New Zealand-India trade deal sparks racism backlash - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

New Zealand has just signed a big free trade deal with India, but it's caused quite a bit of a stir and even some racist language, Vandy. That's right, Mariko. A senior minister, has described this free trade agreement. and the increased visa access as a butter chicken tsunami. And he has stood by his comments as a discussion about visa trade. And I guess New Zealand future takes a rather divisive turn. So we're asking what exactly is this free trade agreement and.

what are India and New Zealand getting out of it? As always, I'm Mariko in Singapore and this is Asia Specific. from the BBC World Service, the podcast that unpacks. Asia Pacific stories with those who know them inside out. And today I have BBC journalist Vandhna Bhan, who grew up. in New Zealand in the studio. I also have Dileepa Fonseka, a senior correspondent for BusinessDesk,

joining me from Auckland. Welcome both to Asia Specific. Great to be on, Mariko. Excellent. Great to be on here too. So, Dileepa, can you just explain to us. about this free trade agreement that New Zealand just signed with India? Talk us through what's in it. I think New Zealand has signed free trade agreements all around the world. And in terms of the big countries that we don't have bilateral free trade agreements, you know, India is one, the United States is another. So India was really the big one. And that became a big push.

for the government when they ran for re-election. New Zealand has tried negotiating a free trade agreement with India before. And there are always problems because. obviously New Zealand's biggest export is dairy, milk. And one of the most protected kind of areas in the Indian economy. is around dairy because of the small landholdings and the need to, and the need that the Indian people feel to protect their dairy sector. So it was always a tough kind of negotiation.

And, you know, the New Zealand government probably got a lot out of it. in terms of a lot more than people were expecting for. such a short period of time, because they were, they had pledged. to sign free trade agreement before the end of their electoral term. And the big things that India wanted were around people movement. So allowing more access for Indians into New Zealand, kind. of migration settings and, you know, allowing them to to study. And then also there's a foreign investment promotion clause,

which is also for proven to be somewhat of a contentious political issue here. So that's investment from New Zealand going into India. Yeah, I want to get to that controversy, but I think I've covered my fair share of free trade agreements. But why does immigration, what does it have anything to do with trade deal, why is that in there? When you think about New Zealand as an economy, we are pretty much a low tariff economy. We don't have many tariffs.

So it's not like a typical free trade negotiation. because when we are looking to negotiate with a country, well, we don't have much in terms of tariffs to give up. And we also don't have a very big market you know. New Zealand is five million people. So what does that offer to a country like India? So one thing that we can offer is in terms of people movement. And that's something that the Indians want. They want more places for their citizens to be able to work and get educated. And so that is one of the cards we've had.

But obviously that has proven, and it always proved even in past cases where they tried to get. a free trade trade agreement signed, there was always a contentious point. about how much people movement do we allow in return. for certain gains in other industry, other kind of primary industries, agriculture industries, that kind of thing. So Vandy, as Dileepa was talking about it, it's become a contentious issue. But let's just put this in context.

The reason New Zealand is willing to accept more immigrants, it's partly because of a, I guess, a brain drain, how quite a lot of Kiwis themselves were actually leaving their home country. Yeah, New Zealand isn't a really sticky situation, especially since post Covid, where thousands of young Kiwis. in particular have been leaving the country. And look, I'm one of those young Kiwis who left for the UK. and am now in Singapore, but just in the last year, in the last 12 months leading up to September last year,

74,000 citizens departed New Zealand. That's a record high and that's a huge crisis for the country. That's leaving a gaping hole in so many sectors. Now, what is this due to? This is due to a weak economy. This is due to a high cost of living. And there are better wages elsewhere, especially across the ditch in Australia. And that's where most Kiwis are heading off to, including actually our former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. You might have seen just in the last few weeks.

