He Iwi Tahi Tatou?

Professor Paul Spoonley writes.

Captain William Hobson’s statement in 1840 that “we” are now one people was always rather ambiguous, but in 2007, the question of how best to describe, and to acknowledge, New Zealand’s growing cultural diversity is challenging.

In 1840, the issue was to find common ground as the basis for colonisation to proceed. The subsequent dismissal of what was agreed in the Treaty of Waitangi, and then the initiatives to more adequately recognise Ma-ori interests in the latter half of the twentieth century, provides one major strand in debates about equitable citizenship in New Zealand.

The other is associated with two waves of non-European immigration. The first came from the Pacific in response to labour needs in expanding urban economies in New Zealand from the 1960s. The second was a product of the changes to immigration policy in 1987.

In 2007, the result is what Steve Vertovec (University of Oxford) labels “superdiversity”.

New Zealand has more overseas-born as a proportion of its population than Canada, and only slightly less than Australia. Auckland has more overseas-born than any other Australasian city.

Non-European migrants and their descendants now comprise a much more significant presence in New Zealand, a factor which will be emphasised by future trends. New Zealand’s Asian communities are expected to grow by almost 400,000 in the two decades from 2001 to reach 700,000 by 2021; Pacific peoples will grow by 170,000 to reach 420,000 in the same period.

The effects will be seen most obviously in Auckland as the major destination and residence of many of these communities. By 2016, Auckland’s Pakeha population will have dropped to 54 percent while Asian communities will make up 25 percent of the city’s population.

The size of these populations and the fact that many are recent immigrants is part of superdiversity; but there is also the range of different ethnic groups as Auckland’s growing calendar of festivals and events reflects. New Zealand is the destination for significant numbers of migrants and refugees from many parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as well as from Europe (but no longer confined to the United Kingdom) and the Americas.

The rapidity with which this superdiversity has emerged has, understandably, created a certain anxiety and a political reaction. The most obvious negative response was apparent in New Zealand in the mid-1990s, particularly in the 1996 election. Since then, public opinion polling indicates that New Zealanders are becoming more accepting of the diversity of their country, city or neighbourhood. This is partly driven by the recognition that immigrants from around the world are important for our collective economic future.

It is ironic then that the economic contribution of immigrants is not being maximised. The human capital that immigrants bring is inadequately recognised by employers in particular, and overseas qualifications and experience, particularly from Asia, is quite significantly discounted. Research with both employers and immigrant job seekers shows that there are significant barriers to employment, not the least in surname and accent discrimination, despite the best efforts of organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Employers and Manufacturers Association.

This prompts the question of how well our major institutions are responding to superdiversity. The age profile of immigrants means that they are concentrated in the school and working age populations. Whether it is our education or health system, or gatekeepers such as employers and landlords, the challenge is to welcome and respond appropriately to cultural diversity.

This, in turn, has focused attention on New Zealand’s policies and approach to immigrant integration: how should we recognise and incorporate cultural diversity? Are we doing enough to encourage successful integration? Is our understanding and practice of citizenship appropriate?

New Zealand, like Canada or Australia, along with a number of countries in the European Union, is considering high level policy goals such as social cohesion. Biculturalism provides some important examples (e.g. language maintenance) and a touchstone, but the details of a local multiculturalism are still some way off, even if superdiversity is already apparent in the demography of our communities.