throwing around charges of racism.

      If you emailed me calling on me to organise a protest supporting some people who had been victims of a minor affront and I said ‘I don’t care about that minor thing’ would you conclude I was prejudiced against them?

    • Actually Brett,

      It is the Israeli’s who are in favour of apartheid. (I’m Dutch and that’s the correct spelling) Evicting more Palestinians from their rightful homes to house fundamentalist Israelis.

      Captcha: send. Question: are you in favour of sending more troops to a Muslim country?

  8. RON:

    Basically I mean if your going to move to another country, you should be financially set up.

    • Ron 8.1

      Still confused Brett. So you mean independantly wealthy? Or capable of working? Have a job set up ready for you? What if the job falls through after you all get here?

      • Ron 8.1.1

        Still confused, Brett. So you mean independantly wealthy? Or capable of working? Have a job set up ready for you? What if the job falls through after you all get here? Is it ok if you have the skills but no job? What of you have the skills but when you get here you find out they don’t need them anymore or thay want you to jump through extra hoops? Is it ok if you have the skills but can’t speak English? What exactly does “financially set up” mean?

  9. Lets take Locke, Im surprise he is in the green party, his support of vicious leaders in the past no matter what crimes they are done is quite sick.

    His anti Americanisms would not be tolerated if he came up with the same spew about another country.

    He’s all about his political ideology, not about human rights if a communist leader commits crimes against the human race he shuts up and says nothing.

    Same can be said about workman.

    How is that not hypocritical?

    On to peace action newzealand, any group that would stand on flowers and rip off pray signs to the victims of a terrorist attack and spread the lie that the holocaust is a myth are mentally ill.

    Socialist NewZealand members need to know, if yuor having a peace march, that is great, but why have anti western banners about.

    That is my whole point, people like Minto, Workman and Locke have never been about peace and equal justice for all, if they were, Minto would of been sickened by the two woman who refused service in a cafe because of where they are from.

    • Bright Red 9.1

      Give it up Brett. It’s pathetic.

      Don’t you have anything better to contribute than baseless and frankly deeply insulting accusations against people that go against everything they have devoted their lives to, based on your twisted interpretations of one or two minor events while ignoring the body of their lives’ work?

  10. Bright Red

    That was an exact quote by John Minto to me.

    I asked him would he be organizing a protest in support of the two woman from Israel who were refused service because they from Israel and he said

    “I couldn’t care less about two Israeli woman who cant get a cup of coffee”

    Back to the group PEACE ACTION NEWZEALAND

    After 9/11 in cathedral square, people left flowers and messages of prays, i went a couple of days to drop off mine to find the flowers had been stood upon and the messages of prays had been ripped off and replaced with messages from peace action new zealand saying this is all the USA fault, no sympathy for the USA and messages that the Holocaust was a lie.

    You have to be mentally ill to destroy a memorial.

    I guess I should of saved Minto’s email or taken pictures of what peace action New Zealand did for proof.

  11. Peter Johns - bigoted troll in jerkoff mode 11

    Ask Bill Lui the price he paid to get a passport, or was that his real name.

  12. travellerev and bright red:

    Doesn’t matter what the Israeli government is doing, this is NewZealand and the fact is ,there was cafe owner who wouldnt serve people from Israel, that is apartied and Minto didn’t give a fuck

    Can you imagine if an Israeli cafe owner here refused to serve a Palestine, all hell would break loose and you know it.

  13. travellerev:

    We should send troops where they are needed.

  14. FELIX:

    Yes I did, they seem to be very big fans of Yassar Arafat and karl marx.

    My whole problem with peace groups, its not just about peace for everybody, its promoting a political message, the first peace march after 9/11 was okay in chch, no anti west banners, no anti usa hatred, just people from all walks of life marching for peace, after that it got ugly.

  15. So Bored 15

    Oh dear, how very sad, havent looked since yesterday but see the usual suspects knuckle dragging the debate, whale blubbering their bigotry. I am not sure if Brett or Boris would be very suitable immigrants for any other country, they have the kind of outlook that I would not want.

  16. So Bored

    Please explain bigotry to me?

    I said….

    Doesnt matter what their political views are, what their religion is, what their race is, what their sexual preference is, doesnt matter if if they are a white guy from Texas or a Black woman from Iran, if they can support themselves and will add to the economy let them in.

    HOW THE HECK IS THAT BIGOTED?

    • BLiP 16.1

      Its bigoted because you are saying that contributing the economy is the only criteria and, thus, discriminating against, for example, mothers who contribute to society without contributing to the economy. Its also bigoted because it excludes refugees who might not contribute to the economy but are entitled to a safe haven and Aotearoa has an international obligation to take them in. Ultimately mothers and refugees or their children will contribute to the economy but not immediately.

      Geddit?

      • So Bored 16.1.1

        Thanks BLiP, well summed up. On the Isreali thing for the benefit of Brett I could point to some degree of consistency from Minto and Locke. They both campaigned against apartheid, the whole point was to make all SAffers feel the distaste to their regimes policies, to bring moral pressure to bear. If they said the lack of service for Isrealis was justified (I dont know if they did), they could with some validity point to an Isreali state that partitons the country with a large wall and effects something very similar to apartheid against Palestinians. Consistency justified, no bigotry.

        By the way Brett I personally would have served the Isrealis, then told them what I thought.

  17. I think you need to look at the dictionary term of the word Bigoted.

    By the way I don’t count refugees in terms of immigration, I think every country on earth should take their fare share of refugees.

    I think someone’s race/gender/culture/religion/political ideology should not come into it in terms of who and you do and do not allow to immigrate to your country.

    • BLiP 17.1

      Adj. 1. bigoted – blindly and obstinately attached to some creed or opinion and intolerant toward others; “a bigoted person”; “an outrageously bigoted point of view”; “you’re just another Brett Dale”;

      (see also) intolerant – unwilling to tolerate difference of opinion

  18. It shouldnt matter what a person’s government is doing, everybody should have the right to be served.

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