Asians Welcome But Their 'Filthy Habits' Aren't Says Mayor

John Miller

John Banks wants Aucklanders to tell immigrants who spit on city pavements that the "filthy habit" is not welcome here.

The Auckland City Mayor's comments follow statements by civic and business leaders in the Auckland region who say they are disgusted by immigrants, mainly from Asia, using pavements as handkerchiefs.

Mr Banks said he had seen immigrants spitting in public on several occasions.

"I don't hold back in stopping them in the street and telling them that in this country we don't do that.

"In fact, I would encourage more Aucklanders who witness this type of insulting and filthy behaviour to hit them up as well.

"We need to remind them that they are welcome here, but their filthy habits aren't."

While those caught spitting could face a fine of $120, Mr Banks believed education was the solution rather than tough sanctions.

"Many of them come from countries where spitting in public is acceptable and when they come here they assume it's the same."

Auckland City views spitting on pavements as a public health concern but the Auckland District Health Board has a different opinion.

Public health medical officer Craig Thornley said that while public spitting was culturally unacceptable it was unlikely to create any infectious outbreaks. "I think spitting in public places plays absolutely no role in the transmission of tuberculosis in this country."

China has made sporadic efforts to ban the practice. During the Sars epidemic the fine was raised to $34.50 but it wasn't enforced.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3550746&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

susanlin · Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:05 am Post subject:

Interesting! When I visited NZ last year, had a stop-over in Singapore Airport. Witnessed an Asian man spitting into the water fountain - I was disgusted and told him so but he laughed! so, don't use the water fountains in the airport to top up your water bottles!! Yuk!

John Miller · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:36 am Post subject:

Yes, I also had a fairly stomach-churning experience at Singapore Airport. I was sitting in the loo, forced to listen to a chorus of Asian gents hacking up phlegm from their chests and spitting it out into the sinks. Absolutely disgusting.

Singapore airport itself I thought was a model of cleanliness, spaciousness and efficiency. I remember thinking that it made Heathrow look like a third-world dump. When flying between NZ and the UK I use Singapore Airlines - far better than the rest IMHO.

susanlin · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:10 am Post subject:

Hi John

Yuk! I agree, Singpaore Airlines are brilliant. I have chosen to fly with them again when I move to NZ in March. Couldn't fault their service last time - and Singpore Airport fantastic! Looking forward to the stopover again - best bit of the journey!

John Miller · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 3:00 pm Post subject:

New Zealand's anti-Asian immigration party (not the party I support Uhoh

) is New Zealand First. Their leader, Winston Peters is half Maori, half Scottish by descent (I think I read somewhere) and he tends to be what people would describe as a populist. Here's the latest:

New Zealand First wants all Asian students searched when they arrive here to stop them bringing in flu pills for making methamphetamine.

Asian students have been reported to be flying into Auckland with thousands of flu pills for illegal "P" factories – swamping border officials.

The Customs Service told an Auckland newspaper it was stretched by the pill imports, which are flooding in as officials work on closing a legal loophole.

Customs has seized more than 328,000 pills in the past eight weeks at a rate of 6200 a day, and admits this is a fraction of the total being imported.

The seizures compare with 830,000 pills snared at borders during all of last year and just 32,000 in 2001.

The pills contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which "cooks" use to make the addictive drug P, pure methamphetamine.

New Zealand First law and order spokesman Ron Mark said students caught with the pills should be sent home in disgrace.

Their governments should be notified so they can take appropriate action, he said.

"New Zealand has a serious P problem and it is a total affront for these students to come here and create social mayhem so they can make money at the expense of the society of their host country," Mr Mark said.

"Over the past few years many of these people have shown that they have a different standard of morality to ordinary New Zealanders," he said.

"Unfortunately it appears that some education providers and the Government are not too concerned about the type of people they are letting in to study here."

Customs manager for drug investigations, Simon Williamson, said the "alarming increase" in student imports started in December.

Apart from airport seizures, there was evidence that Asian students were being paid to let their names and addresses be used for mail imports of the pills.

