February 11, 2013
Refugee deal short sighted trade
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has slammed a deal under which New Zealand will take 150 refugees a year from Australia’s off shore refugee centres.
He says the agreement between John Key and his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard smacks of the Prime Minister’s background as a currency trader, where the incentive is to do a deal and move on to the next one.
Mr Peters says just a year ago Mr Key was labelling boat people as queue jumpers who should not be encouraged.
“He mentioned a lot of other things and now he has got himself heavied by a game, an Australian Prime Minister. In this case Gillard, he folds and now their running our UN quota for us. That’s how simple it is. As we have got a 750 UN quota and now at least 150 of those can be run by Australia. This cannot be right”. says Mr Peters.
Winston Peters says while giving encouragement to people smugglers, the prime minister failed to make any progress on the way Australia refuses benefits to its New Zealand residents, including increasing numbers of Māori.
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