Erica Stanford, New Zealand’s minister of immigration, has sparked outrage due to her comments on Indians. The Minister was responding to a question in Parliament on May 6 where she made a stereotypical remark on Indians. However, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, an India-born Labour MP, called Stanford’s remarks “careless at best and prejudiced at worst”.
What did the New Zealand minister say?
According to a report by The Indian Weekender. Erica Stanford accepted that the forwarding of official mail to her personal Gmail account. The New Zealand National Party Cabinet minister was replying to a question in parliament about this misstep.
The minister said she never opened email from Indian, and further compared them to spam. “I have complied with the Official Information Act. I have also made sure that everything is available to be captured and have forwarded everything that I’ve needed to to my parliamentary email address,” said Stanford.
“I will acknowledge, though, in a very similar case to Kelvin Davis, I receive a lot of unsolicited emails like, for example, things from people in India asking for immigration advice, which I never respond to. I almost regard those as being akin to spam, and so there are those ones.”
Priyanca Radhakrishnan responds
Priyanca Radhakrishnan alleged that Stanford played up negative stereotypes about Indians.
“Comments like these serve to reinforce negative stereotypes against an entire community of people,” Radhakrishnan told The Indian Weekender. She further mentioned that it was unacceptable for a minister to single out people from one ethnicity.
Stanford, however, has defended her remarks, claiming she was misunderstood. “I did not say it is automatically considered as spam,” she clarified. “I said ‘I almost regard those as being akin to spam’.”