She also is migrating to Australia, Sydney, and she put it down to better work opportunities for herself. So really all Kiwis are thinking this. This is at the front of mind for so many young people, but that's leaving a massive hole in New Zealand. It's leaving a hole in skilled trades. and infrastructure, healthcare and technology. So of course a deal like this, where we're getting. we're able to get these skilled migrants from India, they are able to fill that hole in New Zealand. It's interesting, though, because there is a rhetoric from a loud minority.

in New Zealand of perhaps some immigrants taking our jobs, right? I'm sure many of us have heard that before as immigrants in these countries. In fact, a social cohesion report just this year said 31% agreed. that immigrants are taking away the jobs. But it's so interesting because actually those jobs are not, they're there for Kiwis to take up. But the Kiwis aren't there in the country to take those jobs, and we need the immigrants to actually come in.

And that's where the skilled workforce, this type of free trade agreement is really going to help to get. the economy moving again, to fill up the workforce. And I guess it's not unique to New Zealand, is it, that theory. you hear it all over the world. But this particular free trade agreement. and this scheme about more migrants from India moving to New Zealand, it's prompted quite a vocal opposition voices. So can you just talk us through why some people are not happy about it?

Yeah. Look, one of the parties who's actually in government at this moment, so we have a coalition in New Zealand made up. of three parties. And two of those parties, and it's a right wing coalition, two of those parties, very much for this agreement. The other one, New Zealand First, very much against it. Now, New Zealand First has always been quite conservative. in its approach to immigration. And they voted down on this. They didn't agree with it and it was actually had to be. the opposition party, Labour Party to actually come in.

and vote yes for this to get this free trade agreement across the line. And that's not always what you see in government, where, you know, opposition parties are saying yes, whereas. the party you're in coalition with is saying no to that deal. And what's come out of it is the deputy leader of the party, Shane Jones, came out and said this, and I want to quote him. He said, "I don't care how much criticism we get, I am just never going to agree. with a butter chicken tsunami coming to New Zealand.".

There was a lot of shock in regards to that comment. I mean, we're still talking about those comments in New Zealand and globally. He went on to say that this is unfettered immigration. and that it's going to clog services in New Zealand. He says at a time we can hardly afford to upgrade the infrastructure that New Zealand has. Again, I think this is, a lot of people are saying that this is fear mongering, the scare mongering towards an Indian community. And when we're looking at the numbers, the demographic,

the Indian demographic in the country contributes so much to the community. In fact, the New Zealand Treasury reported just this year. that immigrants pay their fair share in taxes and more than that, for the percentage of immigrants that are in the country, in fact. So to say, comments like that, I think the community has been very disappointed by it. If we're looking at how the government's reacted to this, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, has come out and said. the language is unhelpful, it's wrong. And he said it doesn't sound right.

Now journalists pushed him. Is this racist? He was not able to say and go as far as to say that this is racist. The opposition party, Chris Hipkins, Labour Party, they have outright called this racist, and they said that there's no room. for that type of racist commentary in any government that they lead. And Dileepa, you're on the ground. I've noticed that this comment has made news headlines for many days now.

What's been the reaction from the Indian community, but also has. Mr. Jones said more about this backlash, given how much younger his comment has caused? Well, Jones has sort of played it down as hyperbole. and that he's made an exaggerated argument in order to cut through. on this, you know, on this debate around immigration. And but largely, he hasn't you know, he hasn't walked, he hasn't reversed his comments.

You know, he just, to some degree, stands by them. and is more taken issue with the interpretation of them. in terms of, you know, not seeing it, people who don't see it as the kind of hyperbole that it was intended to be. At least that's his sort of perspective on it. And, you know, if we think about how that's affected the Indian community, I mean, you know, not just the Indian community, I think, you know, there's other ethnic minority communities as well.

who have been pretty shocked by it, I think, and actually probably groups that. you wouldn't have necessarily assumed would be shocked by it. Actually. you know, I think it's probably fair to say that the government, if you talk about the main party in government, the National Party, they did enjoy a lot of support from the Indian community. at the last election, particularly because they were more conservative, business focused, and that appealed to a lot of voters. And also there were various issues that popped up. in the previous administration that also kind of angered the community as well.

