Chief executive at the Asian Network Incorporated Vishal Rishi. Photo: Supplied
Community leaders and service providers say a new report on ethnic communities is much welcomed, but it needs to be followed up with actions for changes to happen.
The Ethnic Evidence report, prepared by the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, was released in Parliament on Monday to shed light on how New Zealand's ethnic communities were faring.
Among its findings, it has noted that bias and discrimination has affected ethnic peoples' employment, participation in sports and house ownership.
Asian Network Incorporated chief executive Vishal Rishi said the report had confirmed inequity did exist and policy makers needed to make changes sooner rather than later.
He said the report was "a great milestone" for ethic communities as people often talked about the lack of data, but he was keen to see "how the system takes it".
Much previous research on health, settlement and migrants had already pointed out challenges faced by the ethnic communities, and the new report just re-emphasised part of what people already knew, Rishi said.
"Discrimination does exist in our system and probably that might be the reason why the system is not set up to capture voices from diverse communities perfectly," he said.
"The willingness to address inequities in the system is missing, so once they (the government) are willing, things will start to fall in place."
Rishi said policy makers and the public service system should start to make changes as soon as possible as "the journey has to begin from somewhere".
"Do we need to wait for the accurate data to start doing or addressing Asian or ethnic health issues? No, because we have got enough data available considering the available resources to start the work," Rishi said.
"That's why we have to start addressing the inequities now as we talk and start progressing towards gathering more data and making the systems change, there are lots of things they can do now."
The government could look at helping more people from the ethnic communities get into leadership roles, and how to better resource ethnic providers, he said.
"Let's see how the decision makers would plan for our communities ahead. I'm looking forward to it here," Rishi said.
Asian Family Service chief executive Kelly Feng. Photo: RNZ / Yiting Lin
The report should be shared across government agencies to make sure the findings were taken onboard by all of them, Asian Family Services chief executive Kelly Feng said.
"One of the highlights for me is that it indicated holding all the public services across the government accountable for responding to the ethnic community, which is amazing because our population are growing and a lot of the past strategies and policies are not quite reflecting the diverse ethnic communities' needs."
Feng said the new report was a starting point and government agencies should apply appropriate break downs when collecting data about ethnic communities to truly reflect the needs of different groups.
She also called for the government to act immediately.
"I think you can't always say like you don't have enough data, and then do not do anything, but using the existing whatever data and evidence to start somewhere, which is very important."
In terms of health services where Feng has expertise, she said policy makers should look at the different needs of different ethnic groups when making strategic decision and avoid the approach of "one-size-fits-all".
She hoped the report could be valued by different agencies and have some impact.
"Sometimes if those things are not prioritised and not being discussed with the top leaders, things can be just like a filed away and never happens. It's just another report."
Dr James To, national secretary of the New Zealand Chinese Association, attended Monday night's launch at Parliament as a panellist.
He said the report could help inform priorities for the community and highlight where ethnic communities could make positive contributions.
"It's great to see this report in front of our policy makers as we map out our common future as Aotearoa New Zealand," To said.
While it was great to have a detailed and comprehensive snapshot of how things were tracking, it was the "so what" that counted, he said.
"When I look at this report, I see something of promise - because no matter if you're talking about social cohesion, labour, immigration policy, infrastructure, exploring export and import markets - you name it - everything that means anything to us in terms of our national interest, is ultimately about he tangata, he tangata, he tangata (the people).
"What I'd like to see now is the report being used by everyone as much as possible - cited in forthcoming grant applications or project proposals for lifting capacity amongst our ethnic communities."
