National fails to give assurances that Ethnic Affairs downgrade won't affect services

The Government is wrong when it says it believes that the downgrade of the Office of Ethnic Affairs will not affect services to ethnic communities, says Labour's Associate Ethnic Affairs spokesperson Dr Rajen Prasad.

"Those who have submitted on this restructuring will not be convinced by the responses of Acting Minister Nathan Guy, speaking on behalf of Georgina te HeuHeu, that their fears that the downgrade will affect services are unfounded," Dr Prasad said.

"The Government has been responsible for the downgrading of the Office of Ethnic Affairs as part of the restructuring of the Department of Internal Affairs announced last week.

"The Office has been downgraded to tier three in the new structure and the Director of Ethnic Affairs will now report to a Deputy Chief Executive responsible for policy and regulatory matters. And yet the Government is saying it's up to the Office to convince people everything's okay."

Dr Prasad said he agreed with submitters like the Waitakere Ethnic Board that the downgrading of the Office of Ethnic Affairs sends the wrong signal to New Zealand's ethnic communities about the importance of the ethnic portfolio to the National-Act coalition.

"I am disappointed that government MPs have been happy to attend ethnic functions and preach their importance to contemporary New Zealand, while at the same time seriously downgrading this key agency. When ethnic community leaders realise this is what National has done they will be angry and frustrated.

"The restructuring has now placed the Office in a policy and regulatory group responsible for all the policy and compliance work of the Internal Affairs Department," Dr Prasad said.

"This will shape and colour the future for ethnic affairs for the next few years. The downgrading is both an amazing misreading of the implications of New Zealand's rapid ethnic diversification and a blunder in terms of the future issues for ethnic communities in New Zealand.

"This is a time for positioning and tooling the Office to shape an ethnically diverse New Zealand. Instead National has done the opposite by downgrading the only specialist government agency responsible for ethnic diversity in New Zealand. That is a mistake and a shame."

ENDS

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