Academic says he never meant to offend Pacific people
Updated
A New Zealand academic is facing a barrage of criticism for writing a paper suggesting that Pacific Islanders are underperforming. Dr Greg Clydesdale, an economist at Massey University in Auckland, says poor education and low unemployment are creating an underclass, and continued immigration will make the problem worse. He says his report never said Pacific islanders were "a drain on the economy", which was used in a newspaper headline. Pacific Island community leaders say they are offended, and New Zealand's race relations conciliator has announced an investigation. Dr Clydesdale says it wasn't his intention to offend anyone, but to look at the facts about the position of Pacific people in New Zealand society.
Presenter:Bruce Hill
Speaker:Dr Greg Clydesdale, an economist at New Zealand's Massey University
CLYDESDALE: There's people who think diverse cultures help economic growth, but then there's the group that's saying having divergent cultures in an economy does not support economic growth. And what we're finding in New Zealand is that people who came in from different cultures actually under-perform economically. There's a mismatch between the old culture and the new economic system. So basically my paper was saying we've got to recognise the importance of culture, if we're selected people to create economic growth we've got to recognise we have a point system to select immigrants and I think we've got to include culture in there.
HILL: There's been quite a negative response to this in the media. Have people misinterpreted what were you saying or misunderstood?
CLYDESDALE: Well the section on the Pacific Island immigrants is a small section but the concern there is that there's still a culture mismatch. And it comes through in education. Now the problem with Polynesian immigrants and migrants in particular is education of the fuel of future growth. It's where aiding a knowledge economy if we're going to grow in the future we need people who can create new products and new production processes. Now Pacific Island peoples generally are amongst our poorest performers for education. There's two main reasons people say that; one is they criticise the education system for not being conducive to Polynesian culture. Now I know of a lot of young teachers and they are totally dedicated to their children regardless of the race, they care for their children. And the education system here is pretty good. The other people then who turn around and criticise Polynesian culture for not being conducive to education. I really don't know what's gained by criticising a culture as such. My approach is not to blame either side. My approach is to say let's admit there's a mismatch and that mismatch is creating a problem, and if we keep on bringing people into the country who are going to be mismatched with the local system we're going to continue to have an economic problem, low education, low economic outcome. In fact what we're doing is creating an underclass.
HILL: Well this has created a huge furor in the media and Pacific Island community leaders are all up in arms and I understand you're being investigated by the Race Relations Conciliator. What's your reaction to all this?
CLYDESDALE: Positive and negative, I mean I'm concerned that no one's actually laid a complaint against me and he's taking it up on his own motive to actually do it himself, and he's actually making comments in the media about my report. For example he called it extreme before he'd even read it. So I'm concerned that he's going to be judging it and he's already stated it's biased. However I've decided to be constructive and I gave him a call, left a message on his answering machine this morning, and said look, I want a word with you. He can't affect my publication of this, it'll be published offshore.
HILL: Well the public response in the media seems to have been pretty negative. Have you had any supportive comments or have you had any comments from people within the Pacific Island community perhaps?
CLYDESDALE: This is the ironic thing; the media is so out of touch with what the general public are feeling. I mean today I have had probably seven, today's actually quite low, I've only had seven letters and emails of support, none against. But yeah I'm generally running about 80 per cent supportive, 20 per cent negative. A lot of people of Polynesian descent are writing and agreeing with me, they're seeing what's happening around them. I mean they want, they actually say it's time for a wake-up call, I've actually told them yes there's a problem here. I mean the sad thing is that there seems to be a pride element here, people are responding with pride. I've said something horrible against Pacific Island peoples and so they're trying to put down my research and trying to put down me and they're trying to say I don't have credibility. And it's like their pride is actually stopping them at looking at what I'm saying. We have a serious socio-economic problem here and it's been enduring for 60 years. Pacific Islanders aren't moving out of that lower socio-economic category. I mean I apologise to anyone out there who's been offended, any of your listeners who find what I've said offensive I apologise. I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings.
