Melissa Lee
Wellington, December 18, 2021
The latest vaccination statistics are in and WOW. Asian New Zealanders are doing such a great job. As I write this (17/12/2021), the statistics of vaccinated Asian New Zealanders are point for ahead of every other ethnicity category being tracked by the Ministry of Health (>990/1000). This despite tremendous difficulties in accessing vaccination and COVID support information, a generally derisory approach to supporting ethnic communities during the pandemic and our own personal struggles as we fight to keep our families safe in the face of uncertainty.
Ethnic New Zealanders have been doing it tough during the ongoing COVID crisis. The plurality of ethnic New Zealanders are based in the Auckland region and have only just been able to gather once again, albeit in very strict circumstances and for those outside Auckland, their businesses and personal lives have also been affected in massive ways.
We have pushed to get vaccinated despite all these challenges because we want New Zealand to get back to normal. We want the Kiwi Dream back. We need New Zealand to again become the economic powerhouse that brought us and our forebears to these shores as an innovative country full of beauty and opportunities for all.
Our hospitality sectors have been decimated, our economic outlooks have been strained and for more than a year we have been effectively unable to visit overseas businesses and connections due to a risk of never coming home like thousands of stranded Kiwis offshore the government continues to gamble in the MIQ lottery of human misery.
We are more likely to have lost friends and loved ones to COVID off shore and have been unable to fully mourn and remember them since travel even in the most critical circumstances has become a complete nightmare. We are more likely to know people in the nations of our birth who have COVID and are dealing with the long term ramifications.
2021 is a year many are looking forward to leaving behind and we need to also be optimistic that New Zealand will return to a sense of normalcy in the New Year.
We need to be forward looking again just as the National Caucus has revitalised our team forward looking to become the next Government for the people of New Zealand in 2023. I’m looking forward to getting around New Zealand in the New Year talking to every community, business and organisation focused on the future of New Zealand as the very best place to live, work and raise our family.
To paraphrase National Leader Chris Luxon, I and all National MPs will be out there in the world happening to our future, rather than letting the future happen to us. We will be working for you in the New Year but in the meantime, I hope you all have a very deserved Christmas and summer break, even if we can’t have Christmas with our cousins overseas. You need it.
Merry Christmas everyone and all the best for the New Year ahead!
Melissa Lee is a Member of Parliament on National List and Party’s Spokesperson for Broadcasting & Media| Digital Economy and Communications and Ethnic Communities
