PM Not Coming Clean Over Refugees

The Prime Minister is grossly misleading New Zealand over refugee numbers, according to New Zealand First Leader, Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“The Prime Minister has been very deliberate and very selective in her use of numbers of refugees when she talks of the boat-load arriving from Afghanistan tonight. She says that they will be part of the UN quota of 750 per annum. That is simply not true.

“What she deliberately does not mention is that New Zealand has long since exceeded by thousands its quota over recent years,” said Mr Peters.

“When she came to power in 1999, there were already over 3500 asylum seekers awaiting processing. Since then only 1700 have been processed. And that 3500 figure doesn’t include the numbers that have come into New Zealand since 1999. How many of those 1700 processed were declined and how many of those declined have been returned to their country of origin? Helen Clark won’t say. Worse still, nobody is asking her.

“What has happened to the 1800 who have not been processed in time? How many of them are to stay and how many will be sent home? The truth is barely any have been sent home. Our UN quota is already full, thrice over, and she knows that this week’s queue jumpers who fail processing will never be sent back anyway.

“The fact remains that New Zealand was a soft touch when she took office and it is even more of a soft touch now. Another load of refugees does not make any sense when we have already been very charitable. The truth is that there were many UN signatory countries closer to the Tampa than New Zealand, why then is New Zealand being expected to once again grossly exceed its limit?

“The duplicity of government is astounding. The more facts that come out of this debacle the more concerning it gets. We now hear that many may be carrying third-world diseases, as if we didn’t know that, and have not been treated in Nauru first. The Government has a duty to protect the health and security of its inhabitants, a test which it is failing miserably.

ENDS

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