Of Monsters and Migrants – A History of Asian Discrimination in New Zealand’s Immigration Legislation

BY ISAAC LAM

Introduction

Today, New Zealand holds itself as an egalitarian, multicultural nation of immigrants. Increasingly, this view is criticised for overlooking our troubling colonial past. Less frequently discussed, however, is how not all immigrants have been historically welcomed on equal terms.

Second generation Asian Kiwis tend to take New Zealand’s friendly economic and cultural ties with Asia for granted. That is all we have known our whole life, and part of the narrative that brought our parents to settle here. Yet this relatively welcoming reception of skilled migrants from Asia is actually an abrupt, recent shift.

For most of New Zealand’s colonial and post-colonial history, legislative policy actively discriminated against potential immigrants from Asia, seeking to make New Zealand a white “Britain of the South”. This policy was only relaxed when economic dependence on Britain became unsustainable, giving way to seemingly concessionary laws that, even today, leave the cultural citizenship of Asian Kiwis in a tenuous position.

Gold Rush (1866-1880)

The first settlers recorded to arrive in New Zealand from Asia were Chinese miners in 1866, brought in to work in the drying-out mines of Otago.[1] Despite the Chinese rarely mingling with European settlers, keeping to the decaying mines they were brought in for, anti-Chinese sentiments imported by settlers arriving from across the Tasman and Pacific were already festering.[2] The first anti-Chinese league formed in Nelson in 1857, nine years before the first Chinese settlers even arrived.[3]

When the Otago mines eventually dried out, and Chinese miners began seeking other work in towns and cities, anti-Chinese sentiments spread like wildfire. Local newspapers worried about the possibility of the Chinese spreading contagious diseases like leprosy, their alleged immoral behaviour, their opium smoking and gambling habits, and the general degradation that their presence would bring.[4]  

The Yellow Peril (1881-1920) 

Over time, the anti-Chinese leagues were able to amass sizable political lobbying power. Their campaigns eventually persuaded the government to pass several discriminatory laws which sought to limit Chinese immigration.  

The most explicit of these was the Chinese Immigration Act was passed in 1881. It imposed a poll tax on all Chinese landing in New Zealand and restricted the number of Chinese that could enter per ship by cargo weight.[5] At its peak in 1896, the poll tax costed £100 per head (more than £8000/NZ$15,000 in today’s money).[6] No similar restrictions were imposed on any other nationality or ethnic group.

Less explicitly discriminatory changes were also made to immigration procedure to make it harder for Chinese to enter. The Immigration Restriction Act 1899 introduced a requirement that all non-British entering New Zealand had to sign their application in a European language.[7] When it became apparent that Chinese could circumvent this by memorising the forms, passing a reading test of 100 random English words was made mandatory only for the Chinese.[8]

These discriminatory policies lead to historians’ characterisation of the period as the “yellow peril”. In 1900, Chinese temporarily leaving New Zealand became required to provide their thumbprints.[9] This practice allegedly began only because photos were deemed unsuitable for identifying the Chinese—who authorities thought all looked the same.[10]

Domestic Responses to Yellow Peril (1901-1919)

These immigration policies of the yellow peril period were reinforced by several other laws targeting Chinese businesses and communities within New Zealand’s borders. These have all since been repealed.

The Opium Prohibition Act 1901 gave police the powers to enter Chinese homes without warrants, which was only repealed in 1965.[11]

The Shops and Offices Act 1904 provided that only British New Zealanders could decide the closing hours of shops, in response to anxieties that Chinese tended to work “too hard”.[12]

The Factories Act Amendment Act 1910 later imposed a restriction on hours of work in laundries, designed to “reduce the advantages of Chinese keepers of laundries in competition with Europeans”.[13]

These laws all responded directly to prevailing racial stereotypes against Chinese at the time. Their legislative enshrinement of these ideas would only have emboldened the anti-Chinese leagues, and further legitimised their sentiments.

Fortress New Zealand (1920-1937)

In 1920, the Immigration Restriction Amendment Act introduced a new permit system, under which no non-Briton could enter New Zealand without a permit personally approved by the Minister of Customs.[14]

Some have characterised this period as a relaxation of anti-Chinese legislation.[15] On paper, this has some truth. The 1920 Act repealed many of the discriminatory laws that applied exclusively to Chinese, such as the requirements for thumb-printing and the reading test.[16] However, the new permit system did nothing to aid Chinese migrants.

