New dawn Apology for raids
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will formally apologise to the Pasifika community for the racebased dawn-raids of the 1970s, which traumatised the family of one of her ministers.
The infamous raids saw police racially target suspected overstayers from the Pacific but not from the UK or America, with overstayers often prosecuted and deported.
Ardern said police ‘‘racially exploited’’ a power they had to demand passports or visas from people at random, and told people who ‘‘didn’t look like they came from New Zealand’’ to carry a passport at all times, which was unacceptable.
‘‘An apology can never reverse what happened or undo the damage caused but we can acknowledge it and we can seek to right a wrong,’’ Ardern said.
Minster for Pacific People’s Aupito William Sio said the raids personally traumatised his family. He said his father was helpless as police raided his home.
‘‘To have somebody knocking at the door in the early hours of the morning with a flashlight in your face, disrespecting the owner of the home, with an Alsatian dog frothing at the mouth at your door, wanting to come in without any respect for the people living in there is quite traumatising,’’ Sio said. ‘‘That’s just my family – that’s replicated across the Pacific community.’’
He said the apology was important so that the next generation of Pasifika in New Zealand could build trust and confidence in the system.
‘‘I do not want my children or any of my nieces and nephews to be shackled by the pain and to be angry about it.’’
In the 1970s, the Labour and National governments of the time authorised raids on homes, workplaces and even churches to
check for people who had overstayed their visa.
The practice had followed a boom period where migration from the Pacific Islands was encouraged to fill labour shortages. But when the economy declined, the Pasifika community was demonised by politicians and media as the reason for the country’s social problems.
The raids targeted only people from the Pacific Islands even though statistics showed the vast majority of overstayers were from Europe and the United States.
By targeting Pacific Islanders, people from Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands – all of whom had the legal right to live in New Zealand – were also caught in the government’s net.
National leader Judith Collins said she supported the move to make an official apology. ‘‘This historic act of discrimination against our Pasifika communities caused anguish that reverberated across decades, and it is right that we acknowledge this,’’ she said.
Ardern cautioned that any kind of new amnesty for current overstayers or financial redress from those traumatised was not in train.
Sio said he had a ‘‘personal view’’ on whether current overstayers should be granted residency but did not share it.
New Zealand governments very rarely make formal apologies, and Ardern said a very strict criteria had been met.
‘‘There are strict criteria that applies when deciding to make an apology, including: whether a human injustice has been committed and is well documented. The victims must be identifiable as a distinct group or groups. The current members of the group must continue to suffer harm, such harm must be casually connected to the harm.’’
Ardern said this criteria had been met, as it had been met during the last two formal apologies for the Chinese poll tax and for New Zealand’s conduct when it administered Samoa.