4 Jan 2010

Web page sparks complaint from race commissioner

1:16 pm on 4 January 2010

New Zealand's Race Relations Commissioner is urging people to report to Facebook a web page containing racist comments created by students in Australia.

The page on the internet social networking site calls for immigrants who cannot speak English to leave Australia.

The page is entitled "Mates speak English you're in Australia now" and has about 6000 members.

It tells them that "if you wanna speak your crappy language go back to where you came from".

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres says he has reported the site to Facebook and is urging other people to do the same.

Lawyer Alex Lee has done a lot of work with ethnic communities in New Zealand and says what is most concerning is that the page was started by students.

Mr Lee if something similar starts in New Zealand, he hopes a more intelligent discussion with no racist overtones takes place.

The BBC reports the page's content berates Muslims and migrants. Other posts apparently written in English are almost incomprehensible, but many are tinged with xenophobia.