NZ MP says report shows bleak future for young Pasifika

Transcript

A New Zealand opposition MP, Su'a William Sio, says young Pacific Island people have a bleak future in the country.

He says a new report by the Salvation Army shows young Pacific people are lagging even further behind since the National-led government came to power in 2008.

Mr Sio, who's the spokesperson for the Labour Party on Pacific Island Affairs, told Sally Round the report reveals what he calls the awful truth about Pacific unemployment in New Zealand.

SU'A WILLIAM SIO: Everybody's been celebrating the fact that the economy's recovering and that there's been a drop in the unemployment figures but the reality for Pacific communities and Maori is that we're not celebrating at all, that there's still quite a bit of suffering and huge numbers who are not feeling that recovery whatsoever. Despite some minor improvements in the figures the reality is for Pacific and particularly the young people it's still huge numbers. We're talking about 24 percent unemployed ages 15 to 19, and for Pacific it's even worse despite the fact that we've got a growing population and more and more going into the workforce, they're [Pacific people] not in jobs.

SALLY ROUND: How bad is it in your constituency for example, what are you seeing and what are those kids doing?

SWS: That's the sad thing about it, every day we're getting families coming through our doors who are just struggling to make ends meet but you're talking about communities who are very proud and don't want to be tagged as poor despite the struggles that they're encountering. They're not going on the dole and that's not because they don't need that support, they are relying on their own, on brothers and sisters, or sons and daughters working in Australia.

SR: But things are improving aren't they, the unemployment rate for Pacific people in New Zealand is down from 16 percent a year before, down to 13.7 percent so things are on the improve aren't they?

SWS: Yeah but it's still at 13.7 percent, that's just unacceptable. In 2008 it was about what mainstream unemployment is at the moment, it was a single figure. So we're at 13.7 percent, it was a drop from 16, that's more than the size of that population. Despite calling ourselves Pacific peoples we are an integral part of the New Zealand society.

SR: But there must be something going right in terms of government policies if there has been quite a substantial drop there.

SWS: I wouldn't call that a substantial drop at all, I think that masks there's some hidden figures of people who are long-term unemployed and it also masks the fact that these are not full-time quality high earning jobs, these are mainly casual part-time jobs and low paid at that.

SR: One of the other things the report brought up does refer to the Pacific island proportion of the prison population hitting a new record at 11.6 percent of the prison muster, when for other groups it's a fairly stable prison population, what does that say to you?

SWS: I think we've always known in our communities in past economic downturns that these are sort of the symptoms of high unemployment, low wages, where families just can't cope and it's what you often see. If young people aren't in jobs and they're not getting supported into education sadly that's what happens to those prison figures, they tend to increase.