But even people who are big stalwarts, you know, that I've spoken. to recently have had a problem with those particular comments. But to some degree, actually, what they're often telling me is that this is kind of tip of the iceberg. in terms of things have really changed over here in terms of the language. that people are using, the kind of incidents that people are seeing, they haven't really seen something like this at least directed.

at the Indian community before. Yeah. I want to get to that. But what about the Indian government? Because as you said, the comment is quite shocking. Has has there been any reaction from the Indian government. which was signing that free trade agreement? No, the Indian government hasn't said anything about it. Not that I'm aware of anyway. They do tend to stay silent on these kind of issues, mainly because, you know, they don't get involved. and they do enjoy good relations with the government as a whole.

But these kind of things have proven to be a point of tension in the past. Like there was a bit of a closed door meeting with Jaishankar, the foreign minister of India under the previous government. And what people told us, they said, is that he cracked a joke. It was a joke, but it was interpreted as a bit of a slight in New Zealand. because he said something to the effect of, you know, the New Zealand-India relationship is great. You don't like our students, you don't really want to have our people.

And you beat us at cricket. But other than that, everything is fine. And it was it was made as a joke, but obviously people understood the subtext. And Vandy, aside from this butter chicken comment, there have been other incidents, haven't there? Like graffiti in an area with a large Indian population. Also, I saw some comments from Auckland's mayor. which he later had to apologise. Can you just talk us through? Yeah. So just like Dileepa was saying, we're seeing. a lot of these incidences pop up now.

I want to start on the mayor comments. So Auckland's mayor, Wayne Brown, just recently, in the last few weeks, he's been criticised for his comments. towards an Indian staffer at Radio New Zealand. Now, what happened was he went to Radio New Zealand for an interview. He was being escorted into the building by this Indian staffer, and the Indian staffer said to him, you know, I'm sorry for the delay here. Security is quite tight in the building. Wayne Brown, the mayor, said, well, security can't be very tight.

if we're being escorted by a Muslim terrorist. A lot of shock there. Obviously this Radio New Zealand staffer was quite distraught from it. They talked to Radio New Zealand about it and it came out into the media. Now the mayor has apologised, saying it was inappropriate. But he also then went on to say it was a fumbled attempt at humour, which I admit I got wrong. So I think it's comments like this that are now, you know, like David Seymour saying that it was a lame dead joke. Wayne Brown saying it was a fumbled attempt at humour.

I mean, it's really excusing this behavior and this language. And so this was an incident that shocked many people a few weeks ago. that outside of Papatoetoe High School, which is in South Auckland. and a large population of Indians go to this school. They went to the school and they saw graffitied. at the front of it, kill all Indians. So a huge shock there. This call to violence, and I mean, it's a huge group in New Zealand.

Indians make up around 6% of the group. They're very visible in the community right now. Yeah, I definitely want to get to that. Dileepa, you were earlier talking about how things have changed, and I have to say, the New Zealand that I remember the last time I was there. was in 2019 when Jacinda Ardern was a prime minister. Obviously it was after a horrific terrorist attack. But, you know, the communities were rather united. And I'm just trying to understand what's causing this kind of attitude.

or rise in incidents like this. And we recently did an episode on Australia where. after Covid, there was a surge in immigrants coming into the country, which may have led to the rise in anti-immigration sentiment. I was looking at New Zealand's population, Dileepa, and how. the Indian population has more than tripled in the last 25 years or so, and it's now surpassed Chinese New Zealanders to be. the biggest Asian ethnic group in the country.

