By Chris Wilson
OPINION: Through recent statements by Shane Jones and Winston Peters, New Zealand First has assumed the mantle of New Zealand's nativist political party. This will pay electoral dividends for the party, but brings with it serious dangers for minorities and for New Zealand society as a whole.
Those of us working on nativism define the concept in various ways, but at its heart the ideology seeks to protect the interests, rights and status of true citizens of the nation at the expense of immigrants.
Who is and who is not a true member of the nation can be changed overnight in response to the political and social need of the time, giving nativism a unique power. As I wrote in March, many descendants of European settlers in the West have long – and bizarrely – assumed a nativist stance in opposition to more recent arrivals.
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In my own research, I define nativism as "an ideology which perceives and depicts migration in general or a particular migrant group as a serious threat to native communities. This threat can be cultural, demographic, political, economic or physical but often combines several or all of these forms."
Consider Shane Jones' recent comments. After criticism of Immigration New Zealand's policy of denying family visa status to partners from arranged marriages, he said Indian immigrants "had no legitimate expectations…to bring your whole village to New Zealand." He labeled criticism "a Bollywood overreaction." And stated that if Indians didn't like it they should "catch the next flight home".
Then, in a more recent email to supporters titled "We are not backing down on immigration", Jones wrote "I'm giving a voice to the anxieties of hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who upon learning we're now reaching 5 million people, substantially grown by immigration…" He has also said, "I am absolutely empowered, with my particular ancestry and lineage, to raise these issues." Signaling that the party will run on a platform of reducing immigration in 2020 he said: "You are going to hear a lot more about this from me next year."
Clearly New Zealand First sees a constituency among the "hundreds of thousands of Kiwis" concerned about current levels of immigration. Despite pre-election promises, Labour has done little to reduce immigration levels. As Bernard Hickey wrote recently, the government approved 250,000 Temporary Work Visas in the past year, up from 229,000 the year before. In 2018, New Zealand saw net migration of 50,200 people, with a net departure of 10,100 citizens and a net arrival in New Zealand of 60,300 non-citizens.
But will it work? Will people respond positively to this nativist rhetoric? Could it be New Zealand First's path back to the 5 percent MMP threshold? Does nativism have the capacity to override other political considerations which might actually be more in the voter's personal and public interest? The list of issues we might expect to animate New Zealand voters includes health care, house prices, poverty, infrastructure, inequality, stagnant wages and productivity, the environment. Surely it will be these on voters' minds in 2020?
Not necessarily. What we know now, and Shane Jones and Winston Peters also know, is that nativism has the power to combine the source and solution of all of these problems into one clear and emotive issue: foreign immigration. Whether indirectly through concerns over population growth (which can be blamed on immigration) or directly by identifying immigrants as a burden on welfare, or driving up house and rental prices, nativism offers the simple solution to complex problems that many voters crave.
We might say we have heard all this before. But the world of 2019 and 2020 is different to that of 2017. We have now seen a wave of successes (or narrow defeats) by nativist politicians and parties around the world, some winning local elections, joining national coalitions with more mainstream parties, and some rising to the apex of national and even global power. They have done so in large part because of their nativist rhetoric, not despite it, tapping into the thousands of so called forgotten voters previously ignored by the major parties.
Where mainstream parties have managed to defeat this nativist challenge they have often done so by moving to more hardline positions on immigration themselves. Emmanuel Macron recently announced tougher new quotas on migrant workers as a way of undermining support for his main challenger, Marine Le Pen and her far right party. Will policymakers within National and Labour do the same here in 2020? New Zealand often avoids global trends but it does not exist in a political vacuum.
Many will believe it is perfectly legitimate to publicly debate the ideal rates of immigration and the ideal population for New Zealand and its major cities, particularly Auckland. This is where the language used in discussing immigration is important, and where, in my opinion, politicians must exercise a responsibility which goes with their office.
There are clear links between nativist rhetoric and violence against immigrants, and in some cases against politicians seen as pro-immigration. The same nativist rhetoric which motivates some people to vote for a particular political party may also motivate other individuals to use violence against the migrants in question. The German Institute on Radicalization and Re-radicalization Studies has found that there is a direct link between the AfD's claims of an existential threat to German culture from Islam and xenophobic violence by far right groups. In the United States, the President regularly refers to an illegal invasion of rapists and criminals from Central America. That there was no connection between that rhetoric and the El Paso attack in which 22 people died, or between his other statements and the immediate spikes in hate crimes which follow, is difficult to believe.
New Zealand has of course had its own horrific immigration-related violence. The perpetrator of the attack against two mosques in Christchurch in March made repeated reference to an 'invasion' of immigrants. He has since written from prison exhorting at least one follower to remember his obligations to his race. Nativism is clearly going to play its part in the 2020 election, just as it has in numerous recent elections around the world. Let's hope that here at least, immigration can be discussed calmly and that those who see nativism as a path to power remember how easily it can move beyond their control and lead to consequences we once thought unimaginable in New Zealand.
Dr Chris Wilson is a senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland. He is coordinator of the Master of Conflict and Terrorism Studies.
