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Summarised by Centrist
On The Platform this week, reacting to Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index, Laws asked whether “there is a correlation between New Zealand’s transparency index diving a little” and the fact that some recent corruption cases “had an ethnic lens or a cultural lens”.
“If our primary migrant groups into this country for the last five or six years come from countries in which corruption is endemic… isn’t there a risk that you are importing corruption attitudes with that migrant influx?”
That comment came after Julie Haggie, executive director of Transparency International New Zealand, warned that “it’s our trajectory of our drop which is of concern”.
Laws referenced cases such as the Auckland driver licensing scam and pointed to reporting like the recent Stuff investigation into Christchurch liquor businessman Hardeep Singh.
Roger Partridge of the New Zealand Initiative pushed back immediately.
“We should be very careful about racial stereotyping,” he said. “You’ll get scams in every community… we’ve got to be very cautious about branding one group or another.”
When Laws pressed him on whether importing migrants from countries where corruption is more common might carry cultural risk, Partridge stood his ground. “I just don’t think the evidence supports what you’re suggesting,” he said, warning against drawing “cultural conclusions based on specific incidents.”
Yet Partridge did concede New Zealand could be clearer about its values. “We don’t specify the cultural values that are important to us,” he said. Countries like Denmark, he argued, have more explicit expectations. “There’s a proper conversation to have about what sort of values do we stand for and to make new migrants aware of them.”
