Election 2023: Pacific issues debate leaves political commentators wanting more

Advance voting opens next week but there's concern candidates aren't doing enough to inspire Pacific voters.

In the co-hosted Pacific Media Network, Radio New Zealand Pacific issues election debate, candidates from the four major parties spoke about overstayers, health and education and how their policies will impact Pacific communities.

​RNZ Pacific partnered with Pacific Media Network to question major parties on how their policies will benefit Pacific peoples. Photo/ RNZ/Calvin Samuel

But both Fijian academic and political commentator Emmaline Pickering Martin and Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua ​says the candidates were too reserved and failed to express a fresh vision for how to address the challenges affecting Pacific communities.

Pickering Martin says candidates also did little to offer younger viewers strong reasons to get out and vote. ​

"There was that same old messaging of growing the economy, the race-based measures, that sort of thing, but youth Pacific voters, or possible Pacific voters, that we've spoken to, are really, really bored with this conversative, traditional vibe that they're giving.

"They had a chance to be something more, but they just took the easy route."

While Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua ​says the election debate was a missed opportunity for candidates, as he was hoping there had been some more passionate advocacy.

"This is the time to really put it out there and not hold back but I didn't get that sense there, so they've got very little time to convince those unconvinced voters."

National Party list candidate Fonoti Agnes Loheni and ​​Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono have both expressed concerns with Labour's recently announced overstayer amnesty policy. Photo/ RNZ/ Calvin Samuel

One issue that generated a lot of discussion in the debate was the Labour's proposed amnesty for overstayers who have been here for more than a decade.

But Pickering Martin says this doesn't go far enough, as some workers are only a job loss away from being an overstayer.

"It's frustrating - we know people are being exploited today as well - so it's not a past thing. So the whole ten years addition to that policy is kind of ridiculous when we look at our RSE Schemes and we see Pacific people being exploited today and there's no way for them to get out of that."

​While Manase Lua added that many won't qualify because they've been here less than ten years.

"Think about the people who are most vulnerable now - who are looking over their shoulders. There's a thousand of [children] who can't actually go to university, [despite] some of them being duxes, prefects, top students in their schools but have just realised their parents are overstayers, or who were locked here during Covid, and they've become overstayers through no fault of their own."

To watch the full debate analysis on Pacific Mornings watch below or visit 531pi's Facebook page.

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