Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she will offer a formal apology to New Zealand’s Pacific community over demeaning police raids which targeted them in the 1970s.
Ardern said the notorious “dawn raids” were carried out by police and immigration officials seeking to identify and deport visa overstayers.
In addition, she said Pacific islanders were racially profiled, with officials subjecting them to random stop and search without justification.
She said the raids and what they represented created deep wounds, but while history cannot be changed, it can be acknowledged with the aim to seek to right a wrong.
Ardern said the apology would take place on June 26 at Auckland Town Hall.
New Zealand encouraged migration from Pacific islands such as Samoa, Tonga and Fiji after World War II to fill worker shortages as the economy expanded.
But they faced a backlash when there was a downturn in the 1970s, with claims they were taking jobs from New Zealanders.
Minister for Pacific Peoples William Sio, who has a Samoan background, and who fought back tears as he described his own family’s experiences said the raids were “racist and discriminatory”.
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