Jonesy targets the Indian community - that's not good
Isn’t it astonishing that, not even two weeks out from the Christchurch shooting’s first anniversary, the senior cabinet minister Shane Jones – an MP for New Zealand First, a party you could arguably describe as our local Ukip branch – is basing his re-election campaign on stoking anti-immigrant racism.
In a television sit-down last weekend the “retail politician” – Jones’s words – went after the Indian community, blaming its students for “ruining” New Zealand universities and arguing the country was opening the doors too widely to immigrants from “New Delhi”. He guaranteed that only New Zealand First would cut immigration. Labour, in Jones’s telling, is too “PC” to make the necessary cuts, and National are apparently in the pocket of Johnny foreigner taking big-money donations from overseas contributors. They won’t follow through either.
It’s convenient, if a little predictable: only I, Shane Jones, can save you.