Ticket To Ride

CALL them strange bedfellows. When the ambitious leader of a new political party, Winston Peters, launched a virulent campaign against the "flood of immigrants" in New Zealand early last year, Prime Minister Jim Bolger lambasted him publicly for indulging in "grubby and despicable gutter politics". Yet, less than 10 months down the line, Peters finds himself catapulted to the position of deputy prime minister in Bolger's cabinet.

In one of the most incredible political partnerships ever forged, Peters' New Zealand First Party entered into a coalition with the Bolger-led ruling National Party, the very regime it had sworn to unseat during the run-up to the recent general elections.

Although Peters' party won only 17 of the 120 parliamentary seats in the October polls, it held the balance of power. Neither National Party with 44 seats nor Labour with 37 seats had the requisite majority to form a government despite the fact that National Party was assured of support by eight Act New Zealand MPs and Labour had the backing of the 13-member Alliance team. Peters kept the nation guessing for over two months as he conducted simultaneous negotiations with National Party as well as Labour, revealing nothing of the secret dialogues to an inquisitive media.

Just as political circles were beginning to speculate on the possibility of New Zealand First tying up with Labour, the mercurial Peters decided to hold Bolger's hand and give him another term as prime minister. In return, Peters got for himself not only the deputy prime ministership but also the key new post of treasurer which gives him the power to guide the country's financial destiny. His party also got five of the 20 cabinet posts.

Political commentators in this South Pacific nation have been watching the Peters-Bolger waltz in Wellington's corridors of power in sheer disbelief. The two have been bitter rivals for many years, so bitter that they didn't even want to sit next to each other during a nationally-televised pre-election debate two months ago. Once a National Party heavyweight and a minister in Bolger's cabinet, Peters had been expelled three years ago after a series of fiery wars of words with the party leadership. Since then, he has spent most of his time savagely criticising the National Party and its leader. As recently as August 20, he had said that the "prime minister is not fit for the job".

Yet, for Peters today, "this is not the time for personal agenda, nor the time for settling old scores". Bolger, too, is in a conciliatory mood as he acknowledges "the willingness shown by both parties to put aside past history in the best interests of our nation".

But what does this partnership mean for Asian immigrants, many of whom went through a traumatic phase during the highly polarised immigration debate sparked by Peters last February? It was a debate that saw New Zealand First activists demanding that immigration levels be "cut to the bone", blaming new settlers for just about anything from spiralling house prices to unemployment. In that debate, Bolger and his National Party came out in support of the new immigrants, praising the "positive contribution made by them to the economic growth of the country".

Now that the two once-inimical parties that presented the two faces of the immigration debate are now on the same side, the issue has been deftly put aside. The coalition government has decided to postpone any policy changes in the matter until it studies the recommendations of a population conference to be convened next year.

Whatever the findings of the conference, Peters has already had his way. Ever since he started the immigration debate, immigrants from Asian countries to Kiwi-land have been dwindling steadily. In November 1996, only 2,695 persons overall were approved for permanent residency in this country, less than half the number (5,958) approved in the same period in 1995. The number of immigrants from India fell from 438 to 202 in the period under review.

An Immigration Department spokesperson attributed the fall to the lowered immigration target for the year ending June 1997 to 35,000 people. But the new target does not seem to have affected immigrants from Europe and South Africa. The number of immigrants from Great Britain in November 1996 was 478, against 462 in 1995. Similarly, 313 South Africans were granted residency in the same period in 1996, substantially higher than the 191 recorded in November 1995.

Going by immigration statistics, Asians are becoming disenchanted with the increasingly restrictive immigration policies of New Zealand. People from Taiwan and South Korea, who until recently constituted a significant proportion of the business investor category of immigrants, are now staying away. If the new deputy prime minister's policy of introducing a four-year probation period for prospective immigrants takes shape, New Zealand may not attract too many skilled settlers from Asia in the years to come.바카라 웹사이트