Disgraceful on so many levels...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2766397a10,00.html

1/ Its a nasty little bit of Auckland bashing by irresponsibly pushing racism buttons.

2/ The paper the "letters" are from isn't named - probably because its a two bit low circulation community rag from out West or something. The letters reveal nothing except the unthinking stereotyping ignorance of "Winstons mob."

3/ Mr. Brent Becroft (IF you exist) - It is quite clear you are a fucking racist and I personally think your a disgrace to the your (abandoned) nation. Some true blue kiwi, taking a chicken run to Perth so you can vent your racist ignorance without fear of challenge - what a coward you are!!!! GOOD RIDDENCE to bad rubbish I say.

fish_boy, i was equally disgusted.

Ive sent this letter into the herald, where the original idiotic letters were published, we shall see if they print it:

Dear Sir/Madam,

What Queen St needs is more people like your correspondent Brent Becroft leaving Auckland and going to the xenophobic havens of Perth and Tauranga, Auckland can do without these people who hark back to the days where all you could buy was Lamingtons and filtered coffee, with the odd McDonalds store thrown in for ‘international’ flavour. As someone that lives and works in the CBD I am glad for such a diverse range of shops and people. Junk shops do not dominate Queen St, what an exaggeration! Shoot outs between Triads, – yeah right. There are a few Asian food halls about, and I’m thankful for that, it’s broken the monopoly of American fast food joints. And if you feel threatened so that you don’t even go out of your workplace in your lunch break, well I’m afraid the problem lies with you, you should seek therapy at once.

If you prefer the artificial to the real by all means go to the white shopping fantasyland parks such as Botany Downs. Queen St makes you feel that you live in a real city, a mini metropolis where races and cultures mix. I love living in the CBD of Auckland city, it’s a vibrant energised area full of great interesting people! If you don’t like it please stay in the burbs or please do emigrate, Queen St can do without you.

Yours sincerely,

D.Roper
Auckland Central

link to where you can view all the letters:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3540896&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

contains this lovely paragraph:
"So, due to the Government's open-door immigration policy, expect to see a tide of "True Blue" Kiwis leave our shores as they search for a place where they can live and raise their kids without being beaten up by Islanders or being caught in gunfire from Asian triad gangs. - Brent Becroft."

What? like aussie?

Mroe likely to get caught in one of the many gunfights and outbursts of violence here compared to back home. Maybe not as many islanders, but a whole lot more variation in the cultural background of the population that NZ.

Yip, trhe guy fled to Perth graphite... Oddly close to Asia... I suppose what he REALLY fled was a country that is far less tolerant of racism than his new home, the one thing that gets me about a lot of Aussies is the surprising amount of racism there.

I have found NZ to be the most racially tolerant and culturally harmonious country I have ever been in. I love the diversity of the main cities in NZ, the ethnic variety of food that is now available, finding out about new cultures and holidays to celebrate and even in the work place there are new views and opinions to challenges been explored.

I think NZ should increase immigration and get our population up to around 6 million or more. Growth should be concentrated in existing cities to make our cities more efficient (eg public transport) and to ensure that we don’t compromise the wide-open natural spaces outside of the cities that make NZ different from everywhere else.

I have found NZ rather intolerant... and I'm from south africa so that is saying alot...

Well my take is New Zealanders tend to be a rather unfriendly lot to strangers (it seems Kiwi's don't take kindly to strangers - there is an old saying in my home town of Napier for newcomers - "Ten years till the neighbour says hello fifteen before your invited around").

Thats because New Zealand still has quite poor communications and until recently was quite provincial and ent-like in outlook.

I don't think its racism, New Zealanders still have a wide egalitarian streak that will judge any person on who they are not on who their parents are, how much they earn or what colour or race they are.

A lot of us just don't take kindly to strangers, doesn't matter what race you are, its quite indescriminate.

Agree FB, its an insular mentality rather than a racist one, similar to some irish I've met. I do think racism is increasing though, especially towards asians but increasingly toward maori.

As for those letters, its gutter journalism at its best. A few people being made to look like the silent majority. They do have a point about Queen St being a bit scummy though, especially at night and the top end. I don't think its a great reflection of NZ, being the main street of our largest city.

I think it has quite a bit to do with (relitively) largescale imigration it has been at a level that is too high to allow some sort of proper integration. Different cultural values and body language cause misunderstandins on both sides and lead to a kind of wariness of each other.

Effects of large scale immigration can be seen in places like france particuarily paris where the algerians in the outer suburbs are places even police fear to go, The tension between men holding muslim values and women enjoying ne found freedoms is leading to massive crime including gang rapes of women not in traditional muslim dress. We arent likely to see this kind of thing on such a scale here but we already have had some cases cultural conflict.

Club boi you are talking about creating gettos of out of work immigrants with ussually low job prospects (english second language and qualifications (if any) that arent recognised. Our country cant support such a rapid rise in population. Particuarily auckland where property values have risen so fast that only the rich can afford to buy so many more are becoming rent payers (high rents because of high land values) The alternatives to auckland are very many as there are few opportunities for immigrants in other areas.

