Labour adopts NZ First's racism

New Zealand First were a nasty pack of racists. One of the ideas they pushed was that immigrants - which in NZ First-ese means "non-white people", not those lovely people from the UK or South Africa - are coming here to steal the pensions of "hardworking" (white) New Zealanders by the dirty deceitful trick of becoming New Zealanders themselves. They constantly had member's bills in the ballot to stop this - one of which was voted down in 2015. They're out of Parliament now, but it seems that their racism has found a new home, in the Labour Party. Because their latest bill on the topic - the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Fair Residency) Amendment Bill - was drawn and sent to select committee just before the 2020 election. And the Labour Party has apparently decided to back it, with a select committee report recommending its passage. The only party on the committee which opposed its passage was the Greens.

I guess its another example of how Labour is "bringing kindness back": by making older immigrants second-class citizens and raising the risk that they'll spend their final years in poverty, in order to pander to the myths of racist old people. Which doesn't actually seem very "kind" at all.