Labour’s new Immigration Amendment Bill, which proposes a raft of draconian measures aimed at further restricting the flow of working class migrants into New Zealand (especially from the so-called “Third World” countries) has this week drawn considerable criticism from liberal left commentators such as Gordon Campbell on Scoop and Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn (see here and here).
The proposed new law, which would among other things allow asylum seekers to be deported even when they are liable to face torture in their home country, immigration officials to enter homes and workplaces without a warrant and the compulsory photographing of all people entering the country (including NZ nationals) certainly deserves to be opposed. Yet there is a certain naïveté in the way in which liberal commentators such as those mentioned above go about opposing it.
A typical example of this liberal naïveté was the following comment posted over at The Standard by one “Robinsod”:
Perhaps start with a web petition? Or an email campaign (I’d recommend targeting key journos rather than MPs – they aren’t so used to being lobbied). How about a few letters to the editor? But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. You need to be able to sell the issue in a framed soundbite…
Clearly the implication is that the issue here is simply one of appealing to the consciences of capitalist lawmakers to withdraw the bill in favour of a “nicer”, more humane immigration policy. Yet immigration controls by their very defintion inhumane, since they require the existence of a vast repressive apparatus (immigration police, jails, armed soldiers) for their enforcement. Moreover, as I have previously argued, their function is not to protect the interests of ordinary working people but rather those of the capitalist class.
It never ceases to amaze me the wilful myopia of even some self-declared “socialists” in organisations such as the Alliance Party, who are incapable of understanding the logical inconsistency in their opposing the revolutionary socialist demand for open borders on the grounds that we don’t want to be deluged with a “flood” of illegals – only they can’t bring themselves to support the dawn raids and deportations that necessarily follow from that position. By contrast at least parties like National and NZ First are consistent in their support for immigration controls!
Meanwhile, the only left party standing in the upcoming elections with a consistent policy on immigration is the Workers Party, which calls for open borders and the right of labour to migrate as freely as capital.
