Peters tells migrants to ‘go home’

Migrants in New Zealand without work should think about returning home, says Winston Peters.

The deputy prime minister said foreign nationals had been told ‘‘look, you have to go home, the whole world has changed’’.

‘‘All I’d say to the people is, do you really think it’s fair, when you don’t have a right to be in the country beyond the time your visa says, for you to say, ‘I’ve made a choice this is my home now’?’’ he said on Newstalk ZB.

There have been calls for the thousands of foreign nationals trapped without work in New Zealand to be given access to the benefit system here.

The Salvation Army has had a

600 per cent increase in demand for its services since the nationwide lockdown began.

The Queenstown District Council’s emergency management team has had more than

7000 requests for help from people facing significant hardship.

‘‘What we did do is go to every embassy in this country to say ‘these are your nationals’. We’ve tried to put on all the utilities and get New Zealanders home, you have to do the same,’’ Peters said.

He said he did not want to see the Government resorting to deporting people.

Peters also shot back at fears that New Zealand’s exporters would be punished by deteriorating relations with China after New Zealand supported a move to allow Taiwan, whose independence is not recognised by China, to join the World Health Organisation as an observer.

‘‘We express our strong dissatisfaction with the statements and resolutely oppose it, and we have already made stern representations with New Zealand,’’ a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry told reporters in Beijing.

Meat exports from four Australian abattoir have been blocked from entering China, possibly in retaliation for Australia’s backing for Taiwan.

Peters said that he took China at its word when it said it wanted to be part of the international trading establishment, which would mean it could not simply block exports on a whim.

‘‘We need to hear from every community in the world that is mounting a successful effort at fighting Covid-19.’’