A South Sudanese refugee and her child at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya (Image: Simon Day/World Vision).

PoliticsOctober 10, 2018

We’ve increased the refugee quota, now make it fair

Guest writer

A South Sudanese refugee and her child at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya (Image: Simon Day/World Vision).

Last month the government committed to increase New Zealand’s refugee quota to 1500. Now New Zealand must accept more refugees from Africa and the Middle East, writes South Sudanese-Kiwi and former refugee Clench Enoka.

I was born in a refugee camp in Kenya. I had no country to call home. My parents were born in South Sudan. Every day they experienced things that people wouldn’t normally: brutal civil wars, constant poverty, poor health care, no proper home. Basically they had no access to what the western world would consider the ‘basic necessities’ to live life.

With little opportunity for a future, my parents left South Sudan and travelled across the border into Kenya, where they lived in a refugee camp. My parents wanted us kids to have all of the things we couldn’t have in South Sudan. They didn’t want us to grow up in an environment full of destruction. They sacrificed everything just for us to grow up in a place that wasn’t falling apart.

In 2003 my family and I moved to New Zealand as refugees. Growing up in New Zealand was so challenging – mentally and physically. Everything was so different than what we were used to – we had to learn a whole new language, understand a completely different culture, and try to fit in.

South Sudanese children who have arrived at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya without parents or family (Image: Simon Day/World Vision).

Now the thing that I struggle most with is not forgetting my roots, not feeling ashamed of being a different race and remaining proud of where I came from. Even though I haven’t lived in South Sudan, my parents tell us wonderful stories of them growing up there before the war.

I’m also a very proud Kiwi. I’m proud to be part of a country so generous as to give my family the opportunity of a second life. During our first years in New Zealand, members from our church frequently came by our house to see that we were okay. We could always rely on them. Today, I’m 19 years old and studying design at Massey University. Whatever the future holds for me, it would’ve been unattainable, unimaginable for me, if it wasn’t for this wonderful country.

That’s why I was so shocked when I recently learned that in 2009, New Zealand stopped accepting refugees from Africa and the Middle East who don’t already have family members here. Before the policy change, on average around 20% of our refugee intake were African. Now, it’s an average of 4%. My family wouldn’t have been able to come here under this policy.

A South Sudan child has her arm measured to assess her malnourishment at a health centre in northern Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan (Image: Simon Day/World Vision).

Africa and the Middle East are home to some of the most fragile and conflict-torn states in the world. And it is these two regions that the majority of the world’s refugees are from. In my home country of South Sudan a third of the population have been forced flee their homes. Half of them are children. Over two million South Sudanese refugees have sought safety in neighbouring countries. Yet since 2011, only 12 South Sudanese refugees have been accepted to New Zealand. Twelve! We’re surely not doing our bit.

This year, I took part in World Vision New Zealand’s 40 Hour Famine campaign, raising funds for South Sudanese refugees who had fled to Uganda. Together over 90,000 young Kiwis took a stand, saying that we can and should do more for the people of South Sudan. Now, we are asking the government to join us, to truly stand with the world’s most vulnerable people, by removing the family-link requirement for refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

I was born a refugee, in a camp in Kenya. Yet a refugee is not my identity – I stopped being one when I arrived in New Zealand. At that moment, I became a person with a future. Only if we remove the family-link requirement for Africa and the Middle East will more people like me find refuge from conflict and struggle, and instead build a home and contribute to this safe, beautiful land, Aotearoa. Let’s open our hearts. We certainly have room for more than 12 people from my homeland.

Keep going!

Grant Robertson has faced consistent calls to open the purse strings and spend. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

PoliticsOctober 10, 2018

Grant Robertson and the $5.5 billion curse

Jane Patterson

RNZ

Grant Robertson has faced consistent calls to open the purse strings and spend. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

The government will welcome the unexpectedly large surplus, but it brings with it a heap of extra pressure from all sides, writes RNZ political editor Jane Patterson

It’s the political curse of finance ministers past – deliver a bumper surplus and immediately come under pressure to spend up large.

As Grant Robertson stood and delivered the latest financial results the ghost of his Labour predecessor Michael Cullen loomed, both holding on tight to the extra billions in case of the inevitable “rainy day”.

Cullen – who of course is still very much alive – became the target of an effective National Party campaign in the mid 2000s, spearheaded by then finance spokesperson John Key, agitating for tax cuts as the surpluses under Labour became ever larger.

As history has shown, Cullen’s parsimonious approach cushioned New Zealand against the worst ravages of the global financial crisis and meant the incoming National government inherited an economy in 2008 with comparably low public debt.

In turn Grant Robertson has benefited from Bill English’s financial management through some tough years under National.

The latest report on the books shows a $5.5 billion surplus, higher than was forecast at the May Budget, prompting immediate calls for Robertson to open up the purse strings.

A word of caution from Treasury though is that due to timing there is spending, yet to kick in, that will reduce the size of the surplus. Regardless, there are ballooning surpluses forecast for future years.

As well as the government’s own substantial spending programme there some big bills down the line: pay claims in education and health and biosecurity incursions including Mycoplasma bovis – to name just a few. Also flagged is what’s likely to be a significant payout to former and present public servants as officials work through problems with the Holidays Act to compensate people who’ve been underpaid over a number of years.

A grey cloud on the horizon is the massive, impending cost of the baby boomer retirement, a warning sounded in every financial update.

Robertson’s immediate challenge, though, is managing the expectations of social and public sectors that had high hopes of money flowing much more freely out of a Labour-led government, sectors left largely disappointed by the May Budget.

Even Labour’s support partner the Greens have joined that chorus, urging the government to spend more now to alleviate the housing crisis and homelessness.

The immediate reaction from National’s Simon Bridges was to demand the government reinstate National’s plan for broad tax cuts. The coalition opted instead for the more targeted Families Package, but Bridges argues with more than $5bn up its sleeve it can afford both.

The other point Bridges makes is while the government sits on its pile of cash it’s also busy leveraging even more tax out of New Zealanders through fuel levies.

Commodity prices and the weakening New Zealand dollar have helped to push prices up at the pump but a large portion still goes directly to the government.

All governments regularly increase the fuel excise, but Labour has piled on extra levies including an extra 3.5 cents a litre that came into effect across the country in September (with two more due in the next two years), as well as 10 cents a litre for Auckland motorists in the form of a regional fuel tax.

The money raised will go towards improving transport networks but the government still has to own the fact it’s imposing greater costs on New Zealanders, months after Labour made inequality and the cost of living a key part of its election campaign.

The comments from prime minister Jacinda Ardern laying the blame at the feet of the petrol industry are an attempt to divert attention from the sizeable cut taken by the government.

The timing for the excise increases and the regional fuel tax could not have been worse with prices already hitting record highs, but the government should own the fact it’s part of the problem, and has the more immediate ability to do something about it, alongside its plan to investigate the industry – a plan that will have no tangible impact until well into next year.

Originally published at RNZ