Then Prime Minister William Massey made clear that the 1920 Act aimed to establish a “white New Zealand”.[17] The full discretion available to the Minister of Customs in considering permits, with no requirements for mandatory considerations or justifications, allowed this policy to be advanced relentlessly. In practice, permits were granted from a list of preferred origin countries, which did not include the Chinese.[18]

As a result, Chinese immigration to New Zealand slowed to a crawl. An average of only 67 Chinese migrants entered the country between 1926 and 1930, compared to approximately 400 per year between 1871 and 1920.[19] The discretion afforded by the permit system made New Zealand’s borders impenetrable to all but the favoured European ethnicities from preferred countries of origin.

Post-War Acquiescence (1938-1986)

The next real shift in policy towards Chinese immigration came in 1938 under the first Labour government, as the seeds of the Second World War were being sown in Asia. The new government aimed to make New Zealand fairer and more equal to all—so when local Chinese appealed to let their relatives facing the threat of Japanese invasion back home enter New Zealand as war refugees, the government agreed.[20]  

Initially, the refugees were only granted temporary concessionary permits. These did not come cheap; the permits conditional upon a £200 deposit and £500 bond (approximately NZ$15,000 and NZ$38,000 today respectively).[21] Parliament’s original intention was to have them repatriated after two years.[22]

However, come 1941, New Zealand found itself fighting alongside China against the Axis powers. When New Zealand began accepting refugees from war-torn Europe, the Presbyterian Church advocated to let the Chinese women and children already in the country stay—to which the government acquiesced.[23] Many of these refugees were later granted permanent residency in 1947.[24]

In 1951, Chinese regained the right to be naturalised as citizens, which they had lost in 1908.[25] No one was under the illusion, however, that this meant New Zealand had accepted the Chinese. Government policy made clear that Chinese immigration was to be limited, with the grand intention of halting it entirely.[26]  

A Department of External Affairs memorandum in 1953 stated: “Our immigration is based firmly on the principle that we are and intend to be a country of European development. It is inevitably discriminatory against Asians – indeed against all persons who are not wholly of European race and colour. Whereas we have done much to encourage immigration from Europe, we do everything to discourage it from Asia.”[27]     

This remained New Zealand’s policy towards immigration from Asia for the next 35 years.

The “Invasian” (1987-present)

In 1971, then-future Prime Minister Norman Kirk argued that New Zealand’s future lay with Asia and the Pacific and so needed an immigration policy that ignored prospective migrants’ race and colour.[28]

The basis of this change of “heart” was purely economic—Britain’s entry to the Common Market had plunged New Zealand’s per capita GDP to one of the lowest in OECD, with nowhere to send its butter and lamb exports.[29]

It was not until 1987 that this would materialise with legislative force. The Immigration Act 1987 introduced a merit-based immigration system, repealing previous policies that primarily considered nationality and ethnicity.[30] This was further refined in 1991 into the points system we know today.[31]

The policy quickly succeeded in attracting droves of migrants, not just from China, but from all over Asia. Any exuberance was short-lived, however, as the wave of Asian immigration did not deliver the immediate economic revitalisation forecast by the Government.[32] 

This was hardly the fault of the migrants. Many who arrived in New Zealand hoping to export sought-after quality meat, fruit and dairy back to their homelands found themselves stumped by protectionist monopolies and prohibitive business policies.[33]

These restrictions meant that migrants could only put their money into small local businesses like corner diaries, souvenir shops, and ethnic restaurants.[34] This did not help common stereotypes of Asians as unwilling to integrate.

These circumstances drove anti-Asian sentiments up, in the face of what became colloquially known as an ‘Invasian’. In 1995, a nationwide public opinion poll gathered that 51% of New Zealanders thought too many Asian migrants were being accepted, compared to 24% and 21% for South Africa and the United Kingdom respectively.[35]

The National Government responded to these sentiments by requiring a minimum score on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test for migrants.[36] The previous points system, which guaranteed visas to applications who qualified, was changed to require that applicants meet a “pass mark” adjusted annually according to a set quota or target.[37] This gave the government a mechanism to flexibly adjust the flow of migrants behind closed doors.

The last significant policy changes came in the early 2000s. The general skills category previously introduced was replaced by the skilled migrant category, which required a higher IETLS score of 6.5.[38] This was likely in response to concerns about the quality of migrants coming from Asia.

