Immigration I

No Right Turn has a good article commenting on the NZIS discussion document on changes to the Immigration Act, on which comments are currently being sought.

I thought I'd add some of my own thoughts, starting with Section I - Purpose & Principals.

They ask the following questions:
1 Do you agree with the suggested purpose of New Zealand’s immigration legislation?
2 Do you agree that New Zealand’s immigration-related interests are those suggested?
3 Should a purpose statement be included in the legislation?

To me, there is a philosophical objection which any immigration legislation has to address - such legislation is inherently discriminatory (Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits discrimination on grounds of nationality, although this is qualified elsewhere).

The argument for such legislation is that it is necessary to prevent uncontrolled and excessive migration from poor, unstable countries to wealthier and more stable states. It's worth noting in passing that the EU has had no controls on intra-union migration for over 25 years and that such migration has been relatively small - even though there are quite wide wealth disparities between, for instance, Portugal and Germany.

Assuming however, that we accept the principle that immigration controls are a pragmatic necessity, it seems to me that they should be constrained to the minimum required to prevent economic and social damage. The document lists the following interests that NZ has in maintaining immigration controls:

1. maintaining the safety and security of New Zealand
2. generating sustainable economic growth
3. establishing strong communities
4. fulfilling New Zealand’s role as a good international citizen, and
5. promoting international cooperation.
   

I have no problem with 2, 4 and 5 as far as they go. Item 1 is slightly more problematic, since "safety and security" can be expanded to cover a multitude of evils. Indeed, the chosen examples lead straight away to a very broad interpretation of "safety": "ensuring that non-citizens are of good health" is cited as one restriction justified by this clause. The current measures affecting the health of immigrants are primarily concerned with avoiding cost to the health system (an economic ground) than restricting the transmission of infectious disease. Indeed, there are no controls on the health of returning citizens and residents, who would seem equally likely to have picked up something nasty overseas. I'd suggest this clause be replaced with the simpler "prevention of crimes and hostile acts".

Item 3 I fundamentally disagree with. I don't think the government should be engaging in "social engineering" to try and force the nation's development down a certain path. New Zealand appears set to remain a basically Anglo-Polynesian society - if it takes in other influences, then that is a Good Thing. I also don't believe in the idea that immigration by groups with different ideals (e.g. Muslims) will lead to the erosion of our tolerant society: firstly, I believe our instutions are (or should be) robust enough to resist such erosion; secondly, most immigrants move here because they actually *like* the way things are.

I would add a further item: "protecting the rights and interests of migrants". This would cover activities such as preventing the exploitation of migrant workers (and indeed students).

Easter bunny

Christ Easter is boring here! England used to make the pubs close at 1030 on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, which was bad enough, but at least they opened.

I don't quite get the labour protection argument. Lots of workers, from the duty shift at Huntly to Mick Jagger, and including the Department of Labour's own inspectors, have to work Easter.

I argued elsewhere that all public holidays should be replaced with an increased annual leave entitlement, giving workers the right to holidays of choice rather than on days ordained by the church. If this is impossible, and the government reckons a relaxation on Easter opening wouldn't pass the Christian element in parliament, then there is another option, which could be implemented without legislation: Give the DoL inspectors Chocolate Egg Day and Hot Cross Bun day off.

Ciao Berlusconi

Looks like Berlusconi has lost the Italian elections - depending on whether the Prodi-led coalition has enough seats in the upper house to form a workable coalition.

So Bush just lost another satellite state!

It's also interesting to consider whether there might be further prosecutions - he has wriggled out of rather a lot of accusations.

My fake sheikh brings all the boys to the yard

George Galloway has been in court again - the News of the World has been trying to suppress images of it's investigative reporter Mazher Mahmood. Quite what legal grounds they could have for this I don't know - images taken in a public place are generally the copyright of the photographer, not the subject. I can't believe he'd be entitled to a "Mary Bell order" - those have only ever been given to protect a child. Anyway, this is what he looks like:




and in his highly believable Sheikh costume:


So if you're a celebrity and he tries to stitch you up, then beware!

Random jottings from Europe

I'm away in Germany and England for a couple of weeks and I thought I'd just post a few random comments from my travels:

Singapore: I was briefly in transit through Singapore, as you do. It does seem to be impossible to fly from NZ to Europe without transiting at least one authoritarian fascist state - but at least the Singaporeans are efficient fascists and don't make you spend most of your two hour stopover in line at immigration. I read the Sunday Straits Times on the plane out, and it worries me - it's ostensibly just like a normal Sunday paper, but with this Orwellian overlay to everything. Just about every article in the paper is slated to the national "model" of how people should live and behave - scary.

Germany: I was staying in a city in the Ruhr, which is what the Americans would call "rustbelt". Most German cities provide a constant reminder of what authoritarian government leads to - very few buildings older than 50 years (for obvious reasons). I think this leads to a sensible skepticism for authoritarian measures - one example of this being the German attitude to motoring - my taxi driver heading for the airport got up to a brisk 160km/h on the autobahn - in NZ that would practically be considered attempted murder!

Britain: I'm informed that drinking on the street outside a pub has been banned. All the time I worked in the City, this was traditional on sunny days (yes - England does occasionally have them) - you'd get your pint and stand out on the pavement and drink it. I *never* saw any trouble. Now they've decided to ban it - no doubt part of Blair's "Respect" (= social control) agenda. Next thing they'll ban chewing gum!

I just don't see how this slide into authoritarianism can be stopped - part of the reason is that societies don't have the big problems like depressions and world war that they used to, so governments feel they have to solve every tiny issue. Bah!