Wednesday 22 February 2017

A refuge for refugees

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Two words that frequently appear in much of what we read in these troubled times are refugee and racism. Both words appear to be inextricably linked.

The world is overwhelmed with refugees. Many countries are wary of welcoming them fearing outcomes that can be tacitly linked to racism. Some of this will be justified, but most not. Its where to find the happy medium that is concerning for most societies and in the meantime refugees languish in atrocious camps which are a blot on our collective consciences.

I’ve written about this before, but I will endeavour to canvass a new angle. In 1980 our Rotary Club sponsored a refugee family from Vietnam. Hoa (pronounced Wah) Van Nguyen and his wife My (pronounced Me) and their nine month old baby girl named Dyung (Yoong) had left their war torn country in a leaky boat in which half the passengers perished.

They spoke little English which made their employment prospects challenging, so I employed them myself in our meat company. My altruism was well rewarded. They were outstanding employees, intelligent, hard-working and scrupulously honest. They worked for me for twelve years. They saved hard and bought a two-bedroomed home in Hillcrest Street and then a modern three-bedroomed home in High Street to allow for a growing family. Three more children, another girl and then two boys were born in Masterton and educated at St Patrick’s school. Dyung went on to Chanel College.

As far as I am aware they encountered no racism in Masterton; in fact quite the opposite. They were universally admired by our staff and customers and I’m sure were made welcome at school.

But refugees crave mixing with their own kind. When Hoa and My arrived there were a number of Vietnamese families in Masterton, but they moved off; some to Wellington, others to Auckland.

The family decided to resettle in a predominantly Vietnamese suburb in Melbourne. My wife and I visited them there, but sensed that they weren’t happy, despite the cultural environment.

They eventually moved to Austin in Texas.

Hoa and My came back to see us a few years ago and to some extent their life has been a success story, particularly as far as their children are concerned. Dyung is a lawyer and her sister is a doctor. One of the boys is an engineering graduate and the other has a degree in biotech consulting.


Hoa and My have bought a modest home in Austin and Hoa works in an engineering shop where he is paid $18 an hour. He had endeavoured to find employment in the meat industry using my well-deserved reference, but had always been turned down.

He hinted there was a touch of racism in the rejections.

Just one families story, but it tells us a lot.

Asian people are incredibly passionate about ensuring their children are well-educated and subsequently procure well-paying jobs. Hoa and My would have liked their own talents to have been better-recognised, but it was heartening to hear that of the four countries they have lived in, New Zealand, they opined, was where they were the happiest.

"The evil of modern society isn't that it creates racism, but that it creates conditions in which people who don't suffer from injustice seem incapable of caring very much about people who do."  - Louis Menand




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Wednesday 15 February 2017

An intriguing year ahead

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The English language from time to time throws up a word or a phrase not generally in widespread usage which suddenly becomes popular. I remember some years ago when “punter” which normally described someone who liked to bet, particularly on racehorses, became a name for almost anybody, no matter what their described actions were. About then the phrase “at this point in time” also became faddish.

Linguists were highly critical of the latter, suggesting that it was merely an affectatious way of saying “now”.

A name re-entering the lexicon is “populist.” Trendy political parties are now desperate to adhere to the populist line. The candidates can be leftists, centrists or right-wingers. Populists can mean all things to all people. For instance Jeremy Corbin of British Labour Party fame is a populist and so too is French Presidential aspirant Marine Le Pen from the far right. I’m not going to mention Donald Trump due to overuse syndrome.

John Key was a populist. He could skilfully gauge the mood of the public and would oscillate either way.

Even a swinging pony tail would catch his eye.

Andrew Little sees an opportunity now that John Key has left the building to embrace populism. Replacing his eyeglasses for contact lens I expected him any minute to burst into song with Johnny Nash’s 1970s hit “I can see clearly now”.

Andrew thought he might tread the populist line by bringing Willie Jackson into the fold. Never mind that Jackson is not even a member of the party and by guaranteeing him a high list seat Mr Little is making Labour’s mandatory gender balance more unbalanced.

But what we saw with Brexit and other more obvious political revolutions in the world was that 2016 was the end of the neoliberal political and economic order of the 70s and 80s and 2017 is ushering in the new order of populism.

What’s underpinning the rejection of the neoliberal order is undoubtedly the pervasive ignominy of deepening inequality that began in the 1980s. For us it was presented as Rogernomics. This was the birthing stage of an era when children were likely to grow up to be worse off than their parents. The strong gains in overall economic growth accrued to a patriciate group and those at the bottom have become angry.

The “trickle down” never even dribbled.

Andrew Little got a head start. He opposed the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement despite the fact that his mentor Ms Clark not only initiated the negotiations, but fully embraced the outcome. Now free trade advocates are accused of promoting a system that means gains to one country come at a cost to another.

Not necessarily true of course. Trade in the main is good for all participants, making them better off. Rapidly growing international bartering has been a critical element of the massive reduction in global poverty in recent decades.


So it’s an interesting election year ahead of us. However if I was a punter, at this point in time I 
would still put my money on Bill English to win - by a short head.

