New Zealand Needs To Up Its Immigration Response Over Fiji
United New Zealand leader, Hon Peter Dunne, is calling on the Government to become more proactive in the light of the
deteriorating situation in Fiji.
"I appreciate the Government's wish to proceed cautiously, and give no comfort to Fiji's rebels or Speight's thugs, but
caution has an unerring ability to become inactivity."
"The New Zealand Government clearly has to move more rapidly on the immigration front to deal with the escalating
crisis," he says.
Mr Dunne is calling on the Government to extend its present immigration response to include the following steps:
* All Fijian citizens arriving in New Zealand be offered access to a nine months visitor's visa; * All
Fijian citizens holding valid New Zealand residency permits be offered safe passage to New Zealand; * All Fijian
citizens with family and relatives in New Zealand be given the immediate right of entry to New Zealand, and that the
"locus of gravity" provisions be extended to include married siblings; * Permanent resident be offered to Fijian
citizens currently in New Zealand whose safety may be at risk if they are forced to return to Fiji.
Mr Dunne is also calling on the New Zealand Government to push for the suspension of Fiji's membership of the
Commonwealth and the expulsion of Fijian peacekeeping forces from United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world,
until the restoration of democratic and constitutional government in Fiji.
"We cannot afford to dither - we have to take a stand both to show that the current situation in Fiji is repugnant to
us, and also that we accept our humanitarian responsibilities for the people who are affected," Mr Dunne says.
ENDS