And from my understanding, the. heavily concentrated in Auckland. Can you just put into the context of how that shift has happened, and do you think that may have contributed to this kind of incident? Yeah, well, I think it's important to put those numbers in context. I think basically every Asian ethnic group has, you know, tripled or something in those numbers over 25 years because. for a long period of time, there was no Asian immigration into New Zealand. I think it's also important to probably note that although I think.

the Indian population is perhaps larger than the Chinese population, the difference isn't massive in terms of the differences. So, you know, these are, you know, larger numbers than we've had previously, but they're not necessarily overwhelming the country in terms of looking at it. on a nationwide basis of numbers. But what has changed is, you know, inflammation landscape has changed a lot. And also the Covid period was very disruptive.

because although you look at the averages over, like a period of time, you know, the actual annual rate doesn't look so different. in terms of migration to pre-Covid. But the fact is, we had a point where New Zealand really shut its borders. So there was no migration coming in at all. And then obviously, you know, there were issues with inflation. There were issues with supply chain shortages, shortages of workers. Every sector was crying out for more workers.

And so when the borders really opened, then they had to well, they felt the need to really open them and try and encourage people to come in. And also, I think information landscape has changed dramatically. You know, now a lot of forms of media are present that weren't present. in other ways of migration, you know, during the 90s. What we didn't have back then is we didn't have a lot of social media. We didn't have a lot of unregulated media.

And a lot of the kind of conversations and things. and like the rhetoric that's coming through is happening. on those channels more than in the, I guess, kind of more regulated media. The survey that you were citing earlier by the Helen Clark Foundation, though, Dileepa was just talking about British. or European migrants versus Asian migrants. But this survey from this year seems to suggest that Kiwis were more welcoming.

towards British migrants than Indian or other Asian migrants. I mean, it's the way it is, isn't it? Because we look different, we might sound different. We eat different food, we have a different language. and we are quite loud and proud when it comes to Diwali festival. and we're out on the streets or it comes to, you know, Chinese New Year. and we're having Lantern Festival in the parks. And I think touching on what Dileepa said, that, you know, despite there being an uptick from Asia, it's not.

a huge wave that we're really seeing. It's never going to surpass the, you know, New Zealand Europeans. But despite that, in this report, 36% say that immigration is too high. And that's despite being a massive wave. And I think it goes back to, again what Dileepa said, what you said, you guys were talking about on the Australia topic is the economy. The economy is very fragile in New Zealand. There's a lot of economic anxiety. And I think we see in countries in Western countries right now,

at this very moment in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, that when you know your pockets are not fully full, there's a lot of anxiety around housing, around jobs, around all of that, that you want a scapegoat. And Indians and ethnic people in New Zealand are currently that scapegoat. I mean, if we're talking about the housing, housing affordability is great right now. in New Zealand, it's actually a buyer's market. So the government can't really, people can't really put it on to that. because the housing is looking great,

unlike what you're talking about in Australia, but there's definitely from Covid, a huge economic fallout. Brain drain goes into that. And I think attitudes towards immigrants like we've seen historically change. What about the upcoming election, not just. in New Zealand, but around the world? You hear politicians talking about populist policies ahead of elections. Could these incidents rather vocal racist comments? Could these comments be part of that,

or is it more than that? I think that's what people are worried about. You know, I mean, I think the big thing for, you know, a lot of people I think that I talk to is, you know, just a sense of being scared or a bit of unease actually, because you talk about some of these incidents, like racist graffiti being painted onto a school. These are things that, you know, people have never really seen here before.

People are just scared and they're worried that the election campaign could mean a lot of this, you know, and they've already had a bit of taste of it with the debate around India FTA, because India FTA suddenly opened up this issue of migration. I mean, the migration debate was actually bubbling away in New Zealand anyway. But this did kind of put more of a focus on Indian migration specifically, I think. Honestly, I had no idea about this. So thank you so much for telling us this story, Vandy and Dileepa.

My pleasure. I mean, it's been all over my socials, so I'm really glad that we're able to share this with the rest. of the population here in Asia. Thanks very much for having me. You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. with me, Mariko Oi in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we covered in this episode. or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on email asiaspecific@bbc.co.uk.

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