Customs had made more than 83 interceptions of pills in the mail and at airports this year, a figure which includes non-Asians.

Mr Williamson said some students were buying pills such as Contac NT in China, flying into Auckland and passing them to middle-men or brokers who sold them to drug cooks.

"We're talking about quite a number of Chinese short-stay students who have been paid money to get the goods through Customs," he said.

"There's definitely more than one broker working, which means this is organised crime."

There had been four major cases over summer involving more than 10,000 pills, and many others with smaller amounts. Drugs charges carrying jail sentences of up to seven years had been laid in the four cases.

The students were hiding the pills in luggage or impregnating the chemicals into household items, including one seizure on February 3 of 5kg inside wax candles.

Cooks can make 70g of illegal drugs from 100g of flu medication.

Some students caught with hundreds of pills have used excuses about fearing Sars and flu viruses. Others have been denied entry at Auckland Airport.

Mr Williamson said Customs was "swamped" by the imports and was dealing with a backlog of cases.

"We do follow up every interception, but we're struggling to keep pace."

He stressed that it was ultimately New Zealanders who were manufacturing P. Asian students were involved only because cold and flu pills were freely available in their home countries and were tightly controlled in New Zealand.

"They are also being brought in by returning New Zealanders, and the trade is being driven by New Zealanders."

Customs would approach Asian newspapers to warn students they faced stiff penalties if caught.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2824931a11,00.html

John Miller · Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 9:35 am Post subject:

There was a TV debate about immigration mid-week. The selected studio audience was in favour of immigration and diversity. 80% of Kiwis in the programme's telephone poll were against it. To tell the truth, it seems it's the diversity rather than immigration that they're opposed to.

Ramcp · Testing The Water Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 7

It is a century old habit passed from generation to generation. Unless the babies are weaned out of it, no chance of stopping.

As for the irrcorrigible adults, a few hangings or execution on the spot might just stop them. Eek

chinese girl · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:22 am Post subject:

i must admit i feel embarassed at first reading this subjece,and i have to admit that many asian people have this bad habit especially old people,i say sorry here.but things is changing in young people .
but white people(i can't tell kiwi or english) have their own bad habit, compared with the gesture of
middle finger i can see on street offen,spitting is not as disgusting as that.
Don't be unpleasant to what i say! Razz

Macs Gold · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:01 pm Post subject:

bexxx · Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:18 am Post subject:

This is an interesting subject for discussion. Of course what many people forget is that if it wasn't for immigrants, most of the population of NZ wouldn't exist! The country was populated by immigrants from other countries. I think diversity is great- I can't imagine what the UK would be like without curries, chinese food and those late night kebabs (!) that immigrants have brought to our country! Wink

And our most famous dish- fish & chips- was actually brought over by Jewish immigrants... but enough of food...

I agree about the spitting though- it's disgusting. You get people doing it here in the UK quite a lot as well, although it is mainly boys. Still gross though

Feel free to disagree with my opinions- I'm probably a bit biased as I'm a (hopeful) immigrant! Mr. Green

Timbo · Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:34 am Post subject:

Has anyone else noticed how often you see footballers spit during televised matches, but very rarely see rugby players do it.
Either way it is pretty disgusting, and what our kids see their heros doing they will copy. Uhoh

Caven · Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:45 am Post subject:

That's quite true Timbo, however the amount of miles ran by each player in a football match is by far greater than miles ran in an Union match. If you run for any period of time your mouth fills with saliva and it has to be got rid of, swallowing is an option, of course, but not one I prefer.

Perhaps these Asians who continually spit, unlike us great white tax-paying folks, are running from bigotry to the extent they produce saliva by the bucket-load...

"Asians are welcome but they can keep their filthy habits" should have read, in my opinion, "Spitting in public is a health risk" and would have done coming out the mouth of a reasonable man.

...I don't know, you'd think they would have all learnt some manners while we pillage their economies and force their children to work in sweat shops knocking out dolls for our good white children...

chinese girl, you are equal to anyone on this or any other board, I think it is wrong that you felt you had to apologise...