The International Student Economy (1989-Present)

Another notable development in this period was the rise of New Zealand’s international student economy. The full-fee student policy introduced in 1989 allowed students from any part of the world to study in New Zealand, so long as they could pay their international tuition fees in full.[39] This policy’s intention was purely revenue gathering; it was never intended to provide easy access to residency.

Suspicions quickly arose over the intentions of Asian students taking up these student visas, after a surge of applications from China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident in June 1989.[40] Critics pointed to how in Australia, 90% of students would overstay their visas.[41]

The government subsequently amended the policy in November 1989 to require that students either get a job or go home upon completion of their study, to try and close this allegedly exploitable immigration loophole.[42]

Despite this, the international student business remains a thriving industry today, out to milk what is perceived by many aspiring migrants from Asia as the most accessible pathway to New Zealand residency.

Nigel Murphy notes that public outcry against the loophole was likely more concerned with race than policy: using the student vias “loophole” to try for residency was not exclusive to Chinese or Asians, but something attempted by people from all nationalities hoping to migrate, including Europeans.[43]

Where Does That Leave Us?

One of the first ideas we encounter in law school is the law’s symbiotic relationship with society. That as much as laws are shaped by the ideologies of populations and policymakers, they also exert a normative influence that shapes society.

It is striking then, that while merit-based immigration is something we now take for granted, it was not that long ago that New Zealand’s immigration policies openly discriminated against an ethnic group that makes up 15% of today’s population.[44]

That many of my teachers, colleagues, neighbours, and parents of my peers grew up in a New Zealand that legislatively enshrined the notion that my roots in Asia made me less of a person.

Looking back at our immigration laws helps shed light on the place Asian Kiwis often find ourselves in today—merely tolerated as imported commodities, our acceptance pegged against our economic value at the time.

It also feels like a shame then that in my Law and Society classes, we looked overseas to the internment of Japanese Americans as our case study of how legal instruments can disparage minority groups at the behest of dominant political agendas—despite how our nation’s legislation has its own history of open Asian discrimination.

The surge in racism against Asians in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this year’s #stopasianhate movement have shown that our cultural citizenship is tenuous. They highlight that we need to question the dominant narratives of Asians as a thriving, well-assimilated and socially accepted model minority.  

Reflecting deeper on the laws and policies that brought us here is one good way to start.

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Featured image source: Wikimedia commons

[1] Seiler, Paul E. "Asian Immigration to New Zealand and the role of Networks in International Trade" (Massey University 1997) at 6.  

[2] Ip, Manying and Murphy, Nigel Aliens At My Table (Penguin Books, Auckland, N.Z, 2005) at 19.

[3] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 20.

[4] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 20.

[5] Seiler, above n 1, at 7.

[6] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 161.

[7] Seiler, above n 1, at 7.

[8] Chinese Immigrants Amendment Act 1907 in Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 161.

[9] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 161.

[10] Seiler, above n 1, at 7.

[11] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 161.

[12] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 161.

[13] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 162.

[14] Beaglehole, Ann “Immigration regulation” (1 August 2015) TeAra – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand https://teara.govt.nz/en/immigration-regulation/print.

[15] Seiler, above n 1, at 8.

[16] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 162.

[17] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[18] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 26.

[19] Seiler, above n 1, at 8.

[20] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 27.

[21] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[22] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 27.

[23] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 27.

[24] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 162.

[25] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 162.

[26] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 162.

[27] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[28] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[29] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 32.

[30] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[31] Immigration Amendment Act 1991.

[32] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 32.

[33] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 32.

[34] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 32-33.

[35] Ghosh, Gautam, Leckie, Jacqueline Asians and the new multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand (Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press. 2015) at 73.

[36] Ip and Murphy, above n 2, at 163.

[37] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[38] Beaglehole, above n 14.

[39] Murphy, Nigel Guide to laws and policies relating to the Chinese in New Zealand 1871-1997 (Wellington, N.Z: New Zealand Chinese Association 2008, Wellington, N.Z., 2008) at 82.

[40] Murphy, above n 39, at 82.

[41] Murphy, above n 39, at 82.

[42] Murphy, above n 39, at 82.

[43] Murphy, above n 39, at 83.

[44] Stats NZ “Asian Ethnic Group” (2018) 2018 Census Ethnic Group Summaries https://www.stats.govt.nz/tools/2018-census-ethnic-group-summaries/asian.