Title: Why did the dawn raids happen?
How well do you know your history? Imagine it's 5am, you are sound asleep and the front door bangs open. In rushes the police and pulls your family outside. You stand outside in the cold while they question you about your right to be in NZ. That's right, I am talking about the Dawn Raids that happened in the 1970’s.
When the New Zealand government found out they had labour shortages they encouraged people to emigrate from Samoa Tonga and Fiji to fill the labour shortage. There was a post-war economic boom for New Zealand which means there were lots of jobs for unskilled people. No one in New Zealand wanted to do these jobs so Pacific people were happy to do unskilled work.
Pacific Islanders wanted to come to New Zealand because they thought New Zealand was the land was milk and honey. There would be plenty of jobs and no poverty. Some of them already had family in New Zealand and so they wanted to live here.
In the late 60s and early 70s New Zealand economy die down and there was unemployment, increase in crime and it affected the Pacific Island people. The pacific Island people were not needed anymore. New Zealanders now did the jobs that the Pacific Islander used to do.
In response to these social problems Prime minister Kirk created a special police force in Auckland in 1973 whose job was dealing with overstayers. Overstayers were Pacific Island people whose visa has expired and had not returned to the islands. Their job was to do random checks on suspected overstayers.
`The Polynesian Panthers was a group of 6 young man who helped the pacific islander they wanted the law to change so everyone would be treated the same and their names was Fred Schmidt,Nooroa Teavae, Paul Dapp, Vaughan Sanft, Eddie William and Will Llolaha.
I think the dawn raids should never ever have happened because I think it was racism. If you were Pacific Island or even looked like you were an Islander you were questioned. So anyone with darker skin was questioned or was at risk of being raided. Hopefully this never happen again in New Zealand ever again.