Helll no club_boi..... new zealand has an amazing ammount of largely unspoilt wilderness compared to alot of countries - certainly no country of a similar size has anything like it. We should pick a number, say 4.5 milllion and call it 'the wall', when we hit it, we cut back immigration hard if necessary, and opt for a zero population growth situation. Six million would be driving the new zealand environment over the edge. We'd become another crowded island like Japan or England.

Immigration needs to be selective and slow and progressive. Otherwise you end up with all the classical problems and a huge slice of the population not being born in the country and not even speaking one of the two official languages properly - we should be more like the french! A open-door policy makes political friends for the goverment but it isn't in the nations best interests, we're bordering on racial overload.

New Zealand enjoyed a time of enormous prosperity and wealth with full employment, world leading education and low crime. That was because we were largely unheard of. Then we put ourselves on the map, overseas interest in nz meant all our assets were sliced up and sold off overseas. Now we've got our national identity the tides have turned and we're back on the up.

I was once told by an american friend that he was telling everyone back in the states nz was a crap place to go. Because he felt we should be keeping people out of our little slice of heaven, and keep it all too ourselves. New Zealand over promoting itself worldwide is a bad thing, we are a fresh n tasty dish in a stale smorgasbord, we'll be eaten.

Nice to see the brain drain is being countered with exporting bigots and racists.

6 million will make us absolutely nothing like england or japan. They both have 10 times more people in the same area as 6 million would give us. As for the reasons NZ has changed from the days of full employment, look at the UK aligning more to europe and not taking all our produce as the reason for that. Asset sales again had nothing to do with being heard of, it was a political move on behalf of the 1984-90 labour govt, and although there was some sense in it, they overdid it.

Your post is an isolationist argument that would drive NZ to third world status. Luckily the govt and others have more brains than to follow tat approach. Its an island mentality perpetrated by people who don't understand the need to join the rest of the world, not exclude ourselves from it. Our environment is our number one asset and sensible tourism is the best way to capitalise on that. 6 million acheived by large scale immigration may not be an ideal, but not for the reasons you mentioned.

was that directed at me?

Racism is still a big problem in NZ; it's bad enough in the big centres and at times terrible in smaller communities where people aren't accustomed to foreigners (I used to get beaten up every day after school because I had 'slanty eyes').

Ideally, kiwis would be more tolerant of foreigners and foreigners would make more of an effort to become kiwis.

No bob, speeder.

i have worked both in england and japan, and in my experience nz is comparatively tolerant of immigrants .. although i can see that perhaps because i am kiwi, it would be difficult to have an unbiased view...

it saddens me that people like mr becroft are so small minded - the diversity provides depth, and strength of character for our little country.

nz represents a global community, a wonderful melting pot

i think most nzers are tolerant... its just the few fuckwits like that becreoft guy who are idiots.
yes... there are problems in nz with asian gangs but there are also problems with other races too they just done make a big story out of it.

that article is disgraceful anyway

I'll second that try being french with slanty eyes

Do you think so? My experiences have been rather different to yours

I'm half chinese, half english and have lived in the home countries of both my parents - and NZ. I was admittedly quite young when I lived in England and Malaysia, but I cannot recall a single incident of mockery from these years, even though I was a sort of foreigner in either country. I only encountered intolerance when we moved to NZ. The other children at my school would laugh at my appearance and English accent - and as I mentioned in a previous post I copped a lot of bullying, both mental and physical, from children right through the school.

I like to think this sort of thing has changed in NZ over the past 10 years... We've become a much more cosmopolitan country. The problem back then was that people in rural areas of NZ were not accustomed to foreigners.

Kids tend to be cruel. They gang together and pick on anyone who is different.

The thing is, that never happened to me before we came out here. I think that back in England and Malaysia the kids I went to school with had been exposed to others of different nationalities and had been taught to accept them. NZ still has a long way to go in that respect.

It would definitely have been to do with the population numbers.. eg London with several million residents compared to say Timaru with only 3000 or something.

i found in england there was little tolerance of asian people... admittedly i was living up north in west yorkshire (a bit backwards you might say!!)

in japan i was working on a ski field - totally rural, tiny town...

so it may just be small town ignorance that is a contributing factor - living in a multicultural city is completely different

Its quite funny reading this. I used to hang out with Brent Becroft in Auckland, but hadn't seen him in a while. After contacting him and asking him what the deal was with this letter, he confirmed as I thought, that he didn't actually write it. It was a (bad) running joke between him and a work colleague who used to write letters on behalf of the other to the herald. He certainly doesn't share these thoughts, and certainly didn't move to Perth to get away from Asians. He moved over to play rugby, and ended up staying there. Peace!

What's also interesting is that you can see all the people who are still active forum users because they have avatars.