Nothing, however, gets the “ordinary kiwi” more outraged than being called racist or
discriminatory, so this is the issue that dominates the popular agenda. As a general
summary, the facts emerging from research are that Māori, Pacific and ethnic people do
suffer from racism and discrimination in New Zealand, but not typically to the extent that
they cannot manage to achieve a fairly high level of life satisfaction. Frequency of
discrimination perceived by minority group members is generally low, but this negatively
influences subjective well-being. Several national surveys suggest that racism and
discrimination are most commonly perceived to be directed against Asians, and experienced
by Asians above other target groups. The most likely cause of this is that Asians as a whole
tend to be new migrants, and less a part of the social fabric and social identity of being a
New Zealander than Māori (or Pacific). Māori (and Pacific) are more likely to be targets of
structural discrimination: that is, they are socially included but economically marginalised.
Life satisfaction among all these groups remains high, similar to that of the majority.
The Treaty of Waitangi and the integration of migrants
At the same time as Māori are becoming mainstream, both economically and socially, they
also continue to be over-represented in negative statistics. There are sections of society that
vocally resent this. Pākehā/NZ Europeans have evolved common ways of talking about
racism and discrimination that either deny that it exists, argue that reverse racism (in favour
of Māori) is more common than racism among Pākehā, or say that what is labelled as racism
is actually something else (e.g. a natural hierarchy or meritocracy).
Creating new discourses to open up new spaces for visioning a more inclusive society have
proven difficult. In some domains, top-down institutional changes (like Māori TV, Treaty of
Waitangi settlements, or colour-blind liberal immigration policies) have proceeded in
advance of public opinion. Whereas Pākehā/NZ Europeans support biculturalism in
principle, and value Māori symbolic contributions to the national identity, they often object
to resource-based biculturalism which involves reparations for historical injustices or
practices of affirmative action.
Similarly, they are in favour of immigration in general, but this support declines when the
migrants are not from traditional European/Western source countries. It has been difficult
for Asian migrants to maintain the employment status and economic standing they had in
their source countries after migrating to New Zealand. These difficulties have contributed to
the rise of Asian “ethno-burbs”, especially in Auckland, which bear watching in the future.
Once employed, Asian migrants like other overseas-born workers have been very satisfied
with life in New Zealand. For both migrants and hosts, the desired mode of adaptation to
New Zealand is integration, which means keeping heritage culture intact and becoming a
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