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to understand that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” - Ronald Reagan

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Wednesday 8 February 2017

Just another brick in the wall

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President Trump wants to build a wall - down Mexico way. Some are comparing it with the Berlin Wall though that wall was to keep people in, this one is to keep folks out. And it isn’t really a wall; more like a high fence in keeping with the original, started back in 1994, but never finished.

As of January 2010 the existing “wall” runs from San Diego, California to Yuma, Arizona, there it continues into Texas and consists of a fence 6.4 metres tall with 1.8 metres buried in the ground.

Mr Trump thinks that his completed edifice will stop “criminals, drug dealers, and rapists” who are pouring in from a number of South American destinations. Certainly a percentage of these people will be of the criminal element; just about the same percentage that occurs in most societies.


Others will have more legitimate reasons to risk crossing the border. One commentator reckons the first thing an illegal immigrant sees once he has reached the promised land is a sign that says: CHEAP LABOUR WANTED.

The minimum wage in America is $7.25 an hour. Poor South Americans have learnt to live on less in their countries of origin so they manage to survive on whatever penurious employers pay them and are even able to send money back to their families at home.

The other problem Mr Trump observes, with some justification, is that with the porous Mexican/US border, drugs are flooding into his country at an alarming rate.

The real problem then is that Americans have an insatiable appetite for drugs and cheap labour.

We shouldn’t really judge a country by the movies and television programmes that emanate from it, but you can’t help but assume a large percentage of the American population smoke pot, the southerners drink Jack Daniell’s by the gallon and that the elite in Los Angeles, where most of these images are created, seem to have no compunction about sniffing cocaine in the most public of places.

I’m not going to even try to paraphrase life in the ghettos where it seems anything goes.

Mr Trump’s stunning electoral victory came because he appealed to American blue-collar workers who have seen their jobs being exported to low wage countries thanks to the “global economy” that America once championed and a promise to stop illegal immigrants from taking what few opportunities there might be available.

But we mustn’t get too smug. Our “wall” is the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. We’ve had factories close too, but thanks to our temperate climate, land-based industries have taken up the slack. Our wages are static and a disturbing number of our populous are hooked on drugs. The evidence of p-house production discovered after tenants have left the building is testament to that.

If I were Mr Trump I would set aside the money he was going to use to build the wall and instead use it for more prisons. I would then sign an executive order to give drug dealers a mandatory life sentence.

If the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was running the country of course he would shoot them all.

That may just be a step too far.

“Drugs are the ideal product; the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer to beg to buy.” - William S. Burroughs

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Wednesday 1 February 2017

Not always a wordsmith

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There have been a lot of column inches published about David Lange of late, mostly due to revelations recently revealed in reluctantly released CIA files dating back to the 1980s. During his tenure as Prime Minister, Lange was pledging to his fawning followers that he would honour the Labour Party’s commitment to ban nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion. Behind the scenes however he was assuring our two ANZUS treaty partners that he would skilfully withdraw any legislation that might seek to authenticate the proposition.

It reminded me of an incident back in the early 1990s when a friend of mine in Australia rang and asked if I knew of any good speakers in New Zealand. Mr Lange had just spoken to an annual conference of the New Zealand Licensing Trust Association at Solway Park and I considered his address to be exhilarating, full of wisdom and not without humour.


My friend was the international president of a professional association at the time and he was organising their annual conference to be held in Hong Kong some months hence.

Taking my advice he subsequently rang Mr Lange to see if he might consent to be a guest speaker at the convention.

Lange acquiesced and suggested my friend fly out to Auckland from Sydney to formalise the arrangements. They met at the Auckland airport and for his trouble Mr Lange wanted first-class air travel to Hong Kong, to be accommodated in a five star hotel and a speaking fee of $3000.

This was readily agreed to.

This information was passed on to me and so I was amazed to see a news item in The Dominion a few weeks later where a National member of parliament accused Mr Lange in the house of dereliction of duty. He claimed the member for Mangere was hardly ever in parliament, was neglecting his electorate and was “swanning” around the world giving speeches for which he was paid handsomely. Lange at that stage had stepped down from being Prime Minister, handing the reigns over to Geoffrey Palmer. He admitted that he was much sought-after as a guest speaker on the world stage, but claimed he did not charge for his dissertations.

I cut the item out of the newspaper and sent it off to my Aussie friend who was surprised given he’d agreed to pay a $3000 speaking fee. However he was not too concerned; he said that with an ex-New Zealand Prime Minister giving the keynote speech at the conference registrations were pouring in from all around the world.

A few months later, just after the conference, I rang to see if Mr Lange had been well received. It seems he was great disappointment. “His speech was lacklustre” I was told.

When my friend drove him back to the airport Lange apologised for his performance, citing that he hadn’t been feeling well. As he alighted the car at the Hong Kong terminal with his $3000 speaking fee securely ensconced in his bank he said: “I owe you one.”

I gather this offer was never taken up.


“When you’re abroad you’re a statesman when you are at home you’re just a politician” - Harold McMillan

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