Emigrants

New Zealand distinguishes two very different types. Many kiwis leave their country. Generally for economic reasons. In this country the person who wants to follow a tertiary education has to get deeply into debts. That is not too bad, if after the study the earnings are high enough to buy a house in the near future.
But that is where it goes wrong. New Zealand is a beautiful country but most of the salaries are miserable. Compared to most of the other countries and not just third world countries. No, our trusted neighbour Australia and godfather Good-Old-England pay a dozen times more than New Zealand to our highly trained doctors and specialists, economists, scientists, lawyers, top sportsmen, high civil servants and directors.
And therefore New Zealand is leaking. Many of the best trained people emigrate. Often they never return permanently. Unfortunate for all the schooling the country has given them is now helping others. Others who pay more.

Immigrants

Each vacuum strives for a filling. And this starts a flow of highly trained immigrants from different countries to whom the living conditions and especially the salaries in New Zealand are a real improvement compared to the circumstances in their own country. The gaps are filled in by highly trained people, for example from India and China, Africa and the Pacific. Our new general practitioner is called Nadim Khan. A very nice man, who speaks excellent English with the accent of a fakir. And I sincerely hope for him that he receives at least the same salary that our previous general practitioner made before deciding to go to Australia.
But statistically more people are arriving than leaving. Last year the country had a surplus of approximately ten thousand people. Nothing to worry about, is it?

Discrimination

Well, that remains to be seen. Of course almost every kiwi is an immigrant or at least a descendant of an immigrant. Therefore you would presume that they look positively towards new blood that has been introduced in the country. But that is not the case. Immigrants do not have an easy time here. A report, which has been brought out at the beginning of April, says - in black and white - that nearly all immigrants feel discriminated here. Research workers Campbell and Mingsheng Li have discovered that only some individuals have succeeded in finding work at their own level. The majority had to accept unemployment or unskilled work. And what is causing this? Racism, leading to shocking discrimination.
All immigrants said the causes were: their foreign qualifications, skin colour, accent, language skill, prejudice and a total lack of understanding of other cultures. Perhaps those people are poorly qualified? No, not quite. They all have been trained at universities. They are accountants, directors, diplomats, economists, lawyers, journalists, psychologists and teachers.
The conclusion of the report is that the importance and the value of highly-skilled immigrants in New Zealand are not recognized and are not appreciated as such.

How did this happen?

New Zealanders are known as nice, pleasant people. And that is what they are. But because they live fairly isolated they are easily cut off from the rest of the world. They never hear different languages or accents. They know very little of the world. Eighty-five per cent of their news comes from their own country. Of the fifteen remaining percentage 85% comes from some other English speaking country. During the news the rest of the world is only mentioned briefly when disasters or wars happen. There is considerable more interest for national sports than for what happens in the rest of the world. Those proportions apply to both television and newspapers.
Really kiwis are quite retired within themselves. And however nice they seem; who does not belong, will never belong. After fifty years of immigration one will still be considered a stranger. E- and immigrants, they do not like them very much.

The Dutch version of this article is published in the May/June 2008 edition of Holland Focus.
Ask your News Agent or take out a subscription.