#ejp 2012

Embracing ethnic diversity: Melting-pot reality okay with New Zealanders

New Zealanders are accepting ethnic diversity as "part of our reality" and most no longer view migrant communities with suspicion like we did in the 1990s.

Almost seven in 10 Aucklanders in a Herald street poll said they were comfortable with the ethnic diversity in Auckland, and 72 per cent said they have a close friend or friends outside their own ethnic group.

More than six in 10 also felt New Zealand society today was "multicultural" and slightly more than half said they would be comfortable even if Asians, Pacific and Maori outnumbered Europeans in the city.

White faces will soon be a minority

White Europeans could lose majority status in Auckland in the next few years as the combined population of Asians, Pacific Islanders and Maori increases, Statistics New Zealand figures indicate.

While the city's population was 76 per cent white European in 1976, projections show it will be 51 per cent in 2016, with further reductions in later years.

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Auckland Chinese Community Centre chairman Arthur Loo, a local-born Chinese, counts himself among those who would be "uncomfortable" if there were more Asians, Pacific and Maori than Pakeha in Auckland.

"I wouldn't want Pakeha to be the minority. I think we as New Zealanders have got to acknowledge what the founding peoples of New Zealand were, and it's Maori and people from the United Kingdom," Mr Loo said.