They have already met with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and on 10 October met with Opposition leader Chris Hipkins and several senior members of the Labour Party.

Specific concerns

The ethnic leaders told Hipkins and his cohorts they are particularly concerned about immigration, health inequalities and crime policies.

"We had a good opportunity to discuss some of the priority immigration issues impacting our collective ethnic and faith communities" said Daljit Singh, representing the Sikh associations in New Zealand.

Another leader at the meeting said hate crimes against ethnic and faith communities had increased.

"The changes recommended by Royal Commission on 15 March have yet to be completed and this is important for all our communities" Wellington Indian Association President Manisha Morar said.

"There are significant lessons learned which have not yet been implemented, especially in the area of hate speech and hate crime."

Data paints an ugly picture

New Zealand Police data shows that almost three-quarters of all hate crime offences reported since 2020 were motivated by race or ethnicity.

Their records show that between 1 January 2020 and 30 June, 19,589 hate-motivated offences were reported to police, with 14,285 - or 73 percent - being motivated by the victim's race or ethnicity.

Additionally, 1563 offences were based on the victim's sexual orientation. Another 1069 were related to religion or faith.

Possible solutions

Paul Patel of the Indian Central Association and Anwar Ghani from the Federation of Islamic Associations voiced concern over rising crime.

Community-led crime prevention efforts are needed urgently, they said.

The New Zealand Chinese Association is also concerned that ethic communities are not suitably catered for.

Richard Leung and Debbie Chen told Hipkins that health disparities negatively affect ethnic communities. Community-led solutions are crucial to address these challenges, they said.

That call was underlined by Gregory Fortuin of the African Leaders Group.

"We also need to have effective and on-going engagement to uplift our communities" Fortuin said.

Robert Hunt, chair of the New Zealand Buddhist Council, says the country's education system should better reflect New Zealand's ethnic diversity.

Point taken

"It was excellent to meet with representatives from our many ethnic and faith communities to discuss their priorities and the issues that we can work through alongside each other" Chris Hipkins said on social media after the meeting.

"It's important that the voices of ethnic communities are heard and embedded into the decisions we make to take our country forward, as we prepare to be the next government."

Source

• RNZ

The rally combined a fiesta atmosphere with fairground rides, food stalls, music and dancing. There were addresses by Members of Parliament, the Coalition for Marriage, his Excellency Robert Rabbat, Melkite Bishop of Australia, Dr Pansy Lai from Australian Chinese for Families, and Susan Hourani from Radio 2Moro.

Lai would have been known to the crowd as the person who coordinated petitions for several ethnic communities against the Safe Schools programme in New South Wales. (The programme, which was designed to educate students about sexual and gender diversity, was subsequently dumped in favour of a wider anti-bullying programme.)

Lai spoke about the link between the removal of parental rights, a change in the marriage law and the introduction of radical lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) sex and gender programmes into the classrooms.

"We parents have a say in what our kids get taught about life, relationships, sex and marriage. We parents are the ones who must speak up to protect our children because nobody is going to do it for us," Lai told the crowd.

The Honourable Michael Sukkar MP reiterated Lai's call to protect the family, commenting on the cultural importance of the link between mother and child.

"I've learned you don't come between a Lebanese mother and her kids," he said, reminding the crowd that it was not only okay, but their duty, to say ‘no' in the gay marriage referendum.

Coalition for Marriage spokeswoman Sophie York called the gathering "energising.''

"It shows that there is still so much energy and so much resolve in the ‘no' camp. The people I met today are committed to working tirelessly to ensure that as many ‘no' votes as possible are posted over the coming weeks.

"Too often in this debate, the diverse voices of Australia's migrant communities have been ignored. These people are the silent majority, but we heard them loud and clear in Fairfield yesterday. In different dialects, they had the same message: we are voting ‘no'," York added.

Clergy from numerous Eastern rite Christian faith communities were at the event.

Source

• Catholic Outlook
• Image: Daily Mail