Tighter controls on migration sought

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33606, 7 August 1974, Page 15

Tighter controls on migration sought

Further controls on immigration to New Zealand must be given top priority, according to Dr H. Hervey, spokesman for the Environmental Vanguard Organisation.

A late submission to the Minister for the Environment (Mr Walding) from Dr Hervey says that it is overwhelmingly clear that population policies in New Zealand should be “restrictionist.”

She has asked the Minister to accept the submission from the organisation, and said: “Due to an oversight, I did not make submissions when they were called for a few months ago.”

A population policy should be treated as a matter of utmost urgency, she said, because present measures to control immigration did not go “nearly far enough.” “As long as unrestricted immigration is permitted from any areas, there is little hope of easing those social and environmental costs which have become manifest as our cities have expanded too quickly,” she said. But in the same letter she said that New Zealand had a duty to produce food for the rest of the world.

“As far as food production is concerned, any country as well suited for this as New Zealand should appreciate that its duty to the rest of the world should be to concentrate on producing as much food as possible for it.

| "It came as a shock to many to discover recently that wheat production has declined to such an extent in New Zealand that grain had to be imported from Australia at about twice the price,” she said. In September last year New Zealand growers received $1.62 a bushel for wheat and the Government imported about 35,000 tonnes of Australian wheat at $4.82 a bushel. “New Zealand should be at least self-supporting in wheat, and not take it from a hungry world,” Dr Hervey said.