Winston at it again

Colin James put his finger on the Winston Peters phenomena in his Herald column yesterday:

He skilfully conflates three factors: high overall numbers; temporary migrants (such as foreign students, notably Chinese, who mostly return home after study); and refugees and asylum-seekers, some from dangerous places such as Afghanistan.

[...]

And so he contrives, without being explicit, to generate in the minds of the culturally insecure minority a sense that the country is being flooded with no-good ghetto-formers with anti-Western values that fragment this placid society.

We see this in action, with Winston's response to the possibility of a bilateral free trade agreement with Thailand:

Its recent liberalisation of prostitution laws has undoubtedly increased demand for this service, and now Ms Clark has announced a trade agreement with Thailand which is aimed to increase trade and Thai wages. All this will do is increase the supply of low paid sex workers entering New Zealand

Now, trade in goods does not mean trade in people. An FTA with Thailand will not suddently allow hordes of Thais to work in New Zealand in any profession; they'd still have to go through the usual process of getting residency and a work permit. But those facts aren't important to Winston. Instead it's "free trade with Thailand equals Thais flodding New Zealand and selling their bodies for a pittance outside your local school".

Really, this man is a creep.