Immigration, Nationalism, TV Journalists and Facebook

I had a very interesting conversation with a work colleague today, a Californian lady who is also a Facebook friend. She had read my status on October 1st, which went a bit like this

Ian would like to thank the New Zealand government for increasing GST to 15% and adding 7c per litre to petrol. You folks know how to get people to leave New Zealand

Now I thought this was pretty self-explanatory, so much so that a couple of people clicked the 'like' button. But oh no, some people found this offensive and came out with lines such as

if all you can do is bag nz ian, why not just faaark off home!?!?!?!?!????

OK  I thought, better revisit that post and see what I said that was derogatory about New Zealand. I was derogatory about the current government, which I have been openly critical of. The fact of the matter is people are leaving New Zealand in record numbers, something John Key promised to stop - FAIL!

My Californian colleague was actually quite surprised by the vitriol that such a comment could create. This brings me to the next thing - as immigrants does that remove our right to offer critical comment on anything Kiwi? Cue the idiotic Paul Henry, who whilst interview his 'best mate', John Key' proceeded to offer racist views regarding the governor general of New Zealand with his

Can the next governor general actually look like a kiwi?

A real Kiwi?

So what does a 'kiwi' look like? Being born, raised, educated and holding down senior position in New Zealand,  learning Te Reo Maori and being a good citizen (gaining a knighthood in the process) clearly doesn't make Sir Anand Satyanand a 'kiwi'. 


I love where I live, I love my lifestyle, I love the majority of the population of this country, but there is an incredible need for certain things to be sorted. The levels of racism are, in my opinion, as bad as racism in Europe. Often this is directly from people who are themselves immigrants. The sooner that 'Kiwi's' stop referring to everyone from South East Asia (be that Korea, China, Japan, etc) as 'Asian', the better. The sooner they recognise that Maori contribute to NZ in a positive way, the better - and lastly, the sooner racist clowns like Paul Henry are removed from prime time TV the better!!