Green mea culpa on immigration

Greens co-leader James Shaw has apologised for the way the party announced its immigration policy last year, saying it worsened public debate.

Shaw, speaking at the annual general meeting of the Federation of Multicultural Councils in Dunedin on Saturday, said the party’s immigration policy launch in October of last year had focused too heavily on the numbers and not on values.

The policy set a limit on immigration of one per cent of population growth – a cut on current numbers.

After a rush of negative feedback, the Green Party took the policy into ‘‘review’’.

On Saturday, Shaw admitted the policy had contributed to a growing feeling of xenophobia in New Zealand society, although that was never the intent.

‘‘Last year, I made an attempt to try and shift the terms of the debate away from the rhetoric and more towards a more evidencebased approach,’’ Shaw said.

‘‘Unfortunately, by talking about data and numbers, rather than values, I made things worse.

"By talking about data and numbers, rather than values, I made things worse." Green Party co-leader James Shaw

‘‘Because the background terms of the debate are now so dominated by anti-immigrant rhetoric, when I dived into numbers and data, a lot of people interpreted that as pandering to the rhetoric, rather than trying to elevate the debate and pull it in a different direction.

‘‘We were mortified by that, because, in fact, the Greens have the ambition of being the most migrant-friendly party in Parliament.’’

Migrants were not to blame for high house prices, hospital waiting times, or any other social ill – the Government was, he said.

Shaw admitted there had been some pushback from the Green Party membership following the policy launch. But this was not the deciding factor in his speech, which he co-wrote with a speech writer.

‘‘We have been trying to find a way to dampen the heat around the immigration debate, because it is turning into an election-year football.’’

His speech came the day after Shane Jones re-entered the political fray wearing a hat moulded after Donald Trump’s, reading ‘‘Put New Zealand First Again’’ and telling voters immigration was a ‘‘legitimate concern’’.

Shaw said other parties had, whether intentionally or not, played into the xenophobic strain of discourse.

He did not comment on Labour’s policies, which also called for a cutback.

Labour and the Greens have a formal agreement to work together this election.

Labour leader Andrew Little agreed that the problems caused by immigration were not the fault of the migrants themselves but the debate still needed to be had.

‘‘We’ve got to be able to have this debate without being scared of being accused of racism or xenophobia,’’ Little said.

‘‘There will, unfortunately, be some that see it in those terms, and its the responsibility of people like myself and James [Shaw] to call people out when they try to run the debate